First off, I’d like to thank Mason for sending me the free book and David for putting in the large effort to write it.
The Good: I loved the chapter on Check/Raising. Of all the “basic” plays in NL I’ve always felt this was the hardest to apply in situations other than read based bluffs and value raises when I’ve flopped huge and the player on my left is likely to bet. Sklansky gives some good examples of when to and when not to use check raises in non-obvious situations. The hand example I struggled understanding most in this chapter I turned into a thread on the
LLSNL subforum here. Feel free to chime in. (I changed the stakes and suits to avoid getting sniffed out).
I also loved the chapter “Various Bonus Thoughts.” This chapter consists of blurbs about very non-basic plays, and some of the tactics mentioned blew my poker mind. I would bet I’m not the only experienced player who has given little to no thought about tactics like making tiny bets into pots and value betting draws h/u in position against a fish with a big stack. In the latter case, I would always take a free card instead of trying to “bluff” a calling station, and didn’t realize until I read the chapter that I was leaving +EV on the table by not betting.
There are other good chapters as well, and how much benefit one derives from good chapters like: “The Ante Structure,” “Pot Odds” and “Appendix C” will depend a lot on an individual’s experience level and the particular games they play. Overall, these positive attributes make the book worth the price printed on the cover.
The Bad: ToPA2NL takes a left turn at page 148 and from that point on it mostly deals either directly or indirectly with game theory. Sklansky often uses rigorous breakdowns of toy poker games to explain these concepts, but in many cases the toy poker games are so far from how poker is actually played in a live setting that imo following the advice in these chapters will cause most players to lose money. For example, on page 164 Sklansky explains how a player with a polarized range who bets 1/3 of the pot on the river should be called 3/4 of the time so that the bettor’s bluffs will break even. In GTO world this is logical. However, one of the hallmarks of many live 2/5 games and virtually all live NLHE games smaller than that is that big river bets almost always represent a real hand. These stakes represent over 95% of the poker that is spread in casinos, and calling at a rate anywhere resembling the advice in this example, even against bettors with polarized ranges, is a heavily losing proposition.
I haven’t played online poker for a number of years, and I rarely play live higher than 2/5, so incorporating GTO strategies into one’s game may very well be beneficial for people who play online or at 5/10 and up live. For the stakes I typically play a better strategy than GTO influenced play is to just look for a soft game, sit in it, and capitalize off the large mistakes soft opponents make.
The Ugly: ToPA2NL is not a casual read, even in comparison to other poker books. The “Key Points” mitigate the density of the chapters somewhat, especially in the earlier chapters, but beginning with the Game Theory chapter on page 148, this is tough sledding even with the Key Points. There are also some grammatical errors in the text.
Overall: Studying ToPA2NL has no doubt improved my poker game. Overall I recommend it, although I also recommend not putting too much weight into the game theory aspects.
Just my opinion...