As a profession you're 100 percent right.

As a hobby 20k profit is pretty good.

Since nobody answered you are very likely right about that from what ive seen the solver recommend as optimal play with different stacksizes or antes in or 3rd blinds in plo at least(dont think preflop strat differs THAT much to nlhe btw).

At these levels, what makes you think the table recognizes that you limped KK preflop?

That happened many minutes and many actions earlier. Only some fraction care about anyone else's hand except their own and only a fraction of that fraction remember the action.

If you are playing in $1/$3 games that require balanced ranges then you are literally playing in the wrong games. The rake will kill you if the skill of the competition requires balanced ranges. Play higher limits.

The reason to play $1/$3 is to exploit almost 100% of the time as a hobby.

This is good stuff.

What do you do for fun?

Does it pay you $15-$20 per hour?

Oh I agree… I play plo and bigger

I’m just saying being unbalanced is going to open you up to be exploited when everyone knows your limp back raise Strat is only AA-KK.

Tricky players have their plays work a couple times then everyone adjusts.

Or maybe they don’t adjust at these levels and you can make the same bad plays over and over again and no one will catch on.

But if that’s the case do you need to read a book to make these tricky plays?

If anything I would argue to be the trickiest you would want to do the opposite of everything written in every poker book.

Open limp. Flat in sb and co etc etc… just make suboptimal plays and the deception will throw your opponents off.

*im still interested in the book and will probably read it just to see how other players think

Dude I said a million times I was criticizing the guy who played 6000 hours - doing something for 6000 hours is not a hobby. I think a lot of the people in this thread are getting triggered as they have low hourlies and I'm smacking people with a reality check - if you're on these forums you're an above average player already with some level of intelligence. Pursue the game to a higher level - don't just grind low stakes forever and always wonder if you could of made it.

He plays once a week for 5 or 6 hours a day. Its a hobby. No different than someone going once or twice a week to play pickleball or basketball. You don’t have to have aspirations to play in the NBA or even play in a better game to go down to the YMCA every Monday and Wednesday morning to get some physical exercise in. Some people like a comfortable enjoyable game. Not sure who made you the hobby police but they should confiscate your badge.

Lol figuring out a username and logging into 2+2 doesn’t make anyone a genius. We get reminded of that by the second.

There are plenty of games where three or four players play pretty well.

My plane is at 7. Amazon said delivered by 9 pm. But it just got here!

The horror of it all!

I just received my copy only to discover no 2+2=4 graphic on the spine or back cover. I fear I might have received a black market copy or cheap foreign knock-off. What is this world coming to when the counterfeit items beat the legitimate items to the market?

On a slightly more serious side, this book won't look right on my bookshelf next to the other 2+2=4 books. I might have to put it into the "other poker books" section.

I flipped through the book.

It's actually pretty cool. I imagine myself sitting in a $1/3 game, with Malmuth and Sklansky sitting next to me giving advice. What more could someone want?

How’s it smell?

I hope to read half of it on the plane and the other half on the plane home

One of the sub-chapters in the "Introduction" is "Half of Your Opponents Probably Play Fairly Well."

Mason

When will the ebook be available?

We hope to have the kindle up within a week. We’re just waiting on getting the file back from the kindle builder, but things do slow down this time of year.

Mason

Who cares how it smells? Looks is what matters.

I read mostly the preflop part. From what I read of the rest, I think the postflop part is better and more conventional.

The book is great for concepts, but trying to literally follow their advice would not work. It seems like they worked it out on the own without regard to other materials on the subject. Some of it is as bizarre seeming as the Introduction. They suggest limping in loosely to take advantage of postflop mistakes. They may have the postflop skills to make that work. They recommend not raising AQo OOP from the BB at limpers, as it shows how strong your hand is. Some of the preflop sizings are too small for typical 1/2 or 1/3 games. They mention the play of miniraising at several limpers. If there are 4 limpers for 3, you can make it 12 or 15 and not get many folds. Making it 6 looks strange, builds the pot less, and makes it more obvious what you are doing. They also suggest folding AQo in ep if there are better aggressive players to act. If you are that bad, you are probably losing a lot at the game.

They argue that there is no reason to raise with the possibility of stealing the blinds, as that is mostly worthless in 1/3 etc. IMO there are also issues that low stakes players will not fold on later streets because you are the preflop raiser and current GTO theory does not accept the concept of the value of initiative.

Personally, I play solid ranges and do some limping. I agree that some people go overboard with never limping in a limping game. IMO there is a point to raising some marginal or speculative hands for deception. Poor low stakes players only raise a tight range. If you do that, you can be somewhat face up, even to low stakes players.

As an example, I raised preflop in 1/3 from CO at limpers with KQo. The board on the river was QJT94 no 3-flush. Opponent left in hand bet the river and I raised, figuring he should never have AK. He tank called with KTo and said "strange preflop raise" after we showed. He was willing to limp/call with junk, but figured the raiser only had something like 99+/AQ+.

There is good discussion of how low stakes players play postflop, calling way too much rather than raising or folding. Unable to fold a decent pair etc. They suggest making a smallish bet with say TPTK on the river to get called by worse top pair, as they will not bluff raise much. Usually fold QJs if you make a flush and get raised on the river. Most of the examples are really good. The solutions are good, and the examples and discussion useful even when I don't agree with the solution.

It has some problems as were discussed earlier ITT. When they recommend things that no one else would recommend, it might have been better to have more people go over it before publishing it. However, IMO it is way the most useful small stakes NL book out there.

Thank you for your review, (mostly not quoted here) especially, of course, your last sentence. But I would like to address your criticism above. The pot sweeteners to six dollars or a little more, were recommended mainly for those hands that most good players merely limp with (behind limpers) not usually ones better than that (we use K6 suited as an example). We weren't, talking about hands that good players already raise to a higher amount with. The play is based on logic more than experience. If lots of players putting in three, makes you money, then you would generally make about double that amount if they put in six. The exception would be when the limpers in front of you are known to sometimes reraise as we mention in the book.

Haven’t gotten my copy yet, i look forward to it though. The K6 example. I messed with minraising hands like this and smaller or middle pocket pairs over a bunch of limps. The problem I ran into is kind of what you allude to. Everyone wants to reraise your minraise because they understand it to be a hand like you suggest doing it with. So they know you can’t call the reraise because its always second hand junk where the minraise happens. Anyways I was getting blasted off hands left and rigfht by people who never three bet in their life. So I quit doing it. Im younger than you guys so maybe villains play back differently against me. An OMC going to $6 sure, everyones scared this is how he plays QQ so no one is reraising him light.

Anyways the next step in the progression I was going to try was the occasional play with my absolute monsters to $6 over a bunch of limps. I was getting 3bet one third to one half the time I minraised into four limpers.

I want to clarify this a little bit. On page 97 in the chapter "Acknowledge Your Shortcomings" where we say "You can be a very successful small stakes player even if you have a few “leaks” in your game." We then give the following example:

Example No. 1: You’re in early position with the

AQ

and no one has voluntarily entered the pot. However, behind you are several players who play well, and this includes raising preflop and bluffing at approximately the “correct” frequency as a hand progresses. Strongly consider folding unless your stack is small enough to get all in on the flop. However, if your hand was suited you would probably play.

Mason