Just finished reading this book and here is my review:

Crushing the Microstakes (CMS) is actually a very good book and well beyond what I had expected. The book is very organized into the following 5 key sections:

Introduction and background: Author discusses basic concepts about microstakes and actually poker in general including variance, general characteristics of micro play (more or less weak, passive), limits, bankroll, player types, lobby set up, table selection and discussion on general approach of initiative and position.

Preflop Play
Author outlines a very good guide on what hands to play by position. Author also discusses how much to raise and 3 betting concepts.

Flop Play
Author outlines concepts around hand planning and c-betting.

Turn Play
Author outlines concepts around pot control, barrelling, bluffing

The River
Author outlines concepts around evaluating strength of hands, value betting with various strength hands

General Rules
Author outlines general concepts such as keeping decision simple, bluffing, tilting and other concepts very specific to microplay and general weak competition.

Overall, the concepts are very well explained in a succinct manner. Other than the online sections of lobby set up, table selection, and stats section, this book really is a good intro for any new to intermediate player looking to start poker or work on their game.
Personally, I don't play microstakes or even online. I am mainly a FR live player and based on what I see, the strategies in this book will likely work very well against any weak passive game. Any game where you can bet for value to extract the most out of your big hands, where you don't need to worry about varying your play too much because most players won't be paying attention to your betting patters and bet sizing and where most players are playing very basic ABC poker.
I must admit that when I decided to read this book, my initial impression was that this book would be very similar to most of the other ebooks out there which share the follow characteristics:
- emphasized a bit too much on the stats and heavy on different lines without any real flow.
- very poorly edited with spelling and grammar mistakes
- look and feel like a 'home made' book with a cheap feel to it
- very minimal content - not really enough to justify the price

To be honest, I also had some serious doubts that this book would help my game as I am a full ring live player and this book is geared to online micros.

I am very pleasantly surprised that this book is different. This book is actually very nicely laid out and organized and reads very smoothly. It is very clear to me that the author really took the time to edit the book. Book is well laid out in logical order such that there is good flow. I did not note any major spelling or grammatical errors. I know we read the book for the content but I am actually quite picky about these types of details and am turned off when I read a poorly edited book. Even though I won't be using the stats section, it is extremely well laid out and clearly explained such that any microstakes online player would find it easy to follow.

I am glad that I read this book because I think it will help my own FR live game because the microstakes (probably more the NL5 than the NL2) play similar to the low level live games (1-2 in particular). Overall, author advocates a very tight aggressive strategy in the microstakes and I believe that is the optimal strategy for low stakes poker.

The book does not discuss concepts such as pot odds or advanced fancy plays. This was actually a nice change of pace for me as it seems every other book out now has a refresher on pot odds and sometimes I feel that it bogs me down a bit too much on learning to think about the basics. CMS does a good job of not only giving you a good outline of how to play but also understanding the why.

The other aspect I like about this book is that it helps simplifies your game. Author is teaching you to make good decisions and to avoid tough situations which may get you stacked off in later streets.

The only criticism I have is that I wish author had more in depth discussion turn and river play specifically for multiple opponents. I do understand that this is a tough one to cover because it is hard to evaluate every scenario. This book emphasizes preflop and flop play and believes that the turn is easiest street to play once you play prior streets correctly.

At 251 pages (glossary starts at page 243 and table of contents end at page 10 so still well over 200 pages of good content), this book is very good value at its price. This book definitely delivers and is great value compared to a lot of the other stuff out there.

Since this is a book designed for microstakes, I am evaluating it based on such. In addition to the intended audience of anyone wanting to play microstakes, I also recommend this book to new players that play in weak passive games (perhaps the casual player who plays in that regular weekly weak home game). This book is actually a good intro to more experience players that have a tendency to play too weak and passive and want to start advocating a more aggressive strategy beyond playing like a nit (I am guilty of that myself). You probably won't get too much from this book if you are a very experienced player. For me though, I am one of those type of people that just enjoy reading different books even though a lot of the same concepts are covered because I believe repetition from different viewpoints and application to the concepts is what it takes you to mastery.

I was at a friend's house who bought this book, and I got to check it out.

I got to scan the contents and read a couple of sections, and the overall impression: amazing - thorough, and well-organized - There was a ton of material in here, to capture mostly all situations and decisions regarding micro stakes on-line. I don't play the micro-stakes, but most of the information was about how to play fundamentally well, and succeed by doing so. Blackrain actually posts his positive results, so that's a good testimonial as well. Although many decisions at these stakes are automatic, the author gives an advanced view on the subject, covering alot of situations that involve tricky spots/decisions (Ex: What to do after your c-bet is raised, value-betting with multiple hand types on the river, c-betting/3-bet/4-bet situations and bet sizes, etc.) The author goes into some depth on these and other topics, answering mostly all situations that could seemingly arise.

Beyond the strategic advice, there is a lot of great, well-conveyed poker advice scattered throughout the book, especially in the introduction.

Overall, this really is an awesome A-Z book about micro-stakes (~250 pages) - well written, with very, very detailed information.


I think any player could benefit from reading.


Agree completely - in this case, author gives a unique take on poker, and his experiences, sharing successful tips and information.

Hey guys

I wrote a review of the book on my CardRunners blog here. If you are on the fence about buying the book I'd check it out as it is pretty thorough. Best

Back when I used to grind 1c/2c (for over 1m hands) I became familiar with a lot of players who played the same stakes (regulars). In my mind there was only one who I actually thought was a decent player and that was Nathan.

I first noticed him by his hud stats. He was playing a style that was rarely seen at 2nl and at first I thought he was a higher stakes player who was doing some sort of challenge (this was back in the day when ptr didn't track stakes lower than 50nl so I couldn't just look him up). He was playing a much taggier style than what I'd been used to. I can't remember what his exact stats were but I think they were around 14/12. At the time you very rarely saw anyone with stats like that. Most of the regs I had thousands of hands on had a preflop raise less than 5%. I played much tighter than Nathan but at the time I was still learning and it worked for me as I managed to do a lot of the basics right. Over my 1m+ hands my winrate was around 11ptbb/100 and was only eclipsed by Nathan's and if memory serves me correctly. We were the only regulars who had double digit winrates.

I agree that there are many differnces between the play at 2nl and 5nl and Nathan is right to bring them up for disussion. I found the play at 5nl to be totally different to 2nl, especially in terms of preflop play and overall aggression. The 5nl games are filled with many more regular players and as a result the play there is tighter overall.

The points he makes about raise sizing at 2nl are something I did myself as I found it very profitable. I'd also raise more preflop with monster hands and raise less with my weaker range as Nathan suggests. It's something that regulars at higher limits would catch onto and exploit but at 2nl most players either don't notice or don't care. Many just want to see a flop and a few extra cents won't change their decision.

Nathan makes good points on the value of betting and raising large when your hand strength is strong. During my time at 2nl I found the overbet was really profitable and since getting the most value out of a hand is something that a lot of new players struggle with Nathan covers this very well.

The points Nathan makes about being raised on the turn and river are very valid. The vast majority of players at the lowest levels in poker play postflop very passively. They'll call you down with top pair and will only raise with two pair or better. This is something I've reiterated many times to players who message me for advice and folding to them is one of the key things a player needs to do in order to be successful.

Overall this book is very informative for both new players and players who are struggling at the microstakes. I believe had I been the owner of Nathan's book when I grinded these stakes it would have helped me improve my game at a much faster rate enabling me to move up faster.

There's little information out there on how to beat the lowest stakes on the internet and many of the well known poker authors will have never played these stakes. Nathan has and his results show he knows what he's talking about when it comes to crushing them.

I was very impressed with the overall layout of the book and the detail Nathan gave on various topics. For what this book costs to own it is in my opinion money well spent for a player who wants to learn how to improve their game from the bottom up and would recommend buying it without hesitation.

Where can I get this book? Is it just the link in the OP?

You can purchase the book directly from Nathan's website:

Crushing the Micro Stakes link

Is this an actual hard copy book or is it delivered in e-book format?

I found this on author's site:

"*The book is only available as an eBook (PDF) for now. I am closely monitoring the interest in other formats however and will certainly be looking to possibly add different options in the future."

Thanks denis_n

Yes like the others said, just off my website and just PDF for now. All I can really say still is maybe on the other formats. There definitely has been some interest though.

i lost my pdf book cuz i reinstaled my windows cuz i had some viruses and lost most of my programs, could you resend the book or i have to pay again for it ?

No you don't, I'll send you another one. I can't PM you on here I believe because you just joined 2+2. Please send me an email at blackrain79@dragthebar.com

Utility of such books as is CMS checked up very simply - advices from this book work or no? I will not write many words, unfortunately my English is terrible, therefore let’s look at two tables.
The first is my game last year.

In December I bought CMS and read it twice.
Here my result for January.

I have nothing to add anymore.

Its only ebook? or has a paperback two?

Check my previous answer.

I would like to buy this book also, but I would like to know, if the book is readably using a six inch Kindle?

Don´t wanna use my laptop for reading books.

tx

It is only being sold as a PDF right now. To my knowledge PDF's can be a bit hit or miss with mobile devices. I have had confirmations that customers have read my book using an Ipad and a Sony e-reader. I am not sure about a Kindle though. Perhaps a buyer can let us know?

I am sorry that I can't tell you more at this point. I don't own one of these devices myself. I am going to look more into this soon though and I will update this thread and my website when I can release a Kindle version of the book.

I bought the book few days ago and I can say that I'm enjoying. I read the first 200 pages very fast, because it's a pleasant reading. Probably I'll need to go over some key spots again to have sure that I absorved all the info but that's doesn't make the book any worse, I'm a slow learner.

No doubt that Nathan knows what he's talking about, he has massive winnings on the micros and I bought the book to increase my win rate at 10NL FR. He has a different approach at some spots where I think I wasn't making the money that I should.

So if you're struggling on the micros or has a small win rate, you should definetely consider to buy his ebook. I'm really grateful for all the content that he made available for anyone who wants to start crushing the micros.

Briefly, it's a great book.

I think the main difference is in how often one can make a cbet.

pdf's work fine on a kindle, just attach kindle to laptop/computer with usb cable, then drag and drop pdf onto it.

That guy who played 120k hands in Jan = $250 + win? sick volume bro!

Man, you have quite a bit of time...where Do you live?

It seems like alot of volume but it really isn't. 6416 is only ~107 hours of play. You can do that in 13 days if you play 8 hours a day. Granted that's alot of volume only to make $2.45 an hour.

I often see you at the tables, and have a note on you saying "weak tight mass-table nit/set-miner". I guess you've learned from Nathan to increase your bet sizes to get paid off bigger with your monster hands. Congrats!
You're in Ukraine, aren't you?

You should now evolve to a non-nit and open more hands play more aggressive and playing back at regulars.

25nl [x] heater
100nl [x] heater
200nl [] heater