This book was recommended to me by a player from Germany (or The Netherlands?) from Deuces Cracked, who read about some problems and leaks that I had while playing NL2 and NL6. He told me good things about this book and I decided to check it out. I surfed through BR's site and read the introductory stuff about the book.
For a few days later I decided if I really want this book or it's just an emotional response to something new (I always do that when it makes sense to. Never let me down this method). The decision was to buy it so... I bought it
The first thing that I notice is that this book is geared also towards the complete beginners, otherwise the chapters about setting the HUD or the PokerStars lobby would not be there. As I play for about three years (and soon I can say that I will be a semi-pro, by Romanian standards) there was nothing new here for me. Neither was in the preflop part, except the huge open-raising idea. This doesn't mean that these sections have no value. They do. They only tell me nothing new.
The postflop part was the juicy one for me. This book had covered every situation that I often see at the micros: min-raise, min-3bet, perceived ranges, how to play each card combination, etc. It is explained clearly and in plain English, no unnecessary math or anything. Straight to the point.
A big "a-ha" moment I had about playing one pair hands. I was consistently overplaying them and it leaked me a lot of money. At NL2 it was no big deal, because the playing level is so low that I could easily compensate with better hands. But at NL6 and NL10, that made me a break-even player, until I got this book. So, to sum it all up, I learned that playing no pair and one pair hands is mostly like playing from the blinds: lose as little as possible. The only difference is that, when I have one pair, I can control my losses. Consequence: looking at my HEM, I am pleased to see that I have a small overall profit with one pair hands and the general profit is sky-high.
The last part, "final thoughts" is another important part of the book. It mainly talks about work ethic for those who want to become good poker players:
And lastly, again, play a lot. When you think you have played a lot, play some more and
Give up that TV show. Make the time are the core of the work ethic in this book. And I fully agree. TV programs in Romania are a bunch of crap for so many years that I only watch soccer games and a comedy TV show which is aired every Wednesday evening. So I have plenty of time to play and play some more.
The bonuses for buying the book are access to the private section of the forum and screenshots of his stats at NL2 and NL5. I think they both have their use. Indeed, he replies to every post that is made on the forum. About the screenshots, I think they are useful if we know how to interpret them, NOT to mimic his play (something like
he plays 20/17 then I must play 20/17.
Overall yeah, I like this book. Alot. It taught me many things about my postflop game and it has solid explanation and they are written in plain English.
In a future 2nd review I will post what I think it needs to be added. Just my 2c.