Are the concepts in the book relevant for ZOOM as the tables there appear to be pretty tight.

Sorry, I meant to answer this awhile ago and forgot. There is actually another thread in the books forum right now asking about a ZOOM specific book. To my knowledge a book on this topic has never been written. But I also agree with several of the commenters asking why there would be a need for one as there really is no real strategic difference between ZOOM and a traditional ring game. FWIW, I have been playing a fair bit of ZOOM lately and haven't really felt that they play tighter than the regular games. I have found the action to be quite good in fact.

Ok thanks.

I purchased Crushing the Microstakes about a week ago and just finished it tonight.

Overall I am very impressed with the quality and accessibility of the information.

However, I want to focus on one thing that I think this book does particularly well. The writing style is concise and the examples are uniquely compact. I have never seen another poker book crank through examples the way Black Rain does.

Rather than a long Harrington Style example, he gives an example then a bunch of different hands that conform to it. I think this is a really cool style, reduces reading fatigue, and leaves less grey area on the important concepts. One big problem I see with the book format is there is usually so much grey area left because the examples can't cover nearly enough of the different variations you might see at the poker table. Therefore the reader sees the example, thinks they understand it, but then can't apply it in related situations. This book does not suffer as much from this by covering more ground in less space using this method.

I think this book covers the majority of concepts that a beginning NL cash player would need to master to beat the microstakes. Obviously if you have been playing poker for a while many of the concepts are not new, or basic, but there is also a lot of value to seeing them all concisely described and organized in a thoughtful way. I also found myself running into some nuggets that I had always realized but found were described in a different and impactful way. I sometimes describe these concepts differently and it has given me some new useful ways of relating the information for the future.

Overall A+ rating both on content and value.

zero

I believe verneers book is zoom/rush specific. AFAIR....

Hey, ist that book also for NL25 Players interesting?

My book is primarily targeted at the lower end of the micros, NL2-NL10. It is applicable for NL25 and NL50 games as well but does not represent a complete strategy guide for those limits.

I can honestly say that Crushing the Microstakes has really helped my game...

Even though the book (as Nathan already stated) does not contain an entire strategy guide for 25NL+ it is still valuable because it shows you how to play a well established and straight-forward style of play (which unfortunately isn´t considered to be "cool" anymore nowadays...)

Yea ... so after skimming this thread I bought THIS on Amazon ... Oops.
That book sucks, don't waste $10 on it.

sorry, man. Get the real book - it's worth every penny! Promise.

But I like my books in dead tree format

Hi Angrist,

I am aware of that book. It is not mine. I know the name is somewhat similar, sorry about the confusion. My book is not available in paperback. And it is not on Amazon either. Just through my website:

http://www.blackrain79.com/p/book.html

It comes with three different digital formats, pdf, mobi (for Kindle), and epub.

I've been taking lots of side notes, but how exactly did you implement the use of excel tables? I'd like to know more about this.

Do you just stick to the basics the first few days? I mean when you have no information on any of the other players, I suppose it would take weeks even months to collect good sample sizes, depending on the amount of hours you play per day. So these first few days/weeks you don't make decisions based on your type of opponents?

The book explain that pretty well. The sample size that you need to use a specific stat really depend on what stat you are looking at.

VPIP and PFR could be useful after 100 hands. If he is 6/4 for example, or 78/29 you have an idea of villain playstyle and can react accordingly to it.

I finished the book yesterday and BlackRain explains perfectly that you don't need a ton of stat on a player to take good decisions against him.

Thanks. I actually read that part, but still the first few days I suppose you won't have more than a 100 hand sample on most opponents you'll be facing, maybe a couple. Even though you don't need a ton of stat all the time, a few of the decisions on the book are based on opponent's stats.

Hi guys,

Just to clear up a bit. I stated in the book that VPIP and PFR come close to their true values over just 20 hands, not 100. So this would only take you a few orbits to get this sample. I think these are the two most important stats by far because they tell you what type of player you are dealing with.

There are around 6 or 7 main player types which I outline in the book. And I also outline their main tendencies. So, once you know which of these categories your opponent falls into you can come to some pretty accurate conclusions about their range in certain spots and what actions they are likely to take.

Sometimes it is not even necessary to have a sample of 20. Sometimes one hand is enough for me to know. For instance, if I see someone limp the cutoff or button they get the fish tag right away because no good player would ever do this. Stack size is another big tell. Good players almost always buyin for 100bb and use the auto top up feature. Undersized bets such as a min bet or 1/4 pot is another dead tell that it is a bad player.

Hope this helps.

Hi,
i started playing online poker about 3 weeks ago and after strugling early and losing those precious cents on 2NL i decided i'll start seriously learning the game and read a few recommendations for CtM book by BlackRain. I bought the book last thursday and read it the same day, mind you i took a lot of notes and used post-its for some of the recommendations to help me out during playing.
Since reading the book i played about 3500 hands which i guess is not a huge sample but in this short span my earnings within this period already payed of the book (actually i'm a few cents short of 20$ )

I definitely recommend the book and is well worth the money for anyone thinking of getting serious into poker and are looking for a place to start. The book is written in a pragmatic way w/o beating around the bush to much.

I also ordered this book, and I've read half of it by now. I think it is really great for new players struggeling, and it's generally very well explained.

I do have a question about one section though (I hope this is the right thread to ask book specific questions):

On page 115, about Postflop play it is stated that:

"You should only be getting involved with top pair hands most of the time at the micros. There are some exceptions of course but by and large you should be giving up most of the time with all of your middle and bottom pairs."

However then at page 141 about Delayed Cbetting, an example is giving where Hero has:

AsTc on a KcTh6d board, and it says that:

"In both of these situations I may choose not to cbet especially if I am up against one of the aggressive player types. This doesn't mean that I am giving up if they bet though. I will usually just call."

Could someone explain this to me? I've really thought about this situation and tried to understand, why I should check an call a bet here on the flop.

Cause I don't have top pair in this situation, and should we do this because we are drawing for an Ace on the turn to get two pair, and then bet the turn if we hit our Ace?

Assuming that villains range is top pair on the flop, and thus if we hit our Ace on the turn we value bet cause we beat his range, or something like that?

We should do this because it's possible we have the best hand especially since villain is an aggressive player. The 5 outs are a bonus. The check is for inducing bluffs (on the flop or on the other streets if you check behind on the flop) from hands he would fold if you bet.

Thank you. I think I have a better grasp now of why we should check here. That helped a lot.

Hi Walternate,

The quote you posted from page 115 was more or less a general statement that at the micros you should only play a big pot with top pair or better type hands. And you should fold bottom and middle pair hands before it becomes a big pot versus most player types. As I discuss many times in the book, players at the micros (especially NL2-NL10) are generally very passive. So if they are barreling you or raising you especially on the big money streets (turn and river) there is a very good chance that your bottom or middle pair is no good.

Regarding the hand example that you posted from page 141, as was already pointed out the biggest thing here is the player type. While most players at the micros are passive, not everyone is. Versus players that are capable of betting or raising with their draws, bottom/middle pairs or complete air on frequent occasion we need to expand our continuance range to include stuff that is not just top pair+. Regarding the delayed cbet in this particular spot versus an aggressive player type it prevents him from putting us in a difficult spot by check/raising us for example. It also adds deception value so that he may bluff off some money to us on later streets.

I hope this helps. Poker is a very situation dependent game. Therefore, it is very difficult to say stuff like do X in all circumstances. But I tried to keep the book as simple as possible because I knew a lot of beginners would be reading it and the main goal is to get them winning now. So in some cases it helped to just make fairly broad statements about what to do in certain spots.

Thank you for replying, I think it's really great, that you as the author take the time to actually write an in depth answer back. I think this absolutely awesome and it's very appreciated!

If I may ask one last question regarding this scenario, then I'm a bit unsure on how to proceed if I would not improve my hand on the turn? So after the turn, I would still have a pair of tens, and if he would bet the turn, should I then call his turn bet too or should I fold? Would you call villain down all the way to the river with a pair of tens because he is an aggressive type of player. Is that what you mean by deception value, that I should be assuming to be ahead of his range with my pair of tens and thus call his bets (depending on how big they are), because he is an aggressive type of player?

But anyways thank you for writing such an excellent book

IMHO, calling down with just a pair at the micros is probably bad. Wait for better spots....

BTW, say hi to Fauxlivia for me!