I know, I have read a lot of it. I simply like the way books in general are organized. Easy to reference and info is consolidated. I have a few binders of more advanced poker concepts from the web.

Hai Steve.

I purchased this book off of amazon on a whim and it is definitely a 'play the player' type of book geared for 1/2 and that is what I will speak to here. Note that the HH are all from a single casino in Vegas at the 1/2 level that, I assume, the author was involved in or witnessed. Stack sizes, Heroes, session-time etc. are noted and will vary amongst the analysed hands.

Pros -
1. Pretty much covers every type of mistake a break even or bad reg consistently makes at 1/2. Chapters are well structured.
2. Compares and contrasts live dynamics with online statistics (very significant sample sizes across entire player pools, not just for one player).
3. Hand histories are in the style that a 2+2'er would be familiar with.
4. Gives thoughtful reasoning behind recommending certain actions to exploit the mistakes.
5. Reasonable price for the content compared to other exploitative books (AHEM! ED MILLER, DUC what I did there?).

Cons -

1. Assumes throughout the book that you are paying attention and have enough poker knowledge to spot the mentioned errors of other players as well as correcting your own.
2. Repeats certain concepts when analysing two different types of exploitable errors.
3. Does not provide groundwork to overhaul your play in general, this is really a counter-study where you would apply to each opponent individually and assess what that player is doing wrong.
4. As stated by others, a few HH are incorrect even though the point got across after rereading it. Not a big deal for me, just a lack of professionalism during the editing process.

Verdict -

For 1/2 regs, it is hard to beat the value you get out of this book. Yes, there are a few errors and some concepts are repeated (albeit in different ways), the analysis greatly makes up for it. This book is best for players who have logged on at least a year of live play to make the most of it and I would recommend to any 1/2 player going for max value (GTO at 1/2 live is absolutely pointless unless you play HU against the same player for 10,000 hands). If you are crushing 1/2, this book is still a decent value, but you probably should have moved up by now anyway.

I was looking up this book to order it and noticed Selbrede has another book published in May 2015 titled Donkey Poker: Crushing Low Stakes Live NLH. The description reads similarly but is a larger book. Does anyone know if it is an expansion of Beat the Donks, a rehashing of the material or other?

I can't pop into a local Barnes & Noble to check it out since I'm on base in Afghanistan, and I don't want to buy 2 of the same book just because they have different titles.

Thanks!

Saw the same thing but noticed the subtitle was something like Volume 1: Preflop, so I gave it a pass as it looks to be something that will be stretched over 3 volumes if he follows the current trend of poker writers getting $90 out of each reader instead of $30.

Donkey Poker is a book on preflop play. I didn't like it. It is a book geared towards playing a nitty style against loose passive opponents. Too much open limping for my taste. And it doesn't treat loose aggressive tables much which is fairly common at 1/2 in London. I much preferred Little's book.

Thanks for the review BL1

Ok there are four donk books and three are a series. First book Preflop. Second book Flop Play. Third book Hand Reading. Then there is the black book basicly covering every street etc. distinguishing online from live etc
Thoroughly enjoying the first book(preflop). Filled with many chart and graph comparisons.THis book has really opened my eyes to the differences in live and online play.I doubt bringing your online game to live will make you a winner after ingesting this book. I have ordered the Postflop book and look ahead to some real eye openers.
Again I am so glad I came across this post. Thank You Stongrad50

I'm going to bump, i just read it too and think it's invaluable

The three main books are mainly geared towards live play correct?

Entirely geared to live play. At Red Rock. During the daytime. Based on the author's 10-15 hours per week of play time, if even that.

Well, i bought the original beat the donks and this week got delivered the 3 part series too. I've only read the preflop book so far