Hello everyone,
I'm thinking about transitioning from live tournaments to live cash games, I've heard lots of good things about Ed Miller's "The Course."

I'am interested in everyone's thoughts on this book and could you tell me if this is one book or is it one in a series?

Thanks in advance!

I play a decent amount of 1/3 live at the casino and I think it has a lot of good info for that game (or 1/2). I don't play 2/5 so I can't comment on that.

The book stands alone, though Ed does promote his other books when touching on certain subjects. I like it and would recommend it for live low stakes NL.

Thanks a lot Snafu'd....I appreciate your response. A buddy of mine referred "The Grinders Manual" by Peter Clarke as well, but it looks like it's for online 6-max. Right now I'm interested in live full ring games, not so much online play.

I've not read "The Grinders Manual" though I have followed the book review thread on it. Ed's book is geared towards live play only and he even admits to not being an expert in online play. I've not played online for $ since poker essentially went offline in the US and I'm a recreational player only. That said, I do believe Ed's book will help you quite a bit in your transition.

The course is perfect for live low stakes cash games. The material is well put together and the book stands alone. I have not read the grinders manual, but as others have posted I believe its more geared toward online 6 max.

Thanks so much for the responses....I appreciate it! So just out of curiosity, say you're talking about the same stakes, $1/$2 cash, are the strategies between live and online really all that different? If a book states that its for online, couldn't that strategy be used just as well for live and vice versa? Or are they truly that different as far as how you would play them?

Miller's book is alright, but not great. If I had to choose between the two, I'd pick The Grinder's Manual in a heartbeat. It should apply just as well to live games, with some adjustments, like playing from and against the first three seats in a full ring table, HUDless, etc.

From my experience, when someone produces poker instructional material that's aimed at live players, they're basically telling you that they haven't kept up with poker theory and are selling you outdated material that is only applicable in soft games.

Basically, books focused on online poker will still help live players by a lot, but not vice versa.

Hey Kissa....thanks for your reply. Much appreciated! I know "The Course" is available in paperback, is "The Grinders Manual" also available in book form?

As far I as know it's Ebook only.

I'd say it's a pretty good book although I would disagree with the starting hands Ed suggest. I started a thread on the subject here if you want to see different opinions http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...iller-1667224/

Yes I would say live is quite different from online.

In this one man's humble opinion, I think that "The Course" is better as a book for a player who's already been playing low-stakes NLHE for a period of time and isn't satisfied with their winnings than as a true beginner's book.

The reason I say that is the book doesn't go very far into the general math, like how to calculate how often a half-pot bluff has to work to be profitable, percentages of starting hands by position, odds a flush draw comes in, gutshot, pair-and-gutshot or pair-and-flush-draw equities vs. an overpair, % of the time a villain actually HAS a monster hand like two pair or better etc.

It does go into it SOME, don't get me wrong, but the more you already know the more Ed's advice will make sense.

I think also that some experience in these low-stakes games is helpful BEFORE reading the book as well. For example Ed will say, "This is what you're going to see at most 1/2 tables" you can think through your experience and remember a few villains who don't play like this, a few who do, a few who play even worse etc. and judge for yourself how relevant his assumptions are in the games you play. I've always felt that no matter WHAT kind of poker book you read, you HAVE to be VERY aware of the assumptions that go into the specific advice, and you HAVE to be able to look around the table you're playing at and determine for yourself if the conditions assumed in the book are indeed present at your table.

I don't want to turn it into a tl;dr, but IMHO if as you're reading through Ed's advice in the book you can think, "If I make a bet of this size it has to work 40% of the time, but if my opponent folds whenever he doesn't make a pair he'll be folding 67% of the time in this spot (those numbers were made up), so it's probably worth a try"

The psychological advice he gives in this book, though, IMHO is spot-on. Don't try to control or change or even be affected by your opponents - just read them, get to know how they play, and devise a strategy for exploiting their weaknesses. And completely separate yourself from the money and the results - you can't control whether you win or lose, you can only control whether or not you make good decisions.

Hope this made sense.
DTXCF

Makes good sense.