Isn't that more valuable?

Whoa. Sorry you're having to deal with that.

I'm not sure. I would contact who you purchased it from, or even 2+2 directly.

Its a limited edition!

Angelique (Book Depository)

Mar 30, 08:49 BST
Hi,

So sorry about the defect.

I've ordered a replacement copy of No-Limit Hold \'em for Advanced Players for you. This will be dispatched shortly. Please allow a few days for the items to ship and then 4-8 working days for delivery.

You don’t have to worry about returning the defected copy.

Kind Regards,
Angelique,
Customer Advisor

Problem solved

Hey Matt part 8 in your book you said we should consider betting small 25-50% pot with AT, AQ and QJ on 6c8hTh Qh bu vs bb. Do you take that line in practice as a default? Do you know if pio or snowie suggests those lines? Thanks much

Poker is an extremely part time thing for me at this point, but yes last I was playing (over a year ago) I would take that line as default.

PokerSnowie was consulted very frequently when writing this book, so it was probably recommending a similar bet size at that time. Interestingly, about halfway through writing and editing the book PokerSnowie added in the 25% pot sized bet option, which actually required a lot more work on my part to incorporate it's advice but ultimately made the strategies in the book better.

Awesome, glad to hear it.

Does anyone have any idea why a solver recommends on a Kc, 10d, 4d, Qh its better to fold QJs and call QJ of clubs on the turn?

Not sure. Possibly because you are blocking some Kx (KcQc and KcJc)

Kc is already on the board so it doesn't matter about blocking that hand!

The answer is basically always because one hand blocks more bluffs than the other. You can verify that by checking what hands villain bluffs the turn. Most likely you'll find that hands containing the Js are bet more often than hands containing the Jc.

You misunderstand. I'm saying if we have QcJc we're blocking KcQc and KcJc, i.e.the opponent can't have those hands.

Actually ignore that, I mis-read the board

Hi Matthew! I’m a fan of yours and read both of your books. I’m very satisfied with the contents and please keep doing what you do. Thank you!

I played in a hand recently and I want to know what would you do if you were me.

HERO (SB): AhJd
Villain (BB): 5s4s

Preflop:

4 players limped in, HERO raised to 11BB, Villain called. The rest folded. Pot was 26BB.

Flop:

Ad 5c 4c. The effective stack was about 80BB, HERO jammed TPTK and Villain snapped two pair. Villain held up.

My thought process:

Villain flatted so his range was capped (no AA, KK, QQ etc.) and linear. Given the low SPR, I jammed to deny equity and won bigger pot if he called with worse. Also, took away his positional advantage despite the effect was less significant in this SPR.

I wonder if smaller bets is a more +EV line because it can keep villain’s call range wide and gain value from his even weaker range.

How do you play this hand Matthew? Thank you.

Forgive me for sounding like a troll in response to your first post, but wasn't the subtitle of the book "Emphasis on tough games"?
You didn't ask for my opinion (and I think that hand history would be better placed in the Beginner's Questions forum) but I wouldn't always raise pre, as limpers rarely fold, and the last thing you really want with AJo OOP is to be playing a bloated 6-way pot OOP.
As played, jamming 80bb into a 26bb pot when you shouldn't ever get called by worse seems somewhat sub-optimal. It only makes sense as a value-shove if villain is terrible enough to call with Ax or a random draw. If you want to get all in ASAP, a check-jam might be better, since that would give villain a chance to put money in the pot with air.

I would definitely bet smaller without a very good reason not to. Gives you the potential to make more money from his weak hands as well as (possibly) get away if you're beat.

But it's hard to know the most +EV way to play against bad players/random limpers, as it's so player dependent.

Agree with the guys below, it must be due to what you're blocking.

Hi,

Not sure if it's the right place to ask but since it's mentioned in the book but not really exhaustively, I figured I could ask it here. If not I'll post in SS or in the theory forums.

tl;dr : Should I overestimate my opponents ?

(I'm asking this because specifically in the hand examples at the end, "arguing like a politician", a lot of the strongest arguments assume villain is playing well. The TT hand OTB in a FR game blew my mind. I think in a good way.)

Ok here is the deal. In chess when you learn with a teacher, he tells you to never play a move if you know there is a strong counter move, basically never think your opponent won't see it. So, don't underestimate him and always calculate his best replies to every move. And if he makes a mistake, good for you.

If I consider this logic for poker I'm left with 2 choices :
1 - play expecting my opponents will play well. If he does play well, I'll have an edge when I have a range advantage and he'll have an edge when he has a range advantage and we'll roughly break even in the long run. But hopefully he'll make mistakes and I'll make money, sort of "accidentally" but it will be the result of me playing well and him deviating away of a maximally exploitative strategy.

2 - play expecting they'll make mistake : the big advantage of this approach is that I won't fall into their little traps (check top pair on a drawy board to let me bluff them, stuff like that). I also won't get overbluff/underbluff because I'll know the type of mistakes they make in various spots. But the big drawbacks I see are twofold : a) when the field changes (for example moving up), I will not have developped a strong strategy that just works well overall, and I will sort of have to "read the field" again. b) there is a lot of levelling involved in this approach.

Ideally I would just like to do 1), meaning, play good poker and hope they sometimes spazz out buy ins at me. But it really gets into my head when they start doing maniacal things that I can just take super marginal spots and get away with it. I guess I'm sort of afraid to miss out on opportunities to stack off with like 2nd pair because I suspect this guy is check/shoving any hand.

Edit : also it's sometimes particularly hard to assume they play well if they limp UTG or min 3bet and such. I sort of automatically assume they play bad and turn into super tricky mode sort of automatically, sometimes with no consideration of the action anymore. And I think it can be a huge leak but I'm not sure.

Great book by the way, I understood a lot of things about the game and I now have a much clearer idea of how to think about the game. Only drawback is that I now tank forever on every hand not being sure of what to do but I guess it's actually better to keep an open mind about every situation rather than just being in autopilot. I particularly love the "new reasons for betting" a lot more than just value or bets. Ironically I talked to a midstakes pro who studies theory a lot and he doesn't like it, not sure if his mind will change over time.

Humans and bots can be programmed to consider that the opponent is a sucker.

Hello Mr Janda,

is your book only for cash game players or will mtt-players also benefit from reading?

There is already a lot of very good literature for how to beat weak opponents. Honestly, for any non-beginnner, the way to beat weak opponents is usually pretty straight forward. For example, they fold too much to CB, so you CB too much. They CB too much, so you CR too much. Etc, etc. So I try to emphasize beating good players.


If you play well, you'll make money if your opponents play well or poorly (though won't make as much against weak opponents as you would with a maximally exploitative strategy).

If you think villain is a spazz and will check-shove garbage so check-calling with middle pair is ++EV, then definitely check-call. Do whatever you think is most +EV, always. A good, default gameplan is just a good starting point for multitabling and playing vs good opponents. Don't stop playing exploitatively just because your default game plan got stronger.


The term "bad" is relative, but most opponents have to be much worse than you for you to be able to beat them + the rake. It's very reasonable to assume an unknown opponent at low stakes or playing live is bad. Unless you're already playing quite high, I would always start with that assumption of an unknown until you know better.

For example, if you sat down at a random poker table (either live or online), how long would it take for a player to take a line or make a bet-sizing that was bad from a GTO perspective? Probably only a few hands. Most people play poker for fun, not as a part time job, and this is why it's possible to win money.

Most criticisms of both my books I agree with. It's good to hear out the people that like it and don't like it, and even if you're overall happy with it doesn't mean their criticism is wrong.

MTT will benefit just as much as cash.

IIRC one of the Amazon reviews this book has (a negative one), the reviewer mentioned he thought the short stack analysis was worth the price of the book alone, which is obviously aimed at MTT play. Still only gave me two stars though

This is an interesting point and one thing worth mentioning OMGLillianLee is while I obviously like PokerSnowie a lot, a lot of the times I've seen it spazz out over the year are against senseless lines.

Apparently, it's just hard for robots and humans alike to handle a line that "makes no sense." And you're more likely to encounter that at uNL than MSNL.

Thanks a lot for the detailed replies, it's greatly appreciated and very helpful.

+1

Does anyone know if this will ever be available in kindle again?