So here's my preliminary review. I read the whole book but haven't really spent much time with the hand examples toward the end. I just skimmed them. I plan to go through in much more detail now.

I really like that this book stays at a predominantly conceptual level for most of the writing but drops down to some very detailed hand examples before rising back to the 30k foot level and addressing another concept.

While down the n the weeds in the hand examples you really get a sense of how a high level poker mind is thinking about the hands.

In the Applications review thread Janda at some point introduced his "two reasons to bet" concept. I really latched on to that then. In NLHFAP he expands the concept into a beautifully simple method for evaluating whether we should in fact bet or check.

In the chapter on sizing we are challenged as to whether there is perhaps a more +EV alternative to the conventional Bet or check.

And lastly as simple as it may seem, the "argue like a politician" method of evaluating our lines really does help "unmuddy the water" when deciding the best lines in our own hh reviews.

On the negative side there are a few typos but they are relatively few.

I pay'd full kindle price and feel this was well worth the purchase.

Now back to dive into the hand examples in more detail.


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Matthew, I really enjoyed the section about software tools and your thoughts on them. I have a question about solvers.

According to my understanding, if we input given ranges, pot/stack sizes and a board into a solver, it will compute the equilibrium strategy for that scenario.

But, if we were to lock one player's strategy on every node of the tree and let the solver compute its response, will the result be the maximally exploitative strategy against the locked one?

Thanks in advance.

Sorry this was false info. I paid $35 at the time, but apparently the pre-order came with a price match guarantee, so today Amazon automatically refunded $6.92.

Hey Matt! First, congrats on your publication. I think you're getting right to the point of a more effective text that surpasses the 'deep math' paradigm to trigger readers deep thinking in poker.

Secondly I want to discuss the ranges used on 'Playing short in Button vs Big-blind situations', on part eleven. There you assume BB is flat-calling this range 88-22, A8s-A7s, K9s-K2s, Q9s-Q2s, J8s-J2s, T7s-T2s, 96s-92s, 85s-82s, 74s-72s, 63s-62s, 53s-52s, 42s+, 32s, AJo-A2o, K2o+, Q5o+, J7o+, T7o+, 97o+, 86o+, 75o+, 64o+, 54o (58.1%) for every stack analysed in PIOSolver. My point is that under 10BBs deep, the main focus of the topic, this range is clearly much stronger than ranges would be in practice, since a lot of strong hands in this range would shove preflop. So that analysis on how often the BB would x/r and the BTN's c-bet would be different, probably by a big %.

Did you mean 100BB? I don't think we discuss shorter than 10BB play almost at all in the book.

Sorry I said 'under 10BB', but it was suppose to be 'for 10BBs'

Chapter: Your Bread and Butter - Playing Single Raised Pots in Position

You made examples on some flops and you illustrate which value bet you would bet big or small. You discuss how you would play a made hand but don't mention anything about draws (with little or huge equity) and air in general. Since I more than sure your strategy in these spots doesn't include betting only value hands, may I ask you why you leave out draws and air from the analysis?
Seems a trivial question, and I fear I missed something huge along the way

I cannot edit the post above so I add another question.
Since you advocate to split ranges and betting big/small accordingly, don't you think this would end up to be transparent vs someone who isn't a complete fish?
Also, Villain's calling range should be elastic when you cbet on most flops.
Let's take 992 flop, if you bet big with TT for example, KJ should fold, while if you bet small, KJ has to learn how to defend vs light cbets or get owned. The result of betting big TT is that we are folding out a ton of holdings that might continue vs small bet and are drawing thin on the next card. I do understand that if we can strip away Villain's equity is huge, but meh, there's something I'm missing.

Think about it for a moment. Is this really a hand that you want action with?

There are opening ranges for UTG-BTN but not for the SB. Any reason why ?
Or am I just not seeing the SB opening chart ?

This is all explained in the book but I can't explain it here anyways:

Basically, I didn't list out all the draws because draws make sense to bet for most bet sizes.

Say the flop is the AT3 and you sometimes bet 100% on the flop, sometimes 50%, and sometimes 25%.

What bet-sizing is NOT reasonable to bet with the 97? It's fine to bet it for all 3 sizings right? Because all 3 sizings do a good job of denying equity and making the pot bigger in case we win, and it's important to have a flush draw in all 3 bet sizing rangs.

Same deal with the KJ. What sizing is NOT reasonable? Again, 100%, 50%, or 25% are all probably fine, since the equity of the gutter is so robust and you probably need the gutshot in every range for there to not be a counter-strat.

Now take a hand like the QT. If you bet this, you probably need to bet it small, since it needs to keep villains range wide to win at showdown and it doesn't block any aces but blocks one ten. Whereas with the 33 you may want to bet large because it blocks no aces and is the nuts.

How far are you in the book? There's an example with a JJ3 board or something similar that basically explains why I would never recommend a large CB on a board like that. There are lots of situations where you should have no big betting range and they're explained in the book.

A small, medium, and big bet sizing range can all be balanced so there is no counter-strat. The example of this concept is an overbet on the river. If all I bet huge with is the nuts and the air, what can my opponent do about it even if he knows exactly what my range looks like? Same logic applies for different bet sizes on previous streets.

I tend to avoid SB opening ranges as they're notoriously messy with lots of mixed strats and probably a fair amount of limping. I wrote a couple articles on them a while ago for 2+2 and while I think they're pretty good they're still not great/balanced ranges and in reality I'd recommend just adjusting to whatever games you're playing and who is in the actual BB (it's easy to adjust here as there's just one more player to act).

If you change too many variables at once it's hard to show a pattern. So if we're trying to show how continuation betting frequencies change based on stack depth, then it's best to just change stack depth and keep ranges constant to illustrate this concept. If we start changing ranges too then it's hard to tell if the frequency change is coming from the change in ranges or the change in stack depth.

I'm on the hand examples at the back of the book so I'm nearly finished it. Got to say I've enjoyed it and found that it covers some of the areas I've been wondering a lot about recently, minly around bet sizing. Also enjoyed the randon Star Wars reference that was in there This is just my first read through so after this it'll be a case of going back through it all and trying to get the concepts down as much as I can and look to incorporate some of this in my game. I'm looking forward to it.

ty

40% right now. I'm going to finish the book and then post questions ty again, ah great work so far

In regards to bluffs one thing I'm surprised you didn't mention is that if you use the larger sizing you should pick bluffing hands with blockers to the top of villain's calling range or hands that block villain from having the nuts when the obvious draw comes in, since those are the hands most likely to call down 3 big bets.

Like on AsTs3c I'd want a a big portion of my big bet bluffs to hold a J, since AJ is the most likely made hand to call down 3 big bets. Also I'd like to have Ks and Qs in my big bet range because those block villain from having the nuts on flush and straight completing turns and rivers. If I had to pick an ideal bomb 3 streets hand in this scenario it would be KsJx. With your example of 9s7s I'd mostly want to bet half pottish since I'm not really blocking any of villain's strong call downs and I'm just looking to make him fold weaker hands.

With small sizing villain's range is kept much wider so blockers to the top of the range become somewhat less relevant.

#1) Removal effects are mentioned in at least a couple spots of the book.

#2) Applications talked about removal effects in detail and IMO got it right, so I didn't want to repeat the same information again and make people pay for the same content twice.

#3) Removal effects on the flop and turn might be harder than you think. Let's stick with your KJ on the AT3 board.

You mention KJ blocks the straight on the turn, but are we even barreling if we turn the K or J on the turn anyways? If the turn comes the 2, now isn't blocking the K when we pot it on the turn a bad thing since this is when we'd make villain fold his K4 or any other king high flush draw which just called the flop? Also doesn't the KJ block villains gutshots (which may call the flop and fold on the turn) so we'll be running into more top pair hands than gutters which are exactly the hands that won't fold to a pot-sized bet?

See the difficulty here? Now imagine trying to pick out all the best "big bet bluff randomizers" on the flop and explain why and show a general pattern to a new player this early on in the book. It'd be incredibly difficult and time consuming to make the information useful, and likely will be completely overwhelming (Keep in mind I'm guessing most of the players posting here are better than the average player who will read this book). And even if the the KJ is slightly more profitable to bet big with on the flop than the bet small, does it actually double barrel and triple barrel well on every river card or do you need to re-evaluate whether to bet small, medium, or big on each street? My guess is you'd need to re-evaluate, and now we're getting REALLY off topic for a section that's mostly designed to teach players why using multiple bet-sizes is a better strategy than only picking one bet size.

So while I agree removal effects are important, keep in mind I am a poker hobbyist trying to show others how to pick the lowest hanging fruit first. Removal effects are important, but in depth analysis on how to properly use that on streets earlier than the river (and river was already covered in Applications) is probably going to be very expensive (and very good) content created by players at the top of the game trying to appeal to a narrower audience than this book (websites that have the top players creating content for them, private coaching, etc). I think you'd already have to be very good before worrying about removal effects before the river.

TY

Mason, thanks for explanation. How come there are other kindle books which are much less expensive than the respective hard copies. There are many books where the book is say $24 or more with the corresponding kindle at $9.99?

Hi avatar:

The answer has to do with the royalty rates that Amazon pays the publisher. If you agree to price your kindle at a retail price of $9.99 or less, they pay double the royalty rate that they do for kindles priced above $9.99. So that's why you sometimes see the large difference in prices.

Best wishes,
Mason

I always have to laugh when I read this ubiquitous comment from non-native speakers, because what usually follows is some of the most coherent and grammatically correct stuff I'll ever read.

As of now, there is no Kindle version available at all.

I have the Kindle edition. I wonder why they took it down?

They found a mistake in the kindle edition, probably they are correcting that mistake