Greetings everyone,
I recently purchased Daniel Negreanu's "Power Holdem Strategy" (mainly because he's one of my favorite players) and just finished the section of the book that he himself wrote.

Although the book came out in 2009, I believe that's when it came out, it seems to me that his description of "small ball", playing lots of hands, small bets and small raises, is exactly the strategy that is being played in today's tournaments by a lot of the more LAG players.

Is this true or am I way off?

You're not far off at all. But I actually think we're coming out of that time a little bit - opening light for small raises in EP used to be tricky, now you end up fighting off 3+ callers and/or a 3-bet often. What remains valuable in that chapter is hand reading and post-flop thinking.

Thanks a lot for replying threebanger....I appreciate your thoughts on this.

So do you think we're coming full circle then? Waiting for better hands especially in EP and larger preflop raises, along with not calling/3-betting quite so wide?

Back to how play was prior to 2007.

Depends on the game and what level your opponents are thinking the game. lower levels tighten up some perhaps. But the "pot odds" fad means that yeah in a lot of games, you have to limp more often pre and make closer to pot-sized bets more often post. And I could be wrong cause it is changing very rapidly due to many factors. I still think his chapter is great study of that style and a lot of people are out there playing that way.

I also liked the "Evelyn Ng" chapter, parenthesis because it was definitely DN ghost writing it, but for new players playing in bigger tourneys or live it's not bad way to go. Lindgren's online chapter was not nearly as good as his own book.

By chance have you read Harrington's "updated" tournament strategy book? Came out a few years ago. If you have, what are your thoughts on that one and even on his original series?

I don't have the new one. Spent a few years not playing very much, just one or two trips to the B&M a year, so I haven't bought a poker book in over five years. I think his original series was outstanding and I adopted a lot of it back in the day. I dusted them off the other night and I still think there's a lot of gold in there. Micros can still be crushed using his original style but as many have noted (not that I would know), it doesn't work and is somewhat behind the times at higher levels. Now that I'm playing some sweepstakes stuff online a little more I'm anxious to get the update.

Sounds good....and please do me a favor and if/when you get his updated tourney book and have a chance to check it out, please let me know what you think. I'm curious to find out your thoughts on it. Lots of players seem to not even want to give it a look, which I don't understand.