What do you think about Greg Vail's book?

If someone provides me a copy, i can write a review. My understanding is that it is aimed at more of a beginner audience. $50 price seems rather high though.

I think it’s very good definitely best material out there I’m aware of. The 50 bucks pays for itself pretty quickly if you play and kind of decent stakes.

The book is fantastic. It really paints a terrific picture in how to win big. Volume 2 is coming out soon, and vol3 right behind it.

*mod note*

He has to become a sponsor here to post his website for book not published by the book publishing company that hosts this website. That's why the website was edited out of the original post, and that's why this post is deleted after you attempted to post the website again. Sorry. If anyone wants to find his website, Googling the author's name and the title of his book will lead to other links that contain his website.

My apologies. Not trying to stir the pot.

Thanks for understanding.

Short answer is it's a good book, one of the best out there (although to be fair the bar is set pretty low here).

The price is high but that's a whole 'nother can o' worms. We can easily justify any price we want to pay for books in the arena where reading them can actually make you money. So maybe the book should be $200, who knows? Comparing apples to apples, i.e. books that take a certain amount of effort and have comparative market value, this book is probably $10-20 overpriced. This is especially true for the Kindle version, which is priced the same as the paper version which is pretty ridiculous if you think about it. For this price you expect something very professional and there are far, far too many typos for that. Some of they typos have been and possibly still are being corrected in the Kindle version. None of this will matter to someone who wants to play the game and will pay the price because the book is pretty good in terms of analysis/strategy.

The author is very biased against short stack play, which is a real flaw because you can find yourself in that situation whether you like it or not - it's often beyond your control. He adds a lot of food for thought for bet sizing (much of it below and sometimes far below pot size). There is also a lot of slowplaying in his examples which beginners have to be careful about. The beginning of the book is geared toward "the Holdem Mind" as the author calls it, by the middle and end it's for everyone. I have some skepticism about that approach as well, because the author seems to assume that you would never be aware, as a Holdem player, that a hand like 6d 7d has more equity than Ac As on a flop of 2h 5d 8d. But he spends a fair amount of time convincing you this concept is true in PLO8. Whatever.

If that is true, the author doesn't understand much about poker.

Does 2 plus 2 have any books on Omaha High-Low. I play tournements online, would like to read a book on the game. I'm aware of how to find Greg Vail's book, just looking for more options. I checked 2plus2 but didn't see any. If its a book from another company, please just leave the authors name.
Thanks

There's a now old book by Ray Zee called High-Low-Split Poker, which is half about O8 and half about S8, if I recall correctly. It was the best, basic book out about LO8 for a long time IMO.

Vail's book is good but I'd like to know where these juicy live games are. Certainly not in any of the casinos near me. Hopefully his further volumes will cover strategy in tougher shorthanded games found online. Deppen's book is more geared to those kind of games but still seems incomplete.

Thanks, I'll look it up. I learned the game on line playing tournies. Googled some finer points but want to improve it.

Yes, he does have a penchant for being 700BB deep and having 2 players shove their whole stack against him with nothing but the nut low while he massively freerolls. I guess to make his point about O/8 being different from Holdem.

My understanding, from others who play in his games, is that his juicy games dried up.

My experience with juicy 5 card hi/lo games is the same... they don't stay juicy for long as the fish simply lose money too quickly and the (already) small player pool dries up.

I guess my point is although Vail's book is good with a lot of solid advice that will help you win in full ring average to loose games, I don't see it helpful in shorthanded or 6 max tighter games you find online. You'd get eaten up by the blinds and flop folds and not getting paid off enough when you finally do make a nutted hand. You just can't afford to wait for nutted 2 way hands in those games.

It looks like volume 2 is now available on Amazon. Looks good and I may pick it up though 50 price tag is pushing it. But I play enough that it’s probably worth it and enjoyed and got a lot out of first one. Anyone read or hear anything about it?

I read it twice, great book. Thoughtful conceptual advice. Vol 3 and 4 in works.

Hi everyone!

I have not posted on forums in over a decade but I'm glad that you all have taken the time to talk about my first book. Thank you again to everyone who has bought Volume I and now Volume II. Both are available in the places you know to buy books.

First, a majority of the games that I currently play in are in Texas, either Austin or San Antonio. Both places have plenty of action described in the books. On that note, most of the hands in Volume I were played in games in Denver or Cheyenne. Every single hand in Volumes I through IV were real hands that I either played myself or observed. I have NEVER and will NEVER offer a fictional hand history. A vast majority of Volume II are from games I played in Texas. Volume III will be out this fall (2020) and Volume IV will be sometime in 2021.

On the concept of short-stacking: I address this thoroughly in my instructional video library and will do so again in Volume IV. Online play Short handed or "aggressive 6 max games" will be discussed in Volume IV as well. I assure you that I "understand much about poker" and I choose my words carefully, especially in print. There are massive disadvantages of playing a short stack in an uncapped game--which most Big O games are. If you enjoy being abused by professionals and like jacking your variance up, then by all means, short-stack to your heart's content. The methods in my books have been proven effective through experience and objectivity. You may be able to short stack effectively in some single pot games, but you certainly cannot in High Low effectively in the long run. But by all means, have at it, but any theory on short-stacking effectiveness in uncapped pot limit games can be squashed most effectively through math and experience. Plus, you will NEVER see anyone that subscribes to a short-stack mentality win 80-85+% of their sessions. You will not see one of these players winning 40-80bbs/hour either. When you can--and prove it after 1000+ hours then we'll talk--but until then I highly doubt I'll ever have that conversation.

My books are NOT for tournament play or for online play. They both require vastly different approaches to be effective. I cannot and would not offer tournament advice to anyone since I have only entered into maybe four in my entire life? Maybe? Therefore I cannot offer any advice on tournament since I am wholly and extremely unqualified to do so. My advice is for cash games and deep stacked cash games at that. Nothing more.

Lastly, I would like to point out that I did not edit Volume I and the sheer amount of grammatical errors that were published are and always will be infuriating. I have and will continue to apologize profusely until I am able to rewrite and re-release Volume I myself with my new editing and publishing team. But for now, Volumes II-IV are of MUCH higher quality and live up to the standard that I and the community as a whole expect. I only ask they be judged accordingly.

Thank you all very much for picking up and discussing my work regardless of your opinion. I only hope to grow the game and make my favorite game more popular. Big O is a vastly different world than Holdem and I hope that sharing my works, examples, experience, strengths, and failures with all of you will do just that.

Greg Vail

There are so many things in that that make me want to smile and facepalm at the same time.

Suddenly it all makes sense. I will recommend your books to everyone playing in extremely soft live games. I won't recommend it to anyone who wants to get better at this game.

You are free and welcome to do and think whatever you'd like--in fact I would hope, expect, and want nothing less. If you feel you know better than I, I challenge you to do and be better. Show better results, turn more students into professionals, and write a better book series than I have explaining everything that got you there. I would be happy and quite thrilled to see another perspective so that I can learn and be better.

Until then, remember that professionals are better because they meticulously search for reasons and evidence they are or were wrong. Everyone else always looks for reasons why they are right and everyone else is wrong. Which one are you?

But by all means, please warn people away from my book series. You can do no greater service to me as the author. So thank you in advance many times over. After the lock down is over and if you or anyone reading this is playing in Austin or San Antonio, please come say hello! I always welcome conversation about the game.

Cheers!

Greg Vail

Hi Greg,

Thanks for coming here and thanks for writing the books. From my perspective the information an logic is first rate. The first 2 volumes explained PLO8 better or illuminated concepts better and more completely than any other books out there. My gripe is (nothing to do with you) I can't find games except online. The online games are far tighter and more aggressive and shorthanded. It would be nice if you could play a decent amount on say ACR and write and discuss what you've found there. The majority of posters here play online as well.

When the amok v vail HU4ROLZ battle happens, can you notify us please? Would rail. I get winner.

Thank you for the kind words! I plan to do just that in Volume IV. Since the lockdown began, I have been playing on PokerBros. As of this writing, I am 160,000+ hands deep in my trial over several different groups and both Unions. I do plan on publishing my findings and results there. Although I do not believe that a sample size even double that would NOT qualify me as an expert by any definition. Hopefully, by the time book 4 is released in about 18 months, I will have more data, a better sample size, and a more informed opinion.

If you are looking for games to play live (before/after the pandemic), please reach out to me privately and I would gladly point you in the right direction. My email address is in either book.

Not sure if trolling or just stupid. I do agree that professionals are better than people playing in ridiculously soft live games and I would never consider claiming otherwise. If I found a game I could beat 40-80bb/hour I probably wouldn't see much reason to write a book about it.