How about the new book that Phil Hellmuth come up with?

[AlexD30]

How about the new book that Phil Hellmuth come up with?

I got Phil’s new book .. “Play Poker like the Pros” and read it once from cover to cover. The, I read again a couple times the TH chapter and have been very impressed the way Phil explained his philosophy of playing. It seems to me that Phil teach you the “know how” of TH.

Without specifically attacking the other poker books I suspect that Phil’s playing style is the most profitable. His approach is simple and accurate based on his experience. The book is not loaded with all sorts of fancy concepts and numbers and tables like other books that I’ve read so far. I have meet him a couple times but I am in no way obligated to push his book. But I feel that reading Phil’s material it put me on the right path toward the goal of beating the game. I credit him fully with my success so far in poker. Many concepts that Phil describe in his book I apply them with great success in real live games. Especially his starting hands standards and raising on the flop to find information about an over card. It works every time when I do that.

Phil is one of the great poker players, if not the greatest poker player ever to be involved in this game.

Thank you Phil for opening my mind of how things are done in this game.

AlexD30

PS: By the way, I put another 3 winning sessions of 5 hours each in Hustler for 25-50, Bicycle and Commerce for 20-40 games this week. Today I will be flying to Vegas to put two more sessions in Bellagio and Mirage.

[pudley4]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Without specifically attacking the other poker books I suspect that Phil’s playing style is the most profitable...

[/ QUOTE ]

You forgot the "... for his opponents" at the end of your sentence.

/forums/images/icons/wink.gif

[mike l.]

[AlexD30]

Well, Thank you for your full of meaning and elegant response to the subject. I am privileged to have an authority like yourself contributing to my poker knoledge.

We, actually, are lucky to have you around us.

AlexD30

[bruce]

I didn't know Phil wrote a book. Out of curiosity I'm sure
I'll read it at some point. A few general points about Phil
though. He might be a great or lucky tournament player, depending upon who you talk to to, but his ring game leaves
a lot to be desired. They build ring games around Phil and
his huge ego. Despite all that just by reading his articles
in Card Player I'm pretty sure he is quite capable of writing a half way decent book.

Bruce

[bruce]

xx

[Dynasty]

[Phil Hellmuth's] ring game leaves a lot to be desired. They build ring games around Phil and his huge ego

Where is the evidence of this?

[Billy LTL]

I spent an hour at Borders yesterday browsing through the PH book so I'm not exactly qualified to post much of critique.

Mike's post more or less summed up my feelings about the book. He just didn't waste a few hundred words reviewing it.

The best thing about the book is that I can foresee another couple of thousand new players hitting the tables soon, armed with the knowledge Helmuth espouses without any real background on why his "method" might work or not.

I am privileged to have an authority like yourself contributing to my poker knoledge.


FYI, mike l both gives and asks for lessons here on an almost daily basis, along with many others. A polite suggestion - you might want to read some of his posts before attempting to get clever with the sarcasm.

Billy

[WhiteBoy]

I have personally played with Phil on UB and he is a horrible limit HE player. He tilts easily and then plays trash out of position in re-raised pots. The last time I saw him at the 80-160 he said he lost 20K+ in 2 days and ended up busting out.

He may be a World Class Tournament Player, but he is a Megafish in a limit game.

[astroglide]

i have no evidence to offer, but i can confirm the 'tourney = god, ring = fish' reputation all the way from st louis

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

No doubt Hellmuth is successful. No doubt in my mind he's good for poker. The thing I find disturbing about the book (other than the disturbingly sycophantic intro by Glazer) is the fact that he's counseling new players to play medium pairs like a monkey.

On the other hand, he does describe the thought process behind post flop play in much more detail than other writers.

If this is the only poker book you read, you're in trouble. If you read them all, and study them, there is some value to be gained here.

As if *I'm* qualified to make that statement. /forums/images/icons/confused.gif

[lefty rosen]

Was this a fulltable game or short table game? Also how did you know it was Helmuth(I have seen so many Johnny Chan's at low limit tables you would think Johnny was doing a Kasparov and playing 25 games at once.) Also the UB game is very tilted maybe he was trying to out cowboy the cowboys. Also if you are playing a loose aggressive game and you dont know the players you are way behind interms of who to call and raise as every bet or raise looks like a bluff.

[WhiteBoy]

Phil is sponsored by UB and plays as a prop from time to time on the site (mostly at a 4-8 game named after him). The person playing as PhilHellmuth on UB is the real McCoy.

The bottom line is that he sucks at limit cash games.

-WhiteBoy

P.S. This was a full-table 80-160 game with 7+ players -- until Phil busted out and the game broke.

[lefty rosen]

What I don't understand is how a guy who knows draw percentages can be a fish at limit, yes even at a high level like this where there shouldn't be any real bad calling station types. Playing limit poker is much easier than unlimited tourney or ring.

[Nottom]

Its much harder for an aggressive player to push people around at limit then it is at no limit. I also think that a lot of Phil's game is reading the other players, which may explain why he does poorly on the UB tables.

[astroglide]

many people would disagree with you about no limit being harder than limit

[Mano]

From the little I know of Phil, he is very good at reading people and putting them on hands. He probably does not understand the mathematics of the game as well as some others (read DS &amp; MM). I can see how he would be at a major disadvantage playing in an online game, because I think his greatest skill of reading people would be gone. I would imagine he is better live.

[Kevin J]

Playing limit poker is much easier than unlimited tourney or ring.

This is a very debatable statement. Malmuth has written about this a few times and I for one, tend to agree with him.

[John Ho]

I'm sure he knows the math fine. His biggest problem is he tilts. In a tournament that's fine since he just busts out and goes home angry. In a live game he can reach into his pocket for all that tournament money he has won.

I'm just shocked a man that old is so immature.

[El Dukie]

Age has nothing to do with it. I've played against plenty of guys in their 70s who behaved like toddlers when they got a hand cracked. On the other hand, there are some great younger players (Phil I., Allen C.) who, from all indications, are incredibly mature at the table.

I've got the maturity part down. Now I just need to get the poker skills. /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif

[Ed Miller]

This is my suggestion to you, Alex...

1) Read HPFAP
2) Read Phil's book
3) Read HPFAP again

Then decide what you think of Phil's limit holdem advice. I actually thought the book was worth reading... but the advice in specifically the limit holdem chapters was at its best only a patchwork of isolated nuggets of wisdom, and at its worst simply shameful.

[SoBeDude]

Asking a NL expert to teach about a ring game is like asking a golf pro to teach tennis.

-Scott

[dux]

Surely, surely that is an exaggeration. Surely a world championship NL tournament player could beat a moderatly tough ring game. Maybe I don't know much about this game at all.