Championship NL and PL- IS A PIECE OF GARABGE

[PuppetMaster]

I cant believe people have actually recommended this book to me. Are you guys out of your god damn mind? There is so much BS; it seems to be based solely on his experinece. I read half way through and threw it in the garbage. I didnt want to take the chance that something he says will stick in my head.

He calls AK the "walk home hand" because "So Many Go Bust with it and end up losing their cars." This is quite posibly the stupiest statement ever made about NL Poker. It is a HELL OF ALOT EASIER to go bust with AA, KK, QQ than AK. AK is a VERY straight foward hand, ecspecially in NL. Brunson even says he perfers AK to AA and gives an EXCELLENT argument.

He also says you can NEVER raise with QQ from EP, because if raised you HAVE to FOLD. If you HAVE to FOLD than that means you are assuming you are against AA, KK. Under this theory you would HAVE to fold any hand that got raised from EP, and therefore could NEVER rasie from EP.

Do NOT buy this book. It is the biggest peiee of [censored] I have ever read.

[Hung]

There must me something good in the book, no?

[Zele]

[bernie]

"AK is a VERY straight foward hand, ecspecially in NL. "

thousands and thousands of pages have been written on playing AK. It is one of the most complex hands to play whether in no limit or limit, It is far from a 'very' str8 forward hand.

And i'll take AA over AK everytime.

b

[Homer]

Do NOT buy this book. It is the biggest peiee of [censored] I have ever read.

I just finished reading this book, and must say I agree with you completely. Every few pages I read something that was completely illogical. For example, at one point TJ says something along the lines of:

I'll sometimes draw with a 4-flush on the flop, if I have two of the flush cards in the hole. However, I won't do it if the flop is monotone and I have only one of the cards in the hole. This is because it feels like the flush will get there more often in the first case.

He goes on to say that he also prefers the first case because it is easier to get paid off, which is valid. However, that doesn't change the fact that the first statement is illogical.

If I have a chance, I'll provide some exact quotes later.

-- Homer

[Daithi]

Yes, I believe so.

He does provide a decent explanation of how relative stack sizes effect your play at NL. I also like his advice and reasoning for not playing drawing hands from early positions. There were a few other things I liked as well, but nothing is jumping to mind right now. However, overall I was not too impressed with this book.

I think Doyle Brunson's SuperSystem is a far better book in my opinion. However, if you use Doyle's book don't make the mistake of playing too aggressive. I think using Doyle's book as a basis to learn the game and then read whatever you can to supplement that knowledge is a good idea.

(I also agree with Doyle on the play of AK).

[PuppetMaster]

Please go into more detail on some of these sources.

There are only 4-5 NL books that I even know of and I can't rememebr seeing "thousands of pages written specifically on the play of AK in NL".

[tpir90036]

i too was *very* disappointed with this book. the non-tournament pot-limit section seemed to be OK. but i was hoping for some better NL strategy than the solid granite rock "advice" that is given. he says to steadily build your chips and protect them at the same time. it must be hard to build chips though when the only thing you play is AA, KK or AK. i am exaggerating slightly of course but he does trash medium/low pairs all drawing hands and anything lower than AQ. the brief section on avoiding the trap hands (KJ, KT, etc.) is valid advice for someone who may be used to limit games....but that is about it.

[CrackerZack]

Actually, I think AK was the "walking back to dallas hand". This book serves no use other than his bizarre stories about gambling life in texas which were mildly interesting but of no value.

[rkiray]

I have noticed the TJ and Tom's books do very poorly on the poker best seller list someone started here lately. This really surprized me. I don't like the books, but I thought they were much better known than many of the books that sell much better according to Amazon. Plus they were featured in "Positively Fifth Street". I wonder why they arn't doing better. Perhaps Amazon has some kind of distibution problem with their publisher? I was in Vegas last month and talked to the guy at The Gambler's Book Store about why he recommended that book so highly to Jim McManus. He's a really nice guy, but I didn't change his mind. Personally I would have recommended HPFAP way over TJ's book. I also thought it was bad that TOP was so highly recommended. I actually think it's a fine book for McManus since he had been playing poker for decades, but I think it's a terrible choice for someone new to the game. Much too advanced. Most beginer probably can't understand it and probably also find it boring and intimadating. On the other hand I hope all the beginner's keep Helmuth's book at the top of the list, and I hope they play in games against me. /images/graemlins/cool.gif /images/graemlins/cool.gif

[Batman]

Hello guys. Thank you for helping us save $39.

Heres a couple of questions:
How could super world-class players like TJ Cloutier and Tom McEvoy produce such a garbage book?
Is it because they want to throw off their future tournament competition?
And is Tournament Poker by Tom McEvoy and good poker book?

[Zele]

Is TJ really a world-class player? Or is just a good NLHE tournament specialist whose aggressive style and resulting high variance cause him to make the final table more often than most? I question whether the guy is even a winning tournament player. After all, he's been in the game for years and he still has backers paying his entry fees.

As for McEvoy, I don't know much about him, but he's been getting schooled in the regular heads-up tourneys they put him in at PokerStars. Of course, that's a pretty small data set.