01-14-2002, 02:25 AM
Winning Low Limit Hold’ em (7) by Lee Jones. Years ago I received a proposal from a then unknown author concerning a book on low limit hold ’em. After reading the offer, which included excerpts from the forth coming work, I quickly rejected it. It was obvious to me that this text was going to contain a huge number of errors and it wasn’t worth our time and effort to take on this type of rewriting project.
Well the book was published by ConJelCo and true to form our expectations were met. In my opinion it was a confused work at best and with the exception of advising new players to play much tighter, it contained much erroneous and misguided advice. Thus we at Two Plus Two were glad that our efforts and energy went into different projects.
But an interesting thing happened. The opinion that David and I had of this text was in the
minority. It not only sold well, but was praised by others. However, we stuck to our guns. The text was still badly flawed and we do understand how to play poker well, and despite what others might say, Winning Low Limit Hold ’em would not put you on the path towards winning play. It was that simple.
Of course we were accused of bashing the book because it just might be competitive to our products. Also, we believe that its author may have held some hard feelings towards us at times. But again our opinion was based on our knowledge of poker and hold ’em in particular — nothing more and nothing less.
Anyway, an interesting event has now occurred. Winning Low Limit Hold ’em has been rewritten and a new edition was released in year 2000. Furthermore, this is not a superficial change. Lee Jones even states in the “Introduction to the Second Edition” that it was necessary to make changes. In fact, to quote his words, “I was wrong. There — I said it.” indicates that he took many of the criticisms to heart and produced a much better book (and is now even a regular contributor to our forums).
For example, part of the problem with the first book was that the author failed to recognize that against many opponents who play too many hands and go to far with them, automatically betting the flop with good (but not great hands) will just assure that many of your opponents are playing correctly. In the second edition, this is now addressed with the emphasis on finding the appropriate strategy so that your opponents will make mistakes instead of accidentally playing correctly.
However, the book still has some problems. For example, Jones continues to stress that when you hold a good hand to get as many bets in on the flop as possible. He doesn’t seem to understand that in loose low limit games where the pots frequently become relatively large that alternate strategies which have the potential to knock players out on a later street are often far superior. Also, by not playing fast on the flop you may save bets if the scare card does come or be able to collect extra double size bets on fourth street.
Another inconsistency is that on one hand the author wants to get as many bets as possible in on the flop to punish the draws but he also recommends that you “bet or raise your draws for value.” Well you can’t have it both ways, and Jones doesn’t seem to recognize the difference.
A final area where this version is still weak has to do with play on the turn and the river. Play on these streets is much more complex that the author seems to realize and correct strategy should often be impacted on what happened earlier in the hand. This “linkage” is an idea that doesn’t seem to ever be considered.
Nevertheless, despite these criticisms, this new edition is a much better work than the original version. If you are new to poker/hold ’em it should be helpful to you, but it probably still needs to be read in conjunction with some of the other/better books on poker and hold ’em in particular.
Well the book was published by ConJelCo and true to form our expectations were met. In my opinion it was a confused work at best and with the exception of advising new players to play much tighter, it contained much erroneous and misguided advice. Thus we at Two Plus Two were glad that our efforts and energy went into different projects.
But an interesting thing happened. The opinion that David and I had of this text was in the
minority. It not only sold well, but was praised by others. However, we stuck to our guns. The text was still badly flawed and we do understand how to play poker well, and despite what others might say, Winning Low Limit Hold ’em would not put you on the path towards winning play. It was that simple.
Of course we were accused of bashing the book because it just might be competitive to our products. Also, we believe that its author may have held some hard feelings towards us at times. But again our opinion was based on our knowledge of poker and hold ’em in particular — nothing more and nothing less.
Anyway, an interesting event has now occurred. Winning Low Limit Hold ’em has been rewritten and a new edition was released in year 2000. Furthermore, this is not a superficial change. Lee Jones even states in the “Introduction to the Second Edition” that it was necessary to make changes. In fact, to quote his words, “I was wrong. There — I said it.” indicates that he took many of the criticisms to heart and produced a much better book (and is now even a regular contributor to our forums).
For example, part of the problem with the first book was that the author failed to recognize that against many opponents who play too many hands and go to far with them, automatically betting the flop with good (but not great hands) will just assure that many of your opponents are playing correctly. In the second edition, this is now addressed with the emphasis on finding the appropriate strategy so that your opponents will make mistakes instead of accidentally playing correctly.
However, the book still has some problems. For example, Jones continues to stress that when you hold a good hand to get as many bets in on the flop as possible. He doesn’t seem to understand that in loose low limit games where the pots frequently become relatively large that alternate strategies which have the potential to knock players out on a later street are often far superior. Also, by not playing fast on the flop you may save bets if the scare card does come or be able to collect extra double size bets on fourth street.
Another inconsistency is that on one hand the author wants to get as many bets as possible in on the flop to punish the draws but he also recommends that you “bet or raise your draws for value.” Well you can’t have it both ways, and Jones doesn’t seem to recognize the difference.
A final area where this version is still weak has to do with play on the turn and the river. Play on these streets is much more complex that the author seems to realize and correct strategy should often be impacted on what happened earlier in the hand. This “linkage” is an idea that doesn’t seem to ever be considered.
Nevertheless, despite these criticisms, this new edition is a much better work than the original version. If you are new to poker/hold ’em it should be helpful to you, but it probably still needs to be read in conjunction with some of the other/better books on poker and hold ’em in particular.