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View Full Version : My review of Ciaffone/Brier


02-10-2002, 11:31 PM
This is my review of Ciaffone and Brier's "Middle Limit Holdem Poker," for what it's worth, which is not much obviously, but I figure what the heck. I just finished reading this book the first time through this weekend.

What can I say, I really love this book. I think it is INVALUABLE for a hold 'em player. I have read all the "standards" like HPFAP, TOP, etc., and in my opinion if you are serious about hold 'em you would be foolish not to buy this book. As far as organization goes it is organized into the standard Preflop, Flop, Turn, and River sections, but as the authors point out, what separates this book from others is the huge volume (over 500) of practical examples they have for all of the sections and topics. for instance, they will have a chapter titled "Introduction to Flop Play," where they will go over their general thoughts and guidelines about flop play, but then after that have a few dozen "problems" or hold 'em hands illustrating their points, where you are asked what to do in a certain situation and then they give their answer for what they think you should do and their reasons behind it. As they point out, it is much more instructive to have concrete, specific examples illustrating a given strategy such as check raising, then to just be fed the strategy and some general comments about when and when not to implement it. That is what sets this book apart from others that I have read, the specific examples that they have. These make you think more about the proper strategy and force you to apply it. For me it also was rather humbling to realize how far I yet have to go. I would read one of their problems and think of what I thought was the right answer, and then after reading theirs wince and say, "son of a b****!" They consistently point out things that I did not even think of. This is a good way to chart your progress if you refer frequently to the book; their are too many examples to memorize the answers to all the problems, and as you get more accomplished you should notice that you tend to get a higher volume of answers correct. Conversely if you think you are hot stuff when you aren't, these "problems" can be pretty sobering. This book is very dense and has no illustrations of hands or cards, etc, it is all text. It is very much a textbook.

As far as weaknesses, though only thing that I can see people complaining about (aside from some minor strategy quibbling over a few of the answers to the hands they give), is that they tend to not gear it too much toward varying your play to your opponent. In the introduction they say that they assume opponents that play pretty typically, "our book is for the center, not the poles," I believe they say. This book is a comprehensive guide to strategy againts typical middle limit opponents as the authors' see them, not strategies against extreme players at either end of the spectrum. For specific strategy changes geared toward unusual opponents it is probably better to refer to HPFAP and Inside the Poker Mind. This book (Ciaffone/Brier book) is not concerned too much with the psychology of the game or reading opponents, it is concerned with other technique. There are no sections on psychology or reading opponents.

Perhaps this is because Ciaffone has said in the that his strength as a poker player is his knowledge of technique, and not his ability to read other players. This would certainly explain the approach of this book. My own opinion from watching others play is that many focus too much on the psychology and trying to read their opponents, when they have not even nailed down solid technical skills. I think this is like trying to run before you can walk. You can be a better than average reader but if you have lousy pre and post flop technical skills that is a problem. Reading that someone has you beat is not much help, you would have been better off if you would have known enough not to have been in the pot in the first place. But I digress. Anyway don't read this book thinking it will make you a better reader of other players, read it to improve and hone your technical skills. I have never read a poker book as comprehensive at doing that as this one.

As far as the inevitable comparisons to HPFAP goes, in my opinion (again not worth much of course, but it's just waht I think), these 2 books are on the same level. I think it is foolish to read one without the other though, as they cover the material in different ways that are both hugely insightful and compliment each other. What you can't find in one, I believe you can find in the other. I don't think you can have too many great books, and this one is definitely a must read if you are serious about hold 'em at all, no matter what limit you are playing at.


Tim

02-11-2002, 12:18 AM
Great review Tim. B.

02-11-2002, 10:56 AM
This is my review of your review.


It should be the forward to the book.


Well written.

02-11-2002, 11:35 AM
What about contradictions in technical play as is recommended in HPFAP? In other words is the advice presented pretty much the same, but with a lot of examples?

02-11-2002, 12:04 PM
Do you by any chance mean 'foreword'?

02-11-2002, 04:26 PM
Are you kidding me? You have nothing better to do than correct people's spelling?


Get a life dude.

02-11-2002, 08:56 PM
Are you kidding me? You have nothing better to do than to get annoyed over and ridicule someone correcting someone elses mistake?


Get a life dude.

02-12-2002, 02:42 AM
A lof of the advice may be the same, but it really differs in the emphasis that they put on certain bits of advice. They (Caiffone/Brier) say over and over again throughout the book, (paraphrasing) "You will find that the number one thing we harp on is altering your play to suit the number of opponents who you are in the pot with, in addition to the texture of the board." Boy, is this ever true. The have a whole chapter on playing overcards, where they have about 12 "problems" (examples/questions) where you raise with AK, flop nothing, and must decide what to do. Each example is a different variation on this theme (missing with AK), and they really slam home the point of it matters not so much what your position is in this situation, but how many opponents are in there with you (1 or 2, bet, 3 is a gray area, 4 or more never bet in general), and also this is modified somewhat by what cards are on the board (if there is a big card and two little cards on a rainbow flop it is a perfect steal flop, 2 suited flops are harder to steal, obviously connecting cards are even worse to steal off of, etc.). I know this seems obvious on the surface but how many of us will get AK in late position, miss on the flop, then bet anyway when 4 or 5 people check to us. Or the corollary, get it in early position, raise, have 2 people call, miss the flop, and even though it is rainbow and ragged, just check because "I'm in terrible position for God's sakes!" I think a lot of people would do these two things, especially the first. And they drive home the point that this is totally wrong. They are also not big fans of free card plays, preferring in general to only take a free card on the turn if you are in a multiway pot, but preferring to "fire another barrel" on the turn when checked to and up against only 1 or 2 opponents. Perhaps I am stating these philosophies wrong and I am certainly oversimplifying them. But the point is they really have huge emphasis on tailoring your play to the number of opponents in the pot with you and the texture of the board, and how this allows you to semibluff and steal pots where "classical poker theory" would mandate more conservative or less conservative strategy. They hammer away at these 2 concepts throughout the whole book. I see some of that in HPFAP, but not nearly the same emphasis. I do recall S&M stating that a good flop to steal on is when there is a flop with a K and two little cards, but there is not nearly the emphasis on this type of play as in the Ciaffone/Brier book. I am not saying this is not as good, just that these books are quite different and I think it is definitely not enough to just get one or the other and assume it is covering the same ground. Much of it is the same but the emphasis is very different and will thus highlight different areas of your game. I would definitely say that tailoring your play to the number of opponents in the pot is their number one point though throughout this book, they continually hammer this point home. Based on what I have observed in my own holdem games that I play in, people don't pay nearly as much attention to this as they should, nor the concept of "follow through betting" on the turn that Ciaffone advocates, when one or two opponents meekly call on the flop and then check to you on the turn. Where many texts advocate just checkign behind them on a blank for your free card, he really emphasizing firing another bet on the turn even if you get nothing, because most people will call on the cheap street (flop) and then fold on the turn if they don't have much and you show strength. Based on what I observe in my games, this is a concept that isn't utilized enough. Sorry this is so rambling but I have only read it once and those are my impressions on how it differs in its emphasis from HPFAP.


Tim

02-12-2002, 03:05 AM
boy Tim you nailed it

02-12-2002, 03:13 PM
Do you mean else's?

02-12-2002, 03:44 PM
Are you kidding me? You have nothing better to do than correct people's spelling?


Get a life dude.

02-12-2002, 11:16 PM
Good review. I agree, though I haven't finished the book yet. The amount of material in this book is perhaps the equivilent of HEFAP and TOP put together. Plus it is a very good complement to these books, providing so much specifics where those books do a good job on general topics.

02-13-2002, 01:42 AM
This is fun!

02-13-2002, 03:27 AM
I haven't read this book yet but it is on order. However, I will say that I am very interested in seeing their comments about How many players are in the pot. For me, this is one of the downfalls of the Sklansky book...it was not clear on correct strategy given the number of opponents in the pot.


For example, Sklansky recommends playing 65s and Axs in middle position in a typical game. In my experience these hands do not play well if there are no callers. They do say in a part of the text that suited connectors play better in multiway pots, but this is not shown clearly in their famous starting hand chart.


I think the Sklansky book is great and am looking for this new book. In the meantime, I am writing my own book (based on my experiences on the net) and hopefully sometime next year I will get as good as a review as this one! But unfortunately, my plan was to write a book in textbook format with Chapter reviews and "problems" and was going to focus a lot on number of opponents. Uh oh!

02-13-2002, 05:27 AM
"but this is not shown clearly in their famous starting hand chart."


This sort of thing comes up every now and then. All the chart tells you is what Group a hand is in. It is the 35 or so accompaning pages that tell you how to play the first two cards. Without the chart, the total of written pages would be much larger and more difficult to remember.

02-13-2002, 11:17 AM
Mason, as a newcomer to hold'em, I'm working my way through both the Sklansky "Hold'em" book and the Sklansky/Mason "Advanced" book. When a good (or very good) player such as yourself is playing, can I presume he/she is not thinking about his first two cards, "Hmm, a group 3 hand," but rather thinking, "Okay, this is KJs, and given that I'm in such-and-such position, in such-and-such a type of game, with so-and-so to my right having called the blind and so-and-so to my left still remaining to act, KJs can be played in X, Y, and Z ways, depending on how I want to play it here." In other words, the "groups" no longer come into the thought process, but are replaced by a sort of collective memory of the strength/preferences of a particular hand in its own right?


My reason for asking is that rather than memorize only your chart, I'm thinking of a different kind of memory aid: Putting all the hands onto individual flash cards, then on the back of the card writing down the group *plus* the additional information (as presented in the chapters that accompany the charts) on how this hand likes to play. Since in the end I'm going to need to know the hands with their individual characteristics in addition to relative strength, why not work on learning them that way right from the beginning? That's how I learned all those Latin nouns and verbs back in high school...

02-14-2002, 02:19 PM
Mason, your book has been invaluable to me. When I first started playing I read the book and used the starting hand chart as guidance. I then must have read the starting hand chapters about 10-15 times over and over. Each time I learned more and more and through experience I was able to understand better what I was reading. As I became more "advanced" I was able to apply the text much better to the starting hand chart.


As you have stated, the chart is for guidance and the book is for advanced players; however, newer players read the book and study it. I think that sometimes the chart can lead people down the wrong path at first if they don't have enough experience to digest the incredible amount of information in the text. The problem is when the text says that in middle position "you can play all hands in Groups 1-5". Well I wouldn't play 56s unless there were a couple of callers before me and I think there will be more callers. For me, this hand does not play profitably without callers. Now once I became more experienced I was able to apply some of the further text later on to the situation and not follow the Group 1-5 guideline as stated but it took a while before I understood this.


All of the correct information is there, it is just sometimes difficult to come to the correct solutions because of the way the text is written.


But your book saved me many dollars and a lot of time so I thank you. I just give it a 99 instead of a 100!

02-26-2002, 07:10 AM
whats to remember. if you know implied odds, reverse implied odds, domination, and position, then you pretty much know what to do.


brad