Mason Malmuth
02-11-2004, 02:47 AM
Flop: The Art of Winning at Low-Limit Hold ’em (3) by Richard Burke. The author of this book is a low-limit player who clearly plays too loose and too aggressive. From reading this text, my impression is that Burke is attempting to justify his poor play. For example, he advices calling with and king suited and any queen suited from middle position in unraised pots. The reason I don’t rate the book lower is that there is discussion on player types and game types, similar to what appears in Schoonmaker’s The Psychology of Poker, that some readers might find interesting.
Championship Satellite Strategy; How to Turn a Toothpick into a Lumberyard (7) by Tom McEvoy and Brad Daugherty. This is easily the best book that McEvoy is associated with. The writing is more concise, doesn’t stray from the subject at hand, and the constant self aggrandizement is gone. In addition, the advice is tight-aggressive as opposed to weak-tight which permeates much of his other writings.
The book does have a significant flaw. The authors seem to have very little awareness that in tournaments where more than one place is paid, the “chips change value.” For example, Daugherty does talk about sometimes playing your hands differently in a super satellite because you are playing for a “seat” as opposed to all the chips — he even gives an example of when it would be correct to fold a pair of aces before the flop. But in their discussion of one table satellites they don’t seem to be aware of this concept and don’t address the value of sneaking into second (or third) place when more than one prize is given.
Another error is that the authors are too results oriented. (This may have something to do with the fact that authors are always discussing specific hands instead of the underlying concepts that govern play.) For example, Daugherty tells about a hand late in a no limit tournament where he held ace-queen and bet half his chips only to get put all-in by another player with ace-jack and of course a jack flopped. His conclusion was that if he would have bet all his chips this “bad beat” would not have happened since the player with the ace-jack would have probably folded. However, even late in a tournament, you should still usually want to play your ace-queen against an ace-jack since the first hand is such a big favorite over the second. The situation would have to be very extreme for this not to be correct.
In spite of the above, I can recommend this book with reservations. If you are new to these type of tournaments and keep the above errors in mind, this text should be worthwhile.
Championship Satellite Strategy; How to Turn a Toothpick into a Lumberyard (7) by Tom McEvoy and Brad Daugherty. This is easily the best book that McEvoy is associated with. The writing is more concise, doesn’t stray from the subject at hand, and the constant self aggrandizement is gone. In addition, the advice is tight-aggressive as opposed to weak-tight which permeates much of his other writings.
The book does have a significant flaw. The authors seem to have very little awareness that in tournaments where more than one place is paid, the “chips change value.” For example, Daugherty does talk about sometimes playing your hands differently in a super satellite because you are playing for a “seat” as opposed to all the chips — he even gives an example of when it would be correct to fold a pair of aces before the flop. But in their discussion of one table satellites they don’t seem to be aware of this concept and don’t address the value of sneaking into second (or third) place when more than one prize is given.
Another error is that the authors are too results oriented. (This may have something to do with the fact that authors are always discussing specific hands instead of the underlying concepts that govern play.) For example, Daugherty tells about a hand late in a no limit tournament where he held ace-queen and bet half his chips only to get put all-in by another player with ace-jack and of course a jack flopped. His conclusion was that if he would have bet all his chips this “bad beat” would not have happened since the player with the ace-jack would have probably folded. However, even late in a tournament, you should still usually want to play your ace-queen against an ace-jack since the first hand is such a big favorite over the second. The situation would have to be very extreme for this not to be correct.
In spite of the above, I can recommend this book with reservations. If you are new to these type of tournaments and keep the above errors in mind, this text should be worthwhile.