Opinions on Champ. No-limit & Pot-limit HE by Cloutier & McEvoy?

[Oblivious]

Hey guys. I went by boarders today and got this book on impulse. Anyone have any opinions on it? It looks like the first edition was published in 97. Does anyone think its outdated?

[JTG51]

Try the search function. Pretty much any book that's been around for a while has been discussed many times and is likely to have a review by Mason posted somewhere here.

[BigBiceps]

I read the book and I thought it was more or less worthless.

Alot of the book is about his "stories" in the poker world and not about strategy.

He also doesn't always differentiate between tournament play and live play, although it seems to be mostly tournament play.

His practice hands are almost all AA, AK and KK. I don't think these are the hardest hands to play, although some of the AK examples were slightly useful.

The book has very little in it despite the number of pages. The pages are small, the font is big and the chapters are short adding whitespace. I think that the average THREAD on this forum has more information than that entire book.

It only cost $21 so I will not waste time returning it.

[ewile]

I recently bought it to try to get some basic footing in terms of tournament play (32 bucks!) and IMO there's nothing there. I found myself almost as unprepared to play tournaments after reading it as before.
There's very little of substance. Lots of stories.

[Aceshigh7]

I think it's probably the best book on NL there is.

[Stew]

[ QUOTE ]
I think it's probably the best book on NL there is.

[/ QUOTE ]

You may be the only one. I haven't read this book, but there is no way it is better than Reuben/Ciaffone's book and that's an opinion that I've consistently heard.

[Mason Malmuth]

Championship No-Limit & Pot-Limit Hold ’em by T. J. Cloutier with Tom McEvoy (6). This book covers some of the same material that the Reuben, Ciaffone book does, but not at the same level of detail. Even so, Cloutier does a reasonably good job of discussing many topics. These include starting hands, play on the flop, turn and river, and reading your opponents. He also gives pretty good advice on how to play in no-limit and pot-limit tournaments.

I do however have several complaints about the book, and because of this, I do not rate it higher. First, there are too many stories about T.J. Cloutier as well as other filler material. Second, the authors need to learn that six-five suited is really a better hand than six-five offsuit, and that the “bunching factor” has virtually no effect in hold ’em. And third, I strongly disagree with the constant reminders that no-limit or pot-limit is more difficult than limit play. I believe the opposite is true. In fact, the best part of the book are the sample no-limit hands at the back of the text. What is interesting is that virtually everyone of these hands would be more difficult to analyze and play correctly if it were limit play.

[King Yao]

[ QUOTE ]
....and that the “bunching factor” has virtually no effect in hold ’em.


[/ QUOTE ]

pardon my ignorance, what does the "bunching factor" refer to?

[thirddan]

Dan Kimberg had an article about it in cardplayer a while ago...you can check the archives there...Has to do with the idea that there will be more good hands in LP if everyone in EP/MP folds (something like that)...

[King Yao]

thanks, i'll go take a look