[zeitgeist]

Middle Limit Holdem turned my game around.

One of the criticisms I see often (particularly on 2+2) is that a lot of its advice is weak-tight. When I first started reading the book, I thought the same thing myself: Ciaffone & Brier seemed to be telling me to fold an awful lot and seemed to be worrying too much about opponents having superior hands.

But as I got into the book further, I realized that this criticism is unfair: Against 4 or more opponents, the default strategy is, indeed, often a passive one. But against 1 or 2 opponents, the default strategy is aggressive (3 opponents being a borderline situation). Of course, I'm oversimplifying here, but that's the recurring theme.

Well, when you're facing 4+ opponents, a lot of the time you have to lean toward the weak side of the ledger; the chances you are behind have just gone up.

In the games I play in, at least, the authors' philosophy has worked out well for me. Many a time I have been in one of the situations discussed in the book and have adhered to its advice and folded, then watched the hand play out to showdown and found out that I had been drawing dead, or had only 3 outs, or something similar. In the past I would have stuck it out to the river and spewed multiple bets in the process.

Other positive aspects of the book: (1) great analyses of whether your outs are tainted (a concept touched on in other poker books but not at the same level as here); (2) even if you don't agree with a given play the problem is still useful for thinking about what the right play is; (3) a straightforward and easy-to-understand writing style; and (4) content, content, content - no swaths of white space with big pictures of cards in them.

MLH isn't without its flaws, however. Often the results of the hand are revealed, which IMO isn't relevant to what the correct play is. Plus, the results always seem to validate the suggested play (unlike, say, in HOH, where the hero often makes the right play and still loses). But I think this is a minor quibble.

It may be that the games I presently frequent (2/4 on Paradise and 10/20 live) are the most fertile ground for MLH's approach, or that its conservative style fits with my own personality <shrug>. But I can't recommend the book highly enough - I genuinely hope no one else buys or reads it [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]