Re: Doyle Brunson\'s Style of Playing No Limit
Dave, I have read the no-limit section of SS several times, and believe it would be impossible to emulate Doyle's play just from reading it. There are simply too many subtleties to an NL poker strategy that could not be conveyed in a single chapter of a book; it tries to condense the essence of his style, and does a pretty good job of that.
A couple of reasons Doyle's method must be modified to work properly at the online game:
1) Antes. Remember the saying about Broomkorn's Uncle? Well, he WOULDN'T get anted to death, because there are no antes in most online NL Hold 'Em games. This removes a vital element of Doyle's preflop strategy, and heavily tilts the action towards post-flop play. Simply put, there is much less dead money to fight over in each pot.
2) Reads. A much higher percentage of the data one gathers to base one's reads on in the online game are bet-related (i.e. a player's bets, calls, and raises are used to get a read on his hand), as opposed to all the visual and audio input of a live game. Doyle happened to be very good at this, and this was a vital part of his game. This aided him in honing his aggression, and focusing it when he detected weakness.
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