Review of Kng Yao's "Weighing the Odds in Hold'em Poker"

[fnord_too]

Well, I finally finished reading this book. Here are my thoughts:

One line summary: Great book that focuses on quantitative analysis.

Who is this book for? This book is for everyone except rank beginners (who IMO benefit more from a formulaic book until they have the mechanics of the game down and some understanding of the basic game). People who already do a lot of mathematical EV analysis of situations probably won't get too much from the book, either, but they still may pick up a trick or two and see some specific analyses they have not explicitly performed.

What does the book cover? Primarily, it covers the propper play of hands based on expected value. It goes into the math around specific situations, and shows how different assumptions impacts expected value. Where other books use more qualitative analysis, or do one or two generic EV calculations and then just give advice based on analysis that is not shown, Yao does the math for almost every hand studied and general situation discussed. Also, there is an nice short handed section, which is about the longest, most detailed discussion of shorthanded play you will find outside the shorthanded forum on these boards. (Yao posts frequently in that forum, so you can get a good feel for the type of math and discussion that is in the book by reading his posts.)

Who will this book help most? Newer, mathematically minded players will probably benefit most from this book. If you are new to the game, but prefer mathematical analysis, this book will give you a lot of good examples, which will reduce the time it takes to develop one's own analytic framework for the game. Also, vetrans who don't do a lot of mathematical analysis but rely, however succesfully, on qualitative analysis will benefit greatly from this book. It is my strong oppinion that a lot of good players just don't know where to start when analyzing the EV of different plays, and end up with very fuzzy results. In many cases they will come up with the same answer, but the more marginal the decision, the more likely a minor mistake will be made.

Over all, I think this is the best book on the technical side of the game I have read. Yao is certainly well versed in poker literature, and cites many works in the text. I really wish I had this book when I was starting out.

I would love to see Yao publish some more books, but, alas, from other posts that is not likely in the next couple years. I would say this is a must have.