What's happening? About Ace Ace & Media Ace in Videos Rolf Blog & Columns Some Personal Stories Recent results Player of the Year 2008 Dutch Poker Champ 2005 Ace Speaks: Articles Cover Stories Vegas Voyage Tournament Reports Book & DVD Reviews Pocket Aces Ace & Poetry Travel ACE The Dutch Poker Police Potnopine Hold'em           Guestbook Ask Ace Poll Links Contact Ace   Matthew Hilger Texas Hold’em Odds and Probabilities Limit, No Limit, and Tournament Strategies $24.95 (6.0) A bit of a strange book. Whether it’s because of the rather old-fashioned lay-out or maybe because of other reasons, this book just didn’t invite me to start reading. And even after I had started, it didn’t invite me to continue reading. It took me well over three months to complete it – this despite the fact that the subject of the book, odds & probabilities, interests me a lot. But there were just too many things about the work that I didn’t like: · Too often the author correctly states the number of outs, but fails to adjust for the probable number of winning cards. For instance on page 60&61, a reasonable hand for our opponent to have / to give us action with would be Kx in spades – leaving us drawing to just 3 outs instead of the 12 that the author mentioned, and that he based his recommendations on. It needs to be said that he actually explains this concept of “partial / discounted outs” very well in the next chapter, in the key concept at page 65 – but he hadn’t said a word about it in the “Test Your Skills” section in the previous chapter. To be fair to the writer, the next chapter “Drawing in Limit Hold’em – Advanced Concepts” (pp. 63-80) is what I perceive to be the by far best chapter in the book. What I especially liked was the good emphasis of the impact that “closing the betting or not” can have when it comes to odds & probabilities, and to getting the proper price or not. · The book is unnecessary confusing. One hand is about $0.25-0.50 ring play against total donkeys, and then the next hand example discusses the middle phase in a sit’n’go, or even the play against top players at the $10,000 World Series Main Event. · The book has way too much promotion of the author’s own site, as if there are just no other good discussion forums around. Poker strategy books should not have all that many plugs IMO – especially not if equally good or even better products & sites are just not mentioned. · While the odds & probabilities tables in general seemed to be correct (even though I did not always find them relevant or even interesting), the actual discussions of hands and recommended plays are not at the same level. For instance, the hand example on page 143/144 seemed like a clear case of reraising all-in to me. Yet the author recommends just calling in order to keep the preflop raiser in, so you will get better odds on your draw. What he fails to take into account is that by doing this, you give your opponent the chance to simply call this flop raise, to then set you all-in once an apparent blank comes on the turn. In fact, he could even do this with just an AK, a logical hand for him to hold – and by doing this, he could bet you off a hand that with two cards to come, and in a multiway setting, would clearly have the correct odds to go all the way to the river. In fact, if you had simply put him all-in on the flop, there was no way he could have called you – and you would have been able to play against the two all-in players only, with a lot of dead money to go with it, for a very profitable situation. And even if he doesn’t fold, well then for the side pot your hand would almost certainly be a favorite against him with two cards to come, even if he would happen to have an overpair. Plus, if you just call on the flop and then on the turn you complete your draw, well then you might not get any action from your opponent anymore, whereas if you had moved in on the flop, you could have gotten his entire stack. And another example of what I judged to be poor advice was in the immediate next hand example, pp. 144/145. No need to raise in order to protect your hand IMO if – as in this situation – you are either terribly beat but if not (i.e., you are in front, playing against a drawing hand), you should know exactly which cards could beat you. So, making a big flop raise here is not something that I like. Even more so because you have position, and because by raising you are reopening the betting for your opponent. (Meaning he could now find many ways to negate for his bad position; heck, he could even be reraising you off the current best hand if he chooses to make a reraise with a big draw.) All in all, the book is not extremely bad or what. But it is just not at the same level as the author’s first book. And all these seemingly interesting hand examples from penny-stakes players just don’t offer enough interesting material for what has become the target audience of this author – the intermediate player who has already gone beyond these low-limit games that are being discussed here. David Apostolico Machiavellian Poker Strategy How to play like a prince and rule the poker table  $14.95   Mort Badiza-Degan Texas Hold’em Flop Types  $24.95   Bobby Baldwin Tales Out of Tulsa  $6.95   Michael J. 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