I picked up Professional No Limit Hold’Em Vol. I by Matt Flynn, Sunny Mehta, and Ed Miller. It just came out over the past couple weeks. I’ve gotten through the first couple chapters, but those are just the basics (pot odds, implied odds), so I don’t have any real comments about the book yet.

Well, I guess I have a couple comments. Do we really need an explanation of pot odds and implied odds in any more books? Every book seems to start out with that. At least they didn’t start with ‘Hold’em is a community card game where each player gets 2 cards, and they share 5 cards on the board, blah blah blah’. It just seems like filler.

In addition, while I generally like the 2+2 books, lately it seems like they are getting thinner, the fonts are getting larger, and the spacing is getting further and further apart. Honestly, I’m wondering how much info can really be in this book. The concepts better be pretty good, because there is an awful lot of big type, and an awful lot of pages used for acknowledgements in the front, and summaries at the end of each chapter. I feel like I’m getting fleeced.

I had a small giftcard for a book shop, I bought “Killer Poker Online 2″ by John Vorhaus. I’ve skimmed some of his other books, and thought I might like this one. I’m trying to make it a point not to read any more Sklansky for a while – I want to get some other people’s opinions and maybe focus more on playing the players and not just focusing on implied odds and the EV of a semibluff with 14 outs.

I still think Sklansky and Miller’s “No Limit Holdem: Theory and Practice” is the best poker book I’ve read for NLHE, but at this point, I don’t even know if I care whether or not I agree with the authors of the books I read, I’m just looking for different opinions to broaden my horizons and review my approach to the game.

My approach lately has been very weak-tight. Most of it is just due to the fact that microstakes players can’t fold. An all-in semi-bluff at a cash game with 14 outs on the flop is a +EV move with fold equity. However, you have no fold equity with most of these players, so really, it’s just barely +EV, no different than pushing 66 vs. AK preflop, so you can make the move, but there’s no real value in it – you’re just looking to get lucky on coinflips. With my smaller bankroll, I’m not really looking to play coinflips all night.

Most of the books advocate moves like this, but they just don’t seem to work for me at these stakes. I’m sticking to this wacky weak-tight longball style of pot-sized value bets with very good hands and folding most of my other hands when I get played back at, and bluffing or semi-bluffing very infrequently. My earn rate isn’t what I’d like it to be, but I’m failing to see a lot of benefit from book recommended moves like using position to take hands away. You just get called on the river when you make that potsized bet when you missed your draw and the guy turns over bottom pair.

I can’t say it makes me happy about my winrate though, I’m around 4 PTBB/100 at .05/.10, which is awful. I would think I’d be able to make about 10 PTBB/100, but I think I’m letting people take too many pots away. At the same time, I’m not getting respect for any big bets. The only nice thing about it is that I’m getting paid off for set mining, although they don’t come around enough.

I think I do a decent job of reading my opponents, especially with the HUD up. The problem is that I lean toward believing they can’t let a hand go, which is true, so when I miss with my preflop raises of AK, AQ and small pairs, I end up having to give up on the hand. Doesn’t do much for the winrate waiting to hit your hands.

I guess I’m trying to decide whether to tighten up even more (to around 15% of hands played) and pressing more, or loosening up more, and trying to play back at the LAGtards. Every time I try to loosen up in position, I just give away more money, so I don’t think it’s the right approach. I do feel like I have to play about 20% of hands in order to get called on my big hands, but that contradicts everything I’ve just said about not having fold equity and no one folding.

Maybe these players are better than I give them credit for, and they’re just doing a better job of hand reading than I am, but I don’t think so.

Sorry for blabbering.

Well, I looked for http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Poker-Essential-Playing-Living/dp/0976595788/ref=sr_1_1/104-9597456-2076758?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180547252&sr=1-1 but picked up http://www.amazon.com/Full-Tilt-Poker-Strategy-Guide/dp/0446698601/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-9597456-2076758?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180547151&sr=8-1 instead, because I couldn’t find the Mark Blade book at a B&M store and I don’t think Amazon would get me the book on time.

I got some info from a guy that plays regularly at the casino I hope to spend some time at while on vacation next week, and he says they have MTTs with buyins between 50-100 daily, and mostly 1/2 and 2/5 NL ring. My mom is more comfortable playing MTTs, we’ll probably play one, so hopefully this book won’t wreck my tourney game in the next week or so. I took a quick peek at the tourney structures, and they seem ridiculous – they might as well call them ‘live turbos’ because they blinds go up sick fast, so it will be a luckfest, but whatever, I think I have have a really solid shortstack game.

I’m going to be playing on the cheap, so I may have enough for a tourney buyin and a $100 ring buyin, and that will be about it. I haven’t played live in several months, so it should be fun, and with the slow pace of one table instead of 4, I’ll play more of a feel game. I’ll probably re-read http://www.amazon.com/Caros-Book-Poker-Tells-Mike/dp/1580420826/ref=sr_1_1/104-9597456-2076758?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180547704&sr=1-1 while I’m at it.

I’m really fired up for vacation, and not just to play poker. It’s going to be great to grill some good food, sit outside a quiet cottage, enjoy the sun, read a book, relax, and chill.