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Review of The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide

Just when it seemed good poker advice books were starting to run a little cold, Team Full Tilt gets them running hot again in one dynamic fell swoop.

The brand new “Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide” might as well be titled “Super System 3,” as the book features advice from an all-star ensemble of players you’ve probably been waiting to hear from; or at least, you should have been waiting to hear from. The group rivals, and arguably surpasses, the team Doyle Brunson put together for his classic “Super System” series.

While the original “Super System” was revolutionary and its sequel was a solid modern-day update, you will not find more useful poker information for your book-buying dollar than with the Full Tilt cast assembled by editor/writer Michael Craig, who authored the popular book “The Professor, the Banker and the Suicide King.”

If you think you’ve read just about every piece of poker advice available in various forms and words from the countless titles and authors available, well, think again. Literally. That’s what you’ll be doing when you absorb the priceless chapters from Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, Andy Bloch, Ted Forrest and others.

If you read Lederer’s chapters on the concepts of leverage and limit hold’em, you will become a better player. Period. The Professor of Poker’s literary debut probably was long overdue, and it doesn’t disappoint. If you’ve ever watched a poker broadcast in which he was the color analyst, you probably realize that Lederer has an innate gift for understanding the game on a cerebral level that might be unmatched among his peers. His writing is just as compelling.

Take his chapter on leverage, which essentially is the concept of gradually increasing bets from the flop to the river that exponentially challenge your opponent’s moxie to stay with the hand. He explains precisely the value and importance of understanding this skill, how to implement and defend against it, and how to incorporate it into all aspects of your game.

The precious advice ends with an even more intriguing conclusion. Lederer writes, “Between players who know how to use leverage, you are playing chicken. You and your expert opponent are driving toward each other, and the loser may be the one to turn away first. But you have to do it at low speed.”

So, where have you heard that before? You haven’t. Nor have you heard the genius behind the elaborate poker persona created by Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, whose results and gaudy get-up tend to speak for him more loudly and more often than he actually does. But when he does speak, you should listen. His chapter on post-flop play is by far the best text ever penned on the subject, as he takes readers through a variety of flops for a particular starting hand and explains the play he likely would make for each situation. It’s world-class stuff.

What’s more, the primary strength of the Full Tilt book is that, even though it’s presented as a collaborative effort, it lets each individual author share advice that best works for him. So while you will sometimes read conflicting advice as you turn the pages, the purpose is to let you soak it all in and decide what works best for your style.

In addition to the must-read chapters by Lederer and Ferguson, the book features other valuable chapters such as ones written by Andy Bloch, the MIT-educated blackjack wizard who adroitly explains a multi-leveled analysis of the game’s mathematical concepts; Gavin Smith, who tries to teach you the wisdom and benefit of his maniacal play; noted poker author Phil Gordon, who offers an excellent lesson on short-stack play and Ted Forrest, whose well-documented unorthodox style was the motivation for naming the chapter he penned “(Don’t) play like Ted Forrest.”

Pleasant surprises include a clever and informative piece from Rafe Furst on the psychology of the game, and a dead-on analysis of online poker players and their tendencies from Microsoft-nerd-turned-poker-geek Richard Brodie.

But everything beyond the Lederer and Ferguson chapters is tantamount to a free add-on to go with your buy-in. And if you’re a serious player, or strive to become one, the Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide offers chips of wisdom that you’d be foolish to pass up.

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"good review"



Posted September 18, 2007 by bsidensol
I've heard there's some good stuff from Matusow in the book too.
 

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