Seeing Phil Hellmuth Jr. in the crosshairs has probably been a dream of a lot of his opponents. Trying to defeat him has been a nightmare.

Seasoned no-limit hold’em tournament veterans Lee Nelson and Blair Rodman satisfy both visions in “Kill Phil,” a strategy book whose title and cover art play off a movie series of a similar name. The cover shows the target squarely on the Poker Brat, who was a good enough sport about it to write the book’s foreword.

“Kill Phil” is aimed at giving beginning and intermediate players their best chance against Hellmuth and like-minded post-flop masters, whose skill advantage over their less accomplished counterparts becomes more pronounced with each turn of a card in a heads-up pot against their inferior opponents.

These players use position, creativity and pressure to outmaneuver their opponents. They play a lot of hands and, as the authors accurately state in the book’s early pages, “These guys are hard to get rid of on the flop.” Defining them as “new school” players such as Daniel Negreanu and Gus Hansen, they play a variety of starting hands and it’s nearly impossible to know where you stand in a hand against them. Say you flop top pair and bet the flop and turn … and they call. Now, the river brings a third spade and a card that fills a possible straight. You check and they bet. Big. Now, what?

“Kill Phil” is a survivalist’s guide to avoiding such quandaries by applying as much pre-flop pressure as possible, sometimes to the point of moving all-in, even in the early stages of a tournament. However, this tactic is only advocated for extreme novices. The real benefit of the “Kill Phil” strategy comes from learning its advanced strategies, which can give an intermediate to pretty solid player a level playing field at a tournament table against formidable professional opponents.

The strategy isn’t exactly a novel idea, which the authors acknowledge by giving credit where it’s due for the foundation of “Kill Phil.” The originator was poker strategy icon David Sklansky, who a few years ago brought the extremely volatile all-in or fold pre-flop concept to light in a tournament strategy book. Sklansky was asked by a friend to come up with a strategy for the friend’s daughter in the WSOP Main Event. Problem was, the daughter had never played poker before.

With only a couple of days to prepare, Sklansky prepped the student by coaching her to move all-in pre-flop based on the strength of certain starting hands, her position and whether there had been a raise. He kept it extremely simple, figuring the approach was his pupil’s best chance for survival. While his student eventually ran into A-A and busted out not too far along in the tournament, Sklansky was fascinated with the basic premise of the strategy, and he openly encouraged readers to build on it.

That’s essentially what Nelson and Rodman have done, revising Sklansky’s term paper into a master’s thesis of sorts. “Kill Phil” teaches players the basic premise of its approach in the early chapters, then hones and refines the technique with useful post-flop approaches in the KP Basic Plus and KP Expert chapters.

In short, “Kill Phil” encourages you to swing for the fences when you have the best of it, whether it’s pre- or post-flop, and having the courage it takes to do so. For instance, say you flop top pair and your opponent, who you suspect is on a flush draw, raises. “Kill Phil” says you should move all-in … now. Of course, doing so can be risky. If you’re opponent flopped a set, you are toast. But if you’re read is correct, you have aptly turned the table on your otherwise clever opponent and forced him to a decision for all HIS chips. Sometimes, the best defense against a great player is a good offense, and “Kill Phil” provides the playbook.

If you doubt whether the strategy works, look no further than co-author Lee “Final Table” Nelson. He put on a brilliant display of “Kill Phil” tactics in their most advanced and relentless form on his way to the 2006 Aussie Millions title. Nelson carved up the competition with bold raises and re-raises, took a chip lead to the final table and never looked back. If you are curious about seeing the KP machine in action, try to catch some replays of the 2006 Aussie Millions on Fox Sports.

If you want to see it backfire, watch Nelson in this year’s Aussie Millions. After advancing fairly deep in the tournament again, Nelson pushed in post-flop with a king-high flush draw with a paired board and was called instantly by eventual-champion Gus Hansen’s trip queens.

Both examples prove that KP strategy is indeed high-risk, but can come with high rewards. If you’re willing to go broke and perhaps anger a few pros at your table, “Kill Phil” can be a deadly weapon in your arsenal.