In no-limit hold ’em, should you always be willing to go all-in with the absolute nuts?

Well, yeah. You should be willing, that is. This doesn’t mean you should always do it; believe it or not, there are, in fact, some exceptions.

This concept and many more complex, layered strategies are covered in great and often mind-boggling detail in the new book “Professional No Limit Hold’em,” a must-have if you are a serious cash game player.

The book begins with the above example and this introduction alone serves as a fine primer to the abstract and thorough poker knowledge readers will glean as they continue to flip the pages.

So the story goes something like this: in a $.50/$1 game, you raise to $3 from late position with A-K of spades and get called by a tight player in the big blind. The flop comes out a seeming beautiful Q-J-10 with two hearts. The big blind checks and you bet $3. He raises to $10, and you, smugly holding the absolute nuts, re-raise to $30. Your opponent then takes a deep breath, stands up and forcefully pushes a mountainous stack of chips into the pot, making it $1 million to go. He announces “all-in” confidently to the dealer and you, with about $1 million of your own chips behind, are left with the decision.

Now what, hotshot? Let’s assume you know this player is so tight and so solid that he would not possibly be making a play here with two pair or even a set of queens. You have seen this player and know he will never risk his entire stack unless he has the best possible hand. You know he must have A-K as well. Even so, do you make the call?

Let’s make the question a tad easier. Say your opponent, in his excitement to get his $1 million in the pot, accidentally swiped his cards with one of his huge stacks of chips and inadvertently flips over the A-K of hearts.

In this situation, our authors state, this is a clear fold. Even though you hold the absolute nuts, your opponent has a re-draw to a better hand. He can’t possibly lose the hand, and you can. You must call $1 million into a pot in which you’ve only invested $30, and you cannot afford to give your opponent a $1 million free roll under any circumstances.

This is the type of top-notch, thinking-man’s info provided by Matt Flynn, Sunny Mehta and Ed Miller and, while this reviewer was not familiar with these names from their poker results or previous writings, it is clear that they know of what they speak. Their book caught my eye because it comes from Two Plus Two Publishing, the same home of writers that made David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth icons of poker theory.

Consider this work the equivalent of Sklansky’s “Theory of Poker” as it applies to the cash no-limit format – tournament strategy is not covered -- with updated concepts that most accurately reflect the way the game is played today.

As poker texts go, this not light reading meant for the beginner. The book is meant for already-serious players looking to take their game to a level that, before you read what they have to say, you might not have thought was possible. In short, “Professional No Limit Hold ’em” tries to educate you on how to handle every situation that will come up in poker, no matter how complex, before you are slapped in the face with it.

“Strong no-limit play means not getting caught by surprise,” the authors write in their conclusion. “There are only 52 cards in the deck. That’s few enough that you can have a plan for almost everything. If the flush card comes on the river and your opponent makes a big bet, you should have thought about what to do two streets earlier.”

This book prepares you for those decisions and more. Similar to Sklansky’s famous works, this text takes several, careful readings for one to fully grasp the concepts. Be prepared for intense teachings on theories that have simple acronyms but are poker’s equivalent of rocket science in their meanings. You’ll learn about the REM (range, equity, maximize) and SPR (stack-to-pot ratio) concepts and why they are invaluable to a professional player’s game.

If you’ve got the determination to be a better player and the patience to understand and learned layered and complex theories, then “Professional No Limit Hold ’em” is definitely worth the investment.

The scary part is that the authors state they are just scratching the surface, and they promise even more advanced Sklansky-like teachings in future sequels. But even if all you take is their introductory course, odds are you’ll be glad you did.