Product Description

No limit hold em is exploding in popularity. Before 2000, it could be difficult to find a game. In 2006, it is played everywhere in casino cardrooms, in bar backrooms and homes, and on the Internet.

Now anyone can find a game, but few know how to play well. Most players learn by watching television or by listening to dubious advice from their friends. While they may have picked up a valuable tidbit here or there, most players come to the table without a winning plan. These players have two options: wise up or go broke.

The world s foremost poker theorist, David Sklansky, and noted poker authority, Ed Miller, will wise you up quickly. No Limit Hold em: Theory and Practice is the definitive work on this complex game. It provides you a window into the heads of experts, teaching you in straightforward and enjoyable terms the how s and why s of winning play.

It covers critical concepts like manipulating the pot size, adjusting correctly to stack sizes, winning the battle of mistakes, reading hands, and manipulating opponents into playing badly. It teaches you about implied odds and how to size your bets and raises effectively. It even covers many principles of short stacked play that will give you a big edge in no limit hold em tournaments.

Never before have so many people played no limit hold em, and never before has there been so much opportunity to win big. If you want your share of the spoils, read this book!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13519 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 310 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781880685372
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
David Sklansky is generally considered the number one authority on gambling in the world today. Besides his twelve books on the subject, David also has produced two videos and numerous writings for various gaming publications.

More recently David has been doing consulting work for casinos and gaming companies. He has recently invented several casino games including Hold em Challenge and All In Hold em.

David attributes his standing in the gambling community to three facts:
1. The fact that he presents his ideas as simply as possible (sometimes with Mason Malmuth) even though these ideas frequently involve concepts that are deep, subtle, and not to be found elsewhere.
2. The fact that what he articulates can be counted on to be accurate.
3. The fact that for many years a large portion of his income was derived from gambling (usually poker, but occasionally blackjack, sports betting, horses, video games, casino promotions, or casino tournaments).
There is little doubt that the majority of the successful poker players today attribute a great deal of their success to reading and studying David s books.

Customer Reviews

Two Plus Two does it again!!!
I started playing poker 4 years ago. I've read over 40 poker books in order to improve my understanding of the games well enough to become a top player. I've been playing full-time as a pro for almost 2 years now and I have to say that the best poker books on the market are nearly always by Two Plus Two Publishing and this book is no exception!!!

This book is THE DEFINITIVE work on NL Hold'em. Because NL Hold'em strategy can require big adjustments even when the game changes only slightly it makes correct NL strategy very complicated and difficult to write about. This book will teach you about what sort of things you need to think about when certain situations occur. And for those of you who seek solid mathematical evidence for why certain plays are correct and others are not, Sklansky and Miller won't let you down.

As for the other reviews (the two who gave the book 3 stars), I'm not sure what they were thinking. Perhaps they were wanting a simple cookie cutter strategy (do this with this hand, do that with that hand, and you will be a winner!). Sklansky teaches you how to think like a pro. Sklansky's books aren't the most entertaining...in fact, they can sometimes be a difficult read filled with math, theory, and other complicated material. But the truth is that poker strategy books aren't meant to entertain. Poker is complicated and if you really want solid advice and you really want to be a winner then Two Plus Two is what you need. Also, I'm not sure about Poker for Dummies...I hear that it is surprisingly solid and I believe it because Lou gives solid advice in his other books, but as far as Hellmuth's Play Like the Pros...I know many solid players and we all agree that it is the worst piece of garbage that we've ever read. I bought it, read it, read it again later hoping that it would make more sense the second time, then I threw it in the garbage. A friend asked if he could have it and I told him that, "as a friend, I couldn't." It is that bad, and for the reviewer that gave NLH: Theory and Practice 3-stars but said Hellmuth's book was better...well, I think everybody should desregard that review.

Sklansky delivers again...
Those of us who have been playing and studying poker for years know what huge contributions David Sklansky has made to poker and this book is no exception.

No limit holdem had all but disappeared(except for tournament play) until about three or four years ago and any one playing today understands the explosion in poker is primarily centered around no limit holdem. Many veteran players like myself have tried to adopt and adapt a solid limit approach to no limit and achieved mixed results. Often the mixed results have left us wondering if were are getting better or just experiencing a good run. This book will help you think about and understand the game better than most of the previously published no limit material.

Many of the "greats" that we have come to know play and teach the game through their own experience and developed "feel" for the game, which is nearly impossible to teach. By learning the underlying theory of no limit holdem as taught by Sklansky, the student comes to understand how "situational" especially no limit is and how to think about the game in numerous situations. Those players willing to study this book will accelerate past the players who are primarily playing an adapted limit game or by trial and error. I have already expanded my approach and thinking process after only one reading and am eager to re-read it after a few more sessions of play. Highly recommended.

Their credentials in math & Limit mask their shortcomings in NL holdem.
Stick with 2+2's other NL books by Harrington (vol 2 & 3). Ed Miller and David Sklansky show their inexperience in NL in this book. They do mask their No-Limit shortcomings by filling a lot of the book with Limit Holdem analogies (their strength) and a lot of mathematics (another strength).

Sklansky is the son of a mathematician, and Ed Miller is an MIT graduate. Their strength is in mathematics, and they excel in Limit Holdem due to it. However in No-Limit, they have no qualifications. Sklansky isn't known as a good NL player (the next time I see him in a WSOP NL final table will the first time), and Ed Miller doesn't even frequent the middle-stake games. How much stock would you put into someone else's limit holdem advice if they don't play higher than 10/20 holdem? It's like that guy who's playing 3/6 holdem with you, but he acts like everything spewed from his mouth is a blessing for those lucky enough to hear. Except with these authors, they actually do have credentials from another form of poker, so many people will assume, they also are an authority on other forms of poker. Would you take tennis lessons from a good ping pong player?

They make a lot of observations about NL situations with math, but they don't actually give out a game plan of how to logically think through a hand the way a pro does. They fill the book with these types of situations:
Assume he has these hands: 99, AT, T9s, and if the pot has this much money ($500) and you have $1000 left, and opponent has $1000 left, then the following bets will net you X%, depending on how frequently they call Y% or they raise you back Z%. Then they proceed with the math to explain each possibility. Of course, they don't actually go over many hand reading situations to explain which hand the opponent may have and how they would play it. It doesn't help to know which move to make, if I can't deduce what hands he has, and that should be the focus of any quality poker book, which 2+2 claims to produce. This one falls short, and it's due to the authors' lack of NL ability.

This book's strength is that it shows why certain plays are mathetmatically correct. That doesn't mean, you can't take those conclusions, and figure out the correct play to make.

For example: If you have AK and you raise, then if our opponent raises with KK, we can use math to show why it's correct to fold. That doesn't help me if I raise with AK, and my opponent raises me, sometimes I should raise again, sometimes call, sometimes fold. I don't know he has KK or AQ or 87, so how's the math help me now? It doesn't. This is a very simple example for those who play small stakes or are new to poker. But this is the best example in summarizing this book.