NLHE Book Reviews  From twoplustwo poster Barracuda: "If there’s one thing that this book gave me apart from the obvious, it was confidence. A confidence about hold em which i had never experienced before. I have read pretty much read every published book on strategy from Sklansky to Harrington, Brunson to Negreanu. All of them teaching me very important and valid things. However what i did not get from them was the thought process that Tri’s book gave me. For me that was the key to the opening up of my game. The thought process. From the beginning of the hand to the end and not in some vague cliche way but one that is progressive and adapts to todays ever changing game. Something that one cannot do with this book and it must be emphasised is give it a quick read through learn some ‘plays’ and think ‘right so my winrate should increase with this new found knowledge’. That (i think) will not happen. What happened to me was an exciting new journey of trial and error but not the same as before. Now it was with a feeling of purpose. What amazes me when i visit forums is that i often here the cry out from the regulars of ‘what happens when all the fish go’ or ‘the games are getting tougher’. Then i read some of their synopsis’ of hands that they played and i just cannot believe how far away from playing good poker they are. There is an obssession from regulars about playing solid poker whilst they play 100+tables. What this book teaches you is how to adapt (not a solid approach), that really although it doesnt explicitly say it, there is only the right play for a specific situation and that every situation is different and more importantly every fish is different. I am not naturally inclined towards maths but i have to be honest and say i found the chapters surrounding combinatorics enlightening. As i write this i am struggling because i truly do not want my competition to be reading it however i feel they should understand and be aware of such a book existing. I, like many others, was a member of many training sites. However since i bought the book i have left all but one of the sites as i do not find them necessary since reading the book. This may sound niave because knowledge is power and training sites keep up to date but i feel that the knowledge this book has given me will be suffiecent to be able to constantly adapt to my opponents game. Any cynical reader who finds this article too unbelievably positive can pass any questions through Tri to me at the DV website and i will be happy to answer any questions. I have purposefully not got into too many details with the actual book as i do not think it is necessary with the review. Finally all i will say is if you are genuinely serious about improving your winrate but ultimately more importantly your poker mind i strongly recommend you buy this book . From CardRunners coach/video maker SixPeppers: "Cole South and Tri Nguyen wrote a rather expensive book that has been slowly moving its way into the minds of good online poker players. The book - Let There Be Range - costs $1800 and can only be read online, so the most important question is: Is it worth it? This obviously depends on who you are. First of all you actually have to have $1800 to invest (and ironically I think the people that need this book the most, don't). Then you need to have a pretty good fundamental understanding of the game. This book talks to you the way two high stakes pro's would talk to each other about a hand they played at 25/50. Examples of this are the frequent references to "Finding Break-Even Folding Frequency," "Polorized Ranges," "Card Removal" and "Re-re-bluffing." I think the book is worth it for anyone who intends to play 5/10+ at some point in their lives. Even if you think it will be a year or more to get to that level, and you have to cut your bankroll in half to get the book, I would recommend it. This is the type of book that has to be in any good players library. Their is a lot of information in this book that has never been discussed in a book before. However, it is the kind of stuff you discuss alot with your poker friends. Obviously the book is centered around hand ranges, which is what all of poker is really centered around. Isn't it funny that all the other poker books ever written don't even focus directly on one of the only concepts that truly matters in the game. For me I have had my fair share of hand range talk and how or why I should bluff or vbet thin etc. This book does a good job refreshing some of those concepts in my mind and honestly the first half of the book probably was more of a refresher than a huge learning experience. Being able to reconnect with some of the things I already knew but drifted away from is quite important. Just like when you start to play poorly because you are tilting, if you don't have a well written piece of literature or a friend or a forum reminding you how and why you do the things you do, you just start drifting into a meh autopilot of a poker player and your winrate slumps. Invaluable things I picked up from the book: Bluff and Bluff raise the river more frequently - For a while I thought the book should be called "Bluff The River" just because it tries to nail this concept in you and it gives great examples of when and how and why. "don't turn your hand into a bluff" goes out the window - this concept really, especially recently, has been scaring me off of making bluffs and I have basically just been giving up on pots. Let's all forget this concept and use hand ranges to determine why we should bluff (a duh so simple why didn't I think of that). Card Removal is the shizzle - this kind of goes along with turning your hand into a bluff. If you have paired with the board, you can lower the frequency of hands your opponent may have and can use this to your advantage. Don't get carried away cuz I said this here, reading the book will really help you nail this concept down (and alot of practice). Less Tables really means Higher bb/100 - I like to play alot of tables, and I make a good amount of money doing it. But I am autopiloting and not getting better. This book helped me realize that focusing on recognizing unique situations and optimizing every spot to my fullest potential will a) help autopiloting in the future include near perfect play, and b) allow me to play in some of the tougher, higher stakes games. Getting Caught Bluffing could be the best thing that could happen to you - if you aren't getting caught bluffing then you are not bluffing enough. All that matters when making a good bluff is whether your opponent has enough hands in his range that he folds some easily calculateable % of the time (based on your bet size and the pot size). Also getting caught bluffing is great for your image and gets you paid down the road. People have selective memory - everyone is a victim of this, especially nonpoker players. But its more important that poker players recognize this and use it to their advantage. It doesn't matter if your bluff gets picked off, just analyze the situation and prove to yourself that its a good bluff. Of course some times you will run into the top of their range. The bad players (me included) are the ones remembering when the bluff didn't work and strongly (sometimes subconsciously but still quite strongly) thinking, "Oh, well I'm not gonna bluff in that spot again." This is absolutely wrong and you must change your thoughts now or perish. Also know that most of your opponents are thinking selectively and adjust accordingly. Combinatorics is a word - wtf!?! - wiki quote, "Combinatorics is a branch of pure mathematics concerning the study of discrete (and usually finite) objects." Overall the book would have been more helpful to me about a year ago, but still will help to boost my winrate by at least $20/hr (meaning if I had bought the book I would make the money back in a couple months). Also the book really helps me to know where I can study on my own and how to best do it. If you are a low-midstakes grinder and proven winner, and can afford it, get the book!"From LeggoPoker coach/video maker Clayton: "In this blog entry I'm gonna talk a little bit about the e-book currently on the internet market written by Tri "SlowHabit" Nguyen and Cole "CTS" South being offered on http://dailyvariance.com/. I assume that after I write this review some changes will come about with the book (some re-editing) so some things I critique may no longer be an issue once you have purchased your copy (if you choose to do so). For those wondering why I worded my title the way I did, I made it so someone reading from the main page of the website could see that I was reviewing this particular book and not any book. I only get enough room :P Regarding price, as the site says: "The cost is $1850 and you can pay by site transfer / MoneyBookers / PayPal / cashier check. If you are unsure whether the book is worth it, you can buy the 1st half for $850 and the 2nd half for $1150; we are confident you will come back for the 2nd half." The e-book is 80 pages long and covers a very wide array of topics with regard to no limit. I think seriously studying this book and taking in everything it has to offer will definitely help one's NL game drastically. The book is chock-full of information that has personally helped my NL game a good deal. 20 chapters are covered, and although they dont exactly progress linearly (Its more a smattering of topics) the information in this book is way better than any other poker book that I have read (but note that there are some other e-books out there I haven't gotten my hands on). Furthermore, the information was presented in a way that made it pretty easy for me to understand, which other books typically fail on (Sklansky's NLTP, Chen's Math of Poker). As far as topics go, the book addresses almost every relevant aspect of poker theory, but it's mostly ingrained in 6-max NLHE examples. It doesn't get into specific topics on certain types of games or play (like how to play HU), but rather the range-based math and thought processes that lead a player to make the best reads and plays in any kind of poker game. This mostly means the optimal ways to play against certain player types in and out of position, on what kinds of flop textures, in 3-bet pots, play and lines on later streets, polarizing, exploitability, etcetera. But as any consumer would want to know, the question comes down to "Is this worth the cost?" I think right now for certain poker players it's a MASSIVE +EV INVESTMENT, but only under some strict guidelines ======================================================================== - You must have the bankroll to buy a $1850 book. DURRRR. - Whoever buys the book has to be the kind of person who will legit study it. I count myself as someone who doesnt fall into this category. I read it, I took in the concepts, but I'm just not the kind of person to bust out pokerstove and make combinatrics range-based calcs to improve my game. Part of this is laziness, part of this is being content winning at midstakes against droolers. - If you buy the book, you have to learn from it and be good at thinking on your own. Some people read books or watch training videos and then apply the "concepts" taught in said videos in hilariously bad fashion. A simple suggestion like "tightening up in the cutoff is one solution if the button is a habitual reraiser (frequency of top 1/3 strong range, flatting middle range)" could result in some readers tightening their entire vpip by 10 points and being pissed that the book turned them into a nit fish. That's not the greatest example, but I mean to say that it draws back to the "studying hard" aspect. Simply reading a book does not guarantee improvement, you have to actually apply it. - You have to be a receptive individual who is capable of self-critique and highlighting ones own strengths and weaknesses. There are lots of people reading this blog, and all of you have different personalities. A small amount of you, in all likelyhood, are more stubborn than others. Studying this book hard means questioning every aspect of your own game, and if you are too quick to assert that some parts of the book just "wouldnt apply to you" because "they dont play in my games, yo", then this book is a bad investment. I'm not saying that there are lots of people like this out there, but I'd bet there's a nonzero % of the internet poker playing population who act like this, so I felt the need to put this in anyways - You should combine the book purchase with hiring a top-level coach. Knowledge in theory is way different from knowledge in practice, and applying the 2nd part is way easier longterm if you have a top-level player holding your hand for the first few steps of the way. ======================================================================== So if you're a good poker player who wants to take a step up, as far as books go I'd recommend "Let There Be Range" so long as the reader can qualify in the above points. The information in this book + good coaching can result in lessons and knowledge learned in 2 weeks that would have otherwise taken 2 years on your own, in some cases. The right people can jumpstart their poker career exponentially and immediately multiply their hourly. It's the basic definition of knowledge capital. That's not to say the book doesn't have problems, though, because it definitely needs tweaking in a few different areas. I'll list them in order of importance: 1) The most important problem with this book is that most of the time you don't know who the hell is writing the passage between SlowHabit and CTS. I'd like to think a major part of spending so much money on a book (multiple times more than other poker player's e-books) is so you can get information more from Cole and less so from Tri. This isn't to say Tri's writings are useless, just to say that a book from Tri alone in my opinion would probably be worth 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of this particular project. Tri has told me that Cole is responsible for 35 of the 80 pages, but it seems like that's something that needs to be explicitly identified before purchase. Also, there needs to be some kind of major edit to identify which passages belong to Cole and which passages belong to Tri. Reading this from the get-go, I had no idea if I was reading this in Tri's voice or Cole's, and I can imagine as an uninformed purchaser I would immediately become kinda peeved at the nonzero % chance that the book was mostly Tri and had Cole's name stapled on it to increase the price by 2x. Only when I saw some passages which included hands from "MUCKEMSAYUHHH" did these feelings subside a little, but that comes halfway into the book. 2) There are a hilarious amount of grammatical errors and misspelled words (editor's note: if i did not spell this correctly, DONT JUDGE ME). I understand that the book's clientele is mostly online poker players who wont care so much (since they are paying for poker knowledge and not grammatical clarity), but it borders on being unprofessional. I anticipate this to be changed in future rewrites. Lastly, I haven't read BobboFitos e-book or any other kind of e-book that takes a major step up from most NLHE books published (because unless I'm writing a review for a free copy I'm unlikely to buy a book for multiple hundreds because, as I said, I'm not the type to study the book in great detail and get everything out of it). So, while I would say that "Let There Be Range" is a good investment under the right circumstances, that doesn't necessarily make it the best option. I know Rob's book costs just under a third the price right now. Rob isn't CTS, obviously, but these kind of things need to be addressed when looking at the price of the book. Overall cliffnotes: Is "Let There Be Range" worth the money? A resounding yes, but only if you are the kind of person who can get the most out of the reading. If you're the type to study training videos closely, study your hands played for an hour on non-playing days, etcetera, then you should probably buy the book is the cost doesn't lifetilt you/it's in your budget. If you are a lazy poker player like me, then buying this book is definitely not worth it. The price of $1850 basically deems it so, since it's a good deal more expensive than any other e-book." From CardRunners member qqch13: Presentation/looks: The Ebook is very well presented and looks very professional. The book features colored figures, charts and examples, we can see that lots of worked as gone into it. However, english isin't my first language but I was able to noticed multiple typos/errors during my first read. Apparently that will be addressed in the upcoming edition but I was a little disapointed about that. It does not however affect any explanations or examples. There are also two missing figures/examples in the book which is unfortunate, I believed that will be addressed in the upcoming version however. Another thing I found a bit irritating is it's hard to discern who's writing what. Basically I know some segments are written by CTS while other by SlowHabit but it's sometime hard to discern who wrote what. This does not really affect the read or the presentation but I would of liked to have known who wrote every paragraph. As for the copyright protection... well basically it really limits your usage which is unfortunate but understandable. Like mentionned you can't print any of the 80 pages and are forced to read them on one single machine. Content: To be honest I really did not know what to expect from an ebook tagged at that price. I guess if you're looking for a magic book, basically something that will instantly change the way you see poker after a first read, you may be a bit disapointed with your purshase. This does not mean the book is bad and nothing new, quite on the contrary, this books simply layed out new grounds for me to work on. While not being an outrageoulsy theoretical book, it made me question my lines, my strategy and general approach to poker. Basically it sort of opened my eyes to other possible options and variables to consider and it will help me make better poker decision. I really don't like how this sounds, but I think in order to get the full value of the book I'll really need to work hard on my game and general undestanding of poker. Fortunately enough, I was already a student of Tri so we had covered some of the material in there. I had already implemented some new elements to my game. I feel this book is going to cover lots of loose ends and help me understand the why behind lots of decision I'm making. A bit more on topic, while covering some pre-flop content (mostly about countering the light reraisers), the book mainly focuses on post-flop play. Basically exploiting opponents using various lines. It gives strong examples for every topics it explains while using good logic/math to demonstrate the why behind there decisions. Final thoughts: Is it worth 1.8k? This is a tough question to answer. For the stakes that I'm playing right now, I don't think it will triple my winrate. What it will do is help me move up stakes much faster and for that reason I'd say it will be well worth the cost. Would this book revolutionize the low/mid stake games? Well if everyone that read it worked on there game, for sure the games would instantly become much much tougher. Any player that incorporates the concepts explained in this book will become a very tough opponent to play against imo. On the other hand, there's already lots of sound information that's free and people don't take it. Would I recommend this book? This is a sort of funny question to answer. For one part I'd be really happy if players playing my stakes would not have access to this information yet I'd have a hard time recommending it to a friend. I guess the fact is in order to benefit from this book you will need to put lot's of work into your game. It's not a book that will instantly change a bad player into a phenomenal player! Hard work and this book probably will however! Over the past few months i have been reading and hopefully digesting the book Let there be range by Tri/Cts. To give you some background i was a marginal short handed winner at 6 max at the low stakes mostly 200nl and had started to struggle with knowing how to deal with the sometimes relentless aggression of some of the regulars that fill that limit. After reading this book that attitude certainly changed. "I can say that it's easily the best poker book I've ever read (and I've read every other well-respected poster's book). I've received coaching from Tri and have read his book. The book manages to capture a very precise image of what a high-level player thinks about the game, while reading easily and avoiding long-winded theoretical ramblings*. The only downside to the book is that a text is unable to pinpoint your individual leaks. Tri understands this and goes above and beyond other texts in delivering a wide variety of common situations in which he's seen his MSNL student faulter. The leaks and mistakes he talks about are taken directly from the mistakes shared by a variety of his past and present MSNL students. He's not guessing what most people have problems with - he knows from a long history of fixing these exact issues. I'd say that in many cases, this book would be MUCH MORE time and cost effective for SSNL/MSNL players than personal coaching. I think that's saying a lot. * - Not hating on anyone here!" -- Learning (2+2) Reader (9:50:16 PM): honestly if anyone is hating they are idiots Reader (9:50:37 PM): the book is by far exceeded my expectations Reader2 (8:29:37 PM): i was reading all the hate in the 2+2 book thread the other day and just wanted to tell you that since purchasing your book I've had back to back to back biggest months ever, so fuck the haters. Your book was of tremendous help. "I just finished reading the book and I think it is fantastic. I think it will definately help ANY MSNL player. He talks about things that you have thought about before, but are unsure of how to implement them into your game. He talks about things that you probably hear often, but are unsure what they mean or understand how it works. He goes over a lot of things that will give you a better understanding of the game and gives you tips and hints on how to improve your own game and move up in stakes and increase your winrate. I think it is a great book and a must buy for any ssnl/msnl player who wants to improve their game and/or move up the ranks." -- cbboy (2+2) "I've been a winning player at 2/4 but I can't seem to do well whenever I take shots at at higher games. After reading the book, I know why. I lacked a lot of fundamentals and was beating the low stake games due to pure aggression. This book will help you think outside of the box. Poker is not ABC. Don't get me wrong. You can certainly be a winning player playing ABC poker, but you won't crush the games. Any decent poker player understands that poker is about long term results. With that said, the tools and knowledge within this book will certainly make you a better player and improve your win rate in the long run." -- BigUps (2+2) "SlowHabit communicates clearly and explains the why behind the what." -- ICMoney (2+2) "By far the best poker book I've ever read. People talk about their "aha" moments in poker, I've had several of those within the first 30 minutes of reading Tri's book. You get to hear the thought process of a high stakes no limit player in great detail. Every time he points out common mistakes done by SSNL/MSNL players I'm mumbling to myself "uh yeh, that's me :-(". Limped pots, "Everyday I'm barreling" and a lot of other fantastic chapters are in this book. I'd personally prefer if noone bought this book as it will just make the games so much harder. Unless you are not interested in improving your game and thus your winrate there's absolutly no reason to not immediately get this book. FWIW I'm currently playing nl 200 (taking shots at 2/4 next month) and would highly recommend this book." -- DruM (2+2) "The content in this book is amazing. I'm 60 or so pages in now and I'm already looking forward to reading it again (and probably again), taking notes, and trying to incorporate the stuff into my game. Very well written, and very professionally presented. As much as I don't want people to buy it (for obvious reasons!), I would be doing the authors a disservice by not reporting back on what a great job they've done. I never thought I'd spend this much on a book, and I certainly never thought I'd consider it a bargain!" -- heggahegga (2+2) "The book is excellent, and Tri was very helpful when I had troubles receiving it. Have read almost half of it so far and while I was disappointed in some of the chapters overall the content is great and will be worth several reads." -- globetrotter (2+2) "my first impressions after reading -content is definitely worth the money -content is presented clearly -its the type of things that probably needs to be read many times to get the full value (at least by me, but i am not that smart) -both tri and cts are very good at poker and pretty good writers, stylistically speaking -i will never be as good at running amazing bluffs at nosebleeds as cts -if you are the type of person who is thrown into a blind rage by typos and grammatical errors, you might want to hold out for a future edition." -- v214 (2+2) "I read the first version of this book and I can say with all honesty that it was AMAZING. The way he lays it all out was pretty incredible and on top of that clear. Since this is the updated version, I can only guess at how much better it must be." -- Freakin Rican (2+2) "imo take your time and tell Cole to write like 100 more pages for the next update.. kthx btw its amazing, good job guys!" -- Alexos (2+2) "Just read half the book. There is so much good information in here it is going to take me months to apply it all. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Cole is a genius" -- Speedlimits (2+2) "I don't want to post my review on 2+2, honestly I'd prefer people don't even know about it, but I will just say the book was well worth the price. It's gonna take me awhile to implement all this stuff into my game. 10/10. Yeah I'm not gonna go into specifics, but I'll just say that it's the most practical poker book I've read. Part of that is probably because my main game is online 6-max, and this book is purely catered towards those games. It is very light on theory, and extremely practical. I can't tell you how much I hate books that simply show a hand example and tell you why you 'might' want to make such-and-such play. This book is much more straight forward, laying out specific strategies/lines/moves that work against certain opponents or in certain situations, and *why*, not to mention counter-strategies. Also, personally for me, I like to have stuff in text sometimes. It's good to use as a reference. DC videos are awesome and show real-world play, but it's not like you have a reference without having to re-watch the video or take extensive notes. Both have different benefits. In the end, it's another valuable tool in a 6-max player's toolbox. I'll leave it at that." -- Kwantum (DeucesCracked Forum) "I'm a student of Tri's and have additionally splashed out on the book. Tbh, I don't really care if people by this book, but it is a good book. 2k isn't a LOT of money for anyone playing 1/2NL and up, so claiming that it is expensive is all relative. The question is, are there better and cheaper alternatives and is this book revolutionary ? Yes you can figure everything out on your own, like tri and cole did, but for anyone that has played for long like I have have, this is the first and so far only complete treatment of NL Hold'em that is to the point. It points out the most efficient way to look at hands and overall strategy and should cure most twoplustwo induced leaks. Let There Be Range! is a fitting title that really captures the spirit of this great book! I parted with 1/4th of my roll to Tri and never regretted it." -- Gelford (DeucesCracked Forum) "for a 1/2 and 2/4 player though that has come up playing tag abc poker and is often taking the "standard line" i think this book will do wonders for your game. (im one of these players obv)" -- amarillotg (DeucesCracked Forum) "I purchased Tri's book and I'm quite happy with the material, organization and presentation. I'm trying to rebuild my online 6max NL game from scratch and I think Tri's book will provide a good blueprint/road map for my "self coaching" approaching. I'm currently only playing FR NL online (NL100 to NL600) and B&M NL $5/10. I only converted to NL from Limit about 1.5 years." -- SuitedAces (DuecesCracked Forum) |
