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The Poker Blueprint: My Review |
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Aaron Davis and Tri Nguyen's "The Poker Blueprint"
The poker scene has been changing over the past few years, and poker literature has followed suit. Of course, there's still "required reading," like the works of Brunson and Sklansky, but recently the shift has been to e-books. As a player who is relatively new to the game, I was very reluctant to get into these books for a few reasons. Firstly, I'd far prefer a physical copy of a book, and secondly, because I just didn't trust the credibility of the authors. Why should I take advice from a guy named SlowHabit over advice from the Godfather of Poker? Moreover, why should I pay $100 or more for a book?
With that said, e-books are the best way to improve your game besides analyzing your play for yourself, and are definitely where the future of poker literature is headed. Most authors are ridiculously knowledgeable of the players of which their target audience is comprised simply because they've been there. It's one thing to read Super/System and get Doyle's take on a subject, but it's a completely different experience when you know that the author of the book you are reading has succeeded in recent years by playing the same stakes you are now playing.
Aaron Davis and Tri Ngyuen (the aforementioned "Slowhabit" have teamed up to bring the SSNL community their book, The Poker Blueprint. The first thing I noticed in this book was that there was some very unconventional advice in the opening pages. In some cases, this advice was wildly hilarious because of the experience I've had with it and the truth it held.
| | If a player has a picture of his baby as his avatar, then he is usually over 30 and is
almost always bad. |
There is a small section dedicated to ideas of this nature, and besides being an enjoyable read, it carried over to the tables. To follow this section, there is an excerpt from an upcoming book by Tri that talks about bankroll management.
The obligatory bankroll management section featured in this book is the first time I've ever seen it recommended that you move up in stakes as quickly as possible. As poker players, we're all used to hearing things like 20, 25, 30 buyins being the standard for when you can move up. Tri's take on this concept, as well as his logic behind it, is very interesting and is definitely something a player should take to heart.
The book also contains an odds chart with percentages of hitting flushes, open-ended straight draws, etc. To me, this was one of the most valuable parts of the book. Aaron actually slapped me in the face by saying:
| | These situations happen all the time in poker...Learn the math now, so that when these situations come up again, you can focus your attention on his hand range instead of the odds you need to make a profitable call. |
I had always thought it would be good for my game to memorize numbers like those presented in the book, but had never actually sat down and written everything out in order to commit them to memory. Aaron has done the hard part for you, and all you have to do is put in some of that good third grade level effort to memorize the chart.
The part on bet sizing was easily the most important part of the book for me. Obviously a poker player is always looking to extract the most value possible from his premium hands, which ideally turns into getting your stack in by the river. Aaron's discussion of bet sizing made the concept of getting it all in by the river very easy, and has consequently made my game more profitable.
While I feel I have discussed the book quite favorably, I beg the reader to not be led to think that the areas of the book I have covered are the limits to which the discussions of the book extend. There is far more information in the book than a review that is reasonable in length can hope to cover, and being priced much lower than a lot of e-books, there is absolutely no reason for a NL10 player to not spend 4 buyins on this book.
I can't guarantee this book will improve your game, but I can honestly say it improved mine and would recommend it to anyone who I feel is of equal, less, or even slightly more skill.
For more information, http://www.dailyvariance.com/ will tell you all you need to know. Thanks for reading and GL at the tables LP!
-Superfash // Jameson Edwards
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| shoving here as a bluff at 50NL is like explaning calcalus to a 6 month old cat wtf are you thinking - TalentedTom | |
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