Book Review: Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em

Up to now, most ebooks targeted the upper intermediate player who could not find up-to-date, practical and reliable material in the literature from experienced, winning players for their online game of choice. These ebooks typically cost the equivalent of several hours of coaching, and most small stakes players could not afford them. Yet, there clearly was a demand from the serious small stakes players aspiring to move up the limits.

The affordable ebook

Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em precisely aims at fulfilling this demand: a book dedicated to online NLHE 6max games up to NL200, with a comparatively affordable $100 price tag.

The three authors, Matt Flynn, Sunny Mehta and Ed Miller already wrote a book together in 2007, Professional No-Limit Hold’em Vol. I, that has been fairly well received. Ed also co-authored two books with David Sklansky, NLHE Theory and Practice and Small Stakes Hold’em, Winning Big With Expert Play, in addition to his first book, Getting started in Hold’em published in 2005. They are experienced writers, and it shows in their work.

The book is about 300 pages, divided into four parts. Part I describes the general framework for hand analyses (12 pages). Part II, Beating Online $1-$2 6-max Games is the bulk of the book, with 160 pages. Part III gives “seven steps to no-limit Hold’em”: it is about 30 pages, and as its title suggests, it offers seven important tips and recommendations to develop and maintain a winning style. Part IV deals with somewhat more advanced concepts that will be useful to the players moving up to the midstakes.

Part I details some core concepts used pervasively in poker: equity and its two main forms, how they influence your plan, the importance of stealing and what factors you should consider when you do so. They make it clear why and when you should play a hand; here are the questions you should ask yourself each time you’re dealt your pocket cards. The following parts help you finding the answers, so to speak.

Part II starts with a study on blinds stealing. It covers hand ranges, raise sizes and opponents’ stats to watch, depending on your position. The advice is quite practical, well written with indented summaries of what to remember. The reader should be able to put these fifteen pages into practice very easily, and as the authors pointed out, it’s well worth it in terms of profits.

The next ten pages list important stats (VPIP, PFR etc.) and categorize your opponents according to them. Several profiles are described, including what their weaknesses are and how you should exploit them. It is a good “taxonomy” of the kind of opposition found in all poker games, and it shows why you should avoid falling into these profiles yourself. If you don’t use a HUD already, or if you don’t know how to exploit some types of opponents, here is a good introduction.

The authors do a great job at explaining
why barreling is so important
and how to use it appropriately.

The following thirty pages are devoted to continuation betting and barreling. This is one of the major flaws of many small stakes players, and the authors do a great job at explaining why barreling is so important and how to use it appropriately. They first give the “theoretical justification” of these bets, followed by several principles that will help you controlling your aggression. Each principle is illustrated with several examples, and the last fifteen pages are practical hand analyses. Boards with an ace are given special consideration, as well as committing bets (as thoroughly studied in their previous book, Professional No-Limit Hold’em Vol. I).

That part will certainly be very beneficial to most readers, since it effectively underlines two critical points: 1) aggression is key, and 2) each hand must be played with a plan in mind, and it sometimes involves shoving your stack on a three-barrel bluff, knowing that it’s a good move in the long term. Playing each betting round independently is a frequent mistake that many players make; they throw a bet, see what happens, but they are still not sure what to do when they are called, so they either make another bet, or give up and check/fold — completely overlooking whether their play is profitable in the long term, for they don’t consider the big picture. The examples and practical hands clearly demonstrate how one should think about each situation. The authors’ play will sometimes look foolhardy to some players, but the timid choice would generally pass up a profitable opportunity, and the first part of the book strongly urged the readers to look after every such occasion.

Value betting is the subject of the next thirty pages, and again the emphasis is on making a plan and generally sticking to it. It advocates more river value bets, balanced with more bluffs as well. Pot control is also discussed; the factors that should impact one’s decision whether to pot control or not are well explained; sometimes you just don’t want to miss value with an ill-advised check. Again, I can only concur with the authors.

The analysis of Ed and his co-authors is both
accessible and to-the-point

One of the hallmarks of the current 6max online games is the very aggressive preflop raising game, with the light 3bets, the 4bets and the 5bets. Twenty-five pages are devoted to them. Small stakes players typically don’t know how to adapt to these strategies, and the current printed literature doesn’t cover this topic. The analysis of Ed and his co-authors is both accessible and to-the-point, explaining clearly the motivation, the dynamics and the basic maths, both from the raiser and the defender standpoint. The recommendations are sound, and while it is a vast topic, the study gives the tools to do more “research” on one’s own. Several practical hands conclude this chapter.

Focusing on the bad players at your table is a crucial part of maximizing one’s profits, as explained in the next chapter (ten pages). They will spew, pay you off and make bad bluffs — you want to play with them as much as you can!

Conversely, some opponents will attack you, and you must be able to hold you own. The following chapter will give you several tips to correctly adapt to their aggression. These pages are a mixed bag of counter-measures in various situations; another good read for small stakes players, who too often go over-defensive when they are bet into or raised.

The next chapter is entitled “Specific Preflop Decisions” (15 pages), which says it all. Several situations are examined, like how to play small pocket pairs in different positions, when to flat call in and out of position, how to play A-K OOP or A-Q UTG…

Eventually, eight practical hands close this part of the book.

Part III, Seven Easy Steps To No-Limit Hold’em, starts on page 200. Let’s quote the introduction: “So, to refresh your mind on the fundamentals of solid play, we’ve adapted the following section from a series Ed wrote for his website. This section is meant to be a breather — a little easier to read and understand than the parts before and after. It’s a good section to reread in the middle of a downswing when you’re feeling like you just can’t seem to do anything right. “

That’s exactly what it does, and while you won’t learn anything new here, it doesn’t hurt to go over the basics. It is about thirty-five pages, with many examples.

Part IV aims at providing the readers with the tools to move beyond NL200. It is sixty pages, and again it is a mixed bag. It starts with a discussion on bet sizing; I wouldn’t have made it the first concept for moving up to midstakes, and overall the conclusions aren’t that advanced to me.

Being able to use these moves can make
a big difference in your results

The following chapter deals with big bluffs and how to plan them. It is much more convincing: even though they don’t happen very frequently, being able to use these moves can make a big difference in your results, as the authors noted.

Next come two small chapters about overbetting and underbetting, then a chapter on balancing one’s lines. It delves into combinatorics, and illustrates how to work out your ranges with a view to being unexploitable, using tools like Flopzilla. Several typically unbalanced lines are included: most amateurs will probably recognize some patterns of theirs!

Small stakes players, buy this book!

Eventually, Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em passed the test with flying colors, and all small stakes players will undoubtedly strongly benefit from reading this book. The content is solid, clear and well-written; it accurately reflects the current state of 6max NLHE games, and what it takes to beat them. That has been the strength of ebooks lately, and Ed, Sunny and Matt managed to take the best of both worlds. From NL10 to NL100, if you can put away the $100, buy this book!

You can buy the book on smallstakesnolimitholdem.com, or on Ed’s website, www.notedpokerauthority.com

Note: I received a review copy of this book.