Most Helpful Customer Reviews
81 of 88 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
instant classic...and then some, December 18, 2005
This review is from: Kill Phil: The Fast Track to Success in No-Limit Hold 'em Poker Tournaments (Paperback)
This book is going to change the way you approach tournament no limit holdem. It will be an essential book to round out your no limit tournaments library.
The subtle beauty is that this approach can allow inexperienced or moderately experienced players to negate some of the skill edge veteran and expert players hold. This book is a detailed and expanded version of "The System" described in David Sklansky's "Tournament Poker for Advanced Players", which Sklansky designed to allow a complete novice to be competetive in a big buy in tournament.
Before "Kill Phil" was published many of the young, aggressive players were already using this type of approach with good success against the veteran tournament pros. It is an interesting strategy which if you don't know and understand will leave you behind against the rest of the players who do know it. I will go out on the proverbial limb here and predict that this book will become an instant classic and "must own" book in any players no limit tournament library. It is that good.
It is not the "Holy Grail" for no limit tournaments, but because it is so powerful, you must understand how to use it and when it is being used against you. It does have drawbacks certainly, but used as described will minimize some of the skill gap for lesser experienced players where they may be put to tough decisions too often. The core of the system is a combination of math and psychology; the system has you making some hyper aggressive plays with hands that don't seem to warrant it, but the psychology of the all in bet coupled with the possibility of elimination if you call- and either guess wrong or are outdrawn -make it a devastingly effective strategy in the right situations.
If someone asked you at the beginning of a $10,000 buy in tournament to flip a coin for your entire buy in, would you do it if you knew ahead of time you would probably lose your $10,000 about one time in three?
Post Script Jan 21st: Lee Nelson(co author with Blair Rodman) took first in the 2006 Aussie Millions on Jan 19, 2006 and won $972,000 for first place. If you weren't a believer before, you should be now.
Posr scriptApril 4, 2006: There seems to be a fair amount of hostility coming in toward this book and I am not sure exactly why. An astute player and reader should realize that this type of strategic approach is just a small part of a well developed approach to no limit tournaments. The one huge thing it did for my no limit game was to decrease the fear of moving my stack in
more often both because it was mathematically correct to do so and in defense of the "table bullies" who constantly apply pressure to you. So to the extremely negative reviews I wonder ...what were you hoping to gain from buying this book? and why could you not find some value in this strategic approach to add to your game?
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good book for Long Ball Poker, May 8, 2006
This review is from: Kill Phil: The Fast Track to Success in No-Limit Hold 'em Poker Tournaments (Paperback)
Great poker players want to enter a lot of pots and beat the amateur players on the late streets. This is small ball poker. Kill Phil allows you to side step the advantage of the pros by getting all the money into the pot before the flop--before the pros can outplay you later on in the hand. This is long ball poker.
The great thing about this book is that while you are using the long ball tactics, you can learn small ball tactics by observing other players. So rather than getting eaten up in a tournament, you are going further and learning at the same time.
Another good thing about the book is that as the blinds and antes increase, all of the players should start adjusting to long ball tactics. Some players don't know how to make the proper adjustments, so they fall short at the end. This is where even an advanced player would benefit from the book.
Because the techniques work extremely well when blinds and antes have increased and decisions need to be made for greater portions of your chip stack, I have found this system to be most effective in the turbo style NL tournaments.
There are different levels of Kill Phil, going from basic to advanced. As you move through the system, you are not just moving all in with AA or KK like you would at the basic level. You play more flops and become an aggressive force at the table.
I would say this belongs on the book shelves of most regular NL tournament players. The book is easy to read and the concepts are pretty simple to use the day you get the book at the most basic level.
Additional thoughts: I have had this book for about 6 months now and it has done wonders for my tournament play. I have worked on my play to the point that I am able to employ the Kill Phil "expert" level tactics almost by second nature. Couple this with the fact I had already read the Harrington books prior to getting the book, I am very comfortable playing any level of NL hold'em tournament. This book has moved from 4 star level to a full five star book. I think it is going to allow players to get a lot of enjoyment from the tournaments they play in. Even the tournaments I lose, I always know I am not going out without a good fight. I really love this system, especially at the advanced levels of the program. Highly recommend.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
77 of 89 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
This book basically concedes that you're a sub-par player!, February 9, 2006
This review is from: Kill Phil: The Fast Track to Success in No-Limit Hold 'em Poker Tournaments (Paperback)
I suppose I understand where these authors are coming from; they know that the WSOP and WPT hype has brought a lot of new players into the game of hold 'em, particularly into tournament play. Now, the best way to become a quality poker player is to rack up experience at the tables; but, they offer this book as a short-cut to the impatient. Allegedly, this is to help them do better while learning the game. But I question that approach because the Kill Phil strategy is largely formulaic. Exactly how does one learn the game while following a relatively fixed formula?
And what exactly does the formula consist of? Essentially, it involves pushing all-in before the flop or folding. The authors rarely ever discuss playing past the pre-flop stage, referring derisively to such tactics as "smallball." Folks, hold 'em is not a game that's supposed to be played with only two cards; waiting to see a five card hand before deciding to play for all your chips should not properly be classified as "smallball," whatever the authors say on the matter. You can still make "longball" plays after you've seen if you have an actual hand or not (and whether your opponent is likely to have something).
What does this system offer? Basically, this book concedes that you're a sub-par poker player and unable to compete with quality poker players at their own level; so, instead of doing that, the book offers a fairly mindless system to employ to force coin-toss confrontations against your opponents. Basically, if there's a certain amount of money in the pot, and you're likely to be 50-50 or so against any hand your opponent might have, the book advises you to push all-in pre-flop. This has the obvious advantage of preventing you from being outplayed after actual cards are dealt; but the extreme disadvantage of never leaving you with much more than a coin flip chance against your opponent.
You'll have to win a lot of coin flips to win any sort of tournament with this system. Of course, you'll have to win a lot of coin flips anyway, but here, there's no possibility of outplaying your opponent and getting your money in with favorable odds. Pre-flop, you can never expect the odds to favor you as much as they might after the flop (especially if you factor in the odds of forcing your opponent to fold). So essentially, this book advocates a system that removes any chance of playing a hand out with favorable odds. This is not only bad poker, it's bad math, and bad gambling.
Now, in the final stages of a tournament, this strategy is basically sound. At that point, you should take your chances whenever and wherever possible and hope to win a lot of pots without too much confrontation. The problem is that the strategy presented here is much too tight early on. It's in the early stages of a tournament where you can be creative and apply skill to maximum advantage. Yes, this is more dangerous than pushing all-in, but presents an ideal opportunity to build up a big stack before the end-game forces random acts of desperation. Kill Phil has you basically throw away hands like AAs and KKs by raising all-in pre-flop and not getting any value out of them; if you are fortunate enough to get a hand that good in a tournament, I should hope you would be smart enough to try to milk them a little! If they get cracked, that's poker; but you gave yourself good odds to make some money in the process, and you've already won if you can do that often enough. This book assumes that you can't.
I'd recommend the sequel to this book, Kill Everyone: Advanced Strategies for No-limit Hold 'em Poker Tournaments and Sit-n-go's rather than this book and Poker Tips that Pay: Expert Strategy Guide for Winning No Limit Texas Hold em for readers that are looking for detailed, hand-by-hand poker strategy and advice.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
