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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I am the Author, May 16, 2009
This review is from: Secrets of Short-Handed No Limit Hold'em: Winning Strategies for Short-Handed and Heads Up Play (Paperback)
Hi, I am the author. I am not a writer by profession but a poker player. In writing this book, my goal was to write everything I know about poker down. I did not spend any time on pedantic teaching tools. I did try to organize the book in a helpful manner and met with some success.
Some of the writing and explinations are sloppy. The publishing was quite poor (though that should be fixed for future printings). The book came out pretty close to a stream of conciousness which was not too far from my goal. But despite these problems I am happy with the book. I am pretty sure it has more information and depth than other poker books by far because mainly people who aren't good poker players are writing books. An exception, for example, is supersystem by brunson which is underrated and a classic.
Anyway, I believe the book has a lot of value based on the fact that I was a top player and I wrote down all of my thought processes. There are problems with the book I won't argue that. goodluck and study your poker.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Another poor publishing job, February 14, 2009
This review is from: Secrets of Short-Handed No Limit Hold'em: Winning Strategies for Short-Handed and Heads Up Play (Paperback)
D and B publishing again showed that they have a strong need for someone to run the ship. This book, just as "Secrets of Sit n go"s that they published, is FULL of typo's. It was enough this time to make me be positive on NEVER buying another book published by them. They make the Author look uneducated. How hard is it to correct spelling..eg:relise?? I soon threw up my hands in disgust (and tossed the book in the trash) when it took me having to re-read a sentence over and over again just to understand what the Author was trying to say---all due to the sentence not being punctuated correctly or the grammar usage sub-par. Mistakes/typo's are made...but so many is unexcuseable when you are paying $25 a pop for a book. I think D and B can afford a proof reader! Granted...its only a poker book-- not an English manual...but my thoughts are this: If I am PAYING for training, I expect to be able to follow along in an easy understandable manner. People are buying this kind of book to LEARN poker...its hard enough for some to understand "ICM and EV" let alone having to fight the wording of a book just so a sentence will make some sense. You can find the same and BETTER written information on short handed play in any number of books out there written by any pro.
This is in no way to reflect on the Author other than his bad choice of publishers. I am sure Danny is a wonderful and winning player. I dont claim to be such...that is why I bought this "TRAINING" book, but right now, I feel it was a waste of money.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good content ... poor delivery, June 17, 2009
This review is from: Secrets of Short-Handed No Limit Hold'em: Winning Strategies for Short-Handed and Heads Up Play (Paperback)
I concur with the review by (L.L. George) ... the book is full typos, poor grammar, etc. It is difficult to read. I acquired the book even after reading that review because it sounded (content-wise) like what I needed. It was. Content-wise I am satisfied and I got "fair warning" from L.L. George (thank you ... and thanks to Amazon).
Here is my background (which is close to a profile of who would benefit from this book): Over two years ago I started playing Limit Hold'Em and switched to No Limit online play about 6 months ago. I consistently win at the lowest micro-stakes levels (~ $2/HR at 10-cents/$10-buy in) but only break even in bigger games (up to $1). In these games I most often initially lose then tend to start winning if players stick around. I get these poor results even though I have read (and attempt to apply information from) all the classic No Limit books. My weakness is poor reading of my opponents: hand reading. After reading the book I realize the author would point out (correctly) that much of my problem is being to slow to adjust ... but that is related to a lack of confidence in reading opponents.
Secrets of Short-handed No Limit Hold'em is focused on hand reading. So the book was a perfect fit for me. It is not a book for beginners ...it assumes you are an experienced player (not necessarily a winner) and are willing to work to improve your game. Unless you fit that profile you will not be satisfied with this book. Poor editing just magnifies that problem. In fairness the book states the target audience is not a novice but that is not clear from the title.
It is difficult to give this book a fair rating. Content-wise I would rate it very high because it covers valuable material not directly covered in other books. But for beginners it is worse than worthless due to assumptions about the readers knowledge and poor editing. Here is an example from the book: "If he is raising a lot then he has a wide hand range and if he is raising a little then he has a small hand range." If you interpret that as meaning a big dollar raise means an opponent may be playing a "wide hand range" or if you don't know what a "hand range" is this book will just confuse you. The editors should have changed "a lot" to "frequently" to make the text clear. That is a minor error and the book is packed with them. I intentionally used this example because it is not a error a proof-reader would catch (unless they played the game) but one an editor (with the goal of making the book clear and easy to read) should catch. Well-written books seem simple because someone (with skills in this area) worked to make them very clear and precise.
The author reviewed this book and claims it goes into more depth than other poker books (except SuperSystem). "Professional No-Limit Hold'Em" and "Harrington on Cash Games" provide as much depth. Yet, I agree with the author. This book provides the best and most complete coverage I have seen on at least one topic: hand reading & multiple-level thinking. Others mention it as critical but never get into the details ... if you want to put an opponent on a hand (or range of hands) you need to make a focused effort to get into his head.
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