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Craig's 'Strategy Guide' Invaluable for Tournament Players
Product
Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide: Tournament Edition edited by Michael Craig
Hits
- Excellent list of pro contributors
- More than just No-Limit Hold'em advice
- Great collection of tournament advice
Misses
- Different pros' advice is occasionally contradictory
Review
When noted author Michael Craig, the man who detailed the action of "The Big Game" in The Professor, The Banker and The Suicide King, decided to take on putting together a tournament strategy book, he didn't know what he was getting himself into.
After more than a year of work with the stable of professionals at Full Tilt Poker, Craig generated The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide: Tournament Edition, an invaluable tool for anyone who plays tournament poker either recreationally, to earn some extra income or for their livelihood.
The pros who donated their thoughts on the game to Craig include approximately 25 World Series of Poker bracelet winners, several World Poker Tour title holders and cash game specialists.
Huck Seed, Chris Ferguson, Andy Bloch, Richard Brodie, Ted Forrest, Rafe Furst, Phil Gordon, Howard Lederer and Mike Matusow are some of the many who present the most insightful education on poker that a player can get.
One of the best things about the book is that it isn't just about No-Limit Hold'em. While No-Limit Hold'em is a predominant part of the book - it includes information about virtually every aspect of it - you'll also find tournament strategy on Pot-Limit and Limit Hold'em, two disciplines of Omaha (Hi/Lo and Pot-Limit) and three non-community-card games (both Seven-Card Stud and Hi/Lo, along with Razz).
A player could literally take the book, implement the strategies in its pages and meet with success at the tournament tables.
Because of the plethora of minds behind it, The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide: Tournament Edition could potentially be better than Dan Harrington's one-man approach to tournament poker in his books. That said, however, a player would be advised to take the pros' advice in small increments and not try to use everything that they say at once.
Sometimes the pros will contradict each other's advice, such as the somewhat conservative No-Limit strategies of Ferguson and Lederer versus the more freewheeling approaches of Forrest and Gavin Smith. But this simply demonstrates the variety of ways to play the game of poker.
An attempt to mix the two could result in disaster, but using one or the other's approach is a solid way to attack a tournament.
Probably the best demonstration of how The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide: Tournament Edition can help a player is Michael Craig himself. After editing the essays from the players involved and publishing the book, Craig earned three cashes at the 2007 World Series of Poker, including two final tables.
If working with the players on the book could do that for Craig via osmosis, imagine what it can do for the reader.
Details:
- $29.99
Paperback
Grand Central Publishing
448 pages
