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The Fast Track to Success in No-Limit Hold'em Poker Tournaments
Product
Kill Phil by Blair Rodman and Lee Nelson. Foreword by Phil Hellmuth Jr.
Hits
- An easy and quick read with an entertaining introduction
- Essential read for any first time player
- Well structured - an effective strategy in only 41 pages
- Contains an actual algorithm for winning tournaments
- Plenty of tournament situations are outlined
- Authors are both professional gamblers
Misses
- Does not allow for more than one player at the table using this strategy
- Does not warn that good players will crack this game quickly
- Authors refer to useful tools throughout the book then blame press deadline for not including them
Review
Kill Phil authors Blair Rodman and Lee Nelson are pro poker players with an extensive history of wins in the now burgeoning international tournament circuit. A brief look into their collective poker past reveals three World Series of Poker final table finishes; two World Series of Poker Circuit final table finishes; one second place finish in a World Poker Tour event; one first place finish in the Party Poker World Open; two first place finishes at the 2005 Aussie Millions; one first place finish in the Pot-Limit Omaha event at the Irish Open; and one first place finish in the No-Limit Hold'em event at the St. Maarten Open in late 2004. Phew. Needless to say, they know their tournaments.
Kill Phil begins with a two and a half page foreword by Phil Hellmuth, Jr., and, aside from some serious marketing power, his inclusion is not noteworthy. This book is geared towards beginners and is an excellent guide, even essential. It provides a great matrix of tables which, when employed, remove all the decision making necessary in poker playing. This is done with the use of a few new tools: CPR - cost per round; CSI - chip status index; hand grouping; and ranking position into 6 groups as opposed to all 10 seats.
According to Rodman and Nelson, CPR is the big blind plus the small blind plus the ante. CSI is how many multiples of CPR you have, with the groups being small when your stack is under 4x the amount of CPR, medium when its over 4x, big when its over 10x, and huge when its over 30x. Generally speaking, the larger your CSI the less hands the authors recommend playing. They are serious advocates of going all-in. At the final table they advocate making a deal and if that doesn't work going all-in every hand.
Throughout the book, Rodman and Nelson refer to a "soon to be released" deck of cards on which they sufficiently summarize the core strategies of the book. This would be useful, as would a table laying out all of these same ideas, another feature the authors claim to be working on. The glaring absence of both of these tools is blamed on a pressing publication deadline, which the authors say prohibited them from completing the features and including them in the final version of Kill Phil. What they do provide at the back of the book, however, are the usual poker book statistics augmented by a unique table meant to be used in calculating a deal at the final table.
The main body of the text consists of four parts: (1) Beginning Considerations (30 pages), discusses the evolution of poker as we know it and the different players; (2) Beginner Strategy (10 pages), develops the formula for playing No-Limit Hold'em Tournaments; (3) Intermediate Strategy (20 pages), expands on the game and outlines situations where loosening up is appropriate, for example, going all-in with any two cards in un-raised pots. It also outlines situations where judgment is required, such as slow playing and folding KK; (4) Advanced Strategy (80 pages), discusses a variety of bluffs as well as the signals that all bets other than "all-in" generate. It also walks you through a mock tournament, hand by hand.
The book is written in a simple and clear manner and, on the one hand, is amazing. If you bought it and gave it to your grandmother she could follow the strategy word-for-word and likely win a number of low level tournaments. On the other hand, it is hard to imagine a use for it other than in amateur tournaments.
In total, it reads 269 pages.
Details:
- Paperback $24.95
Huntington Press
