Poker Book Review: “Chaotic But Сatching: ‘Mastering Small Stakes No-Limit Tournaments’ by Lexy Gavin-Mathers

The Overall Content is Light & Useful for Live Players

As the book says, it was made to give readers the resources to develop a personal style of play and find “their groove in the world of poker”. The book has enough self awareness to know that it could be read by “non-poker aliens” and makes some effort to explain poker terms and concepts in an easy way.

In the beginning, Lexy promises to share “secrets, tips, tricks, and strategy techniques” to crush small stakes poker tournaments and to her credit, she stays true to this throughout the book. The book has a mountain of examples with infographics, charts, tables, diagrams and cheat sheets for practical implementation but not so many that it overwhelms you with a lot of theoretical mishmash.

At the same time, ‘Mastering Small Stakes No-Limit Tournaments’ has a lot of breakdowns of vital poker information. The Expected Value, for example, is explained from the point of calculation brilliantly: simple yet detailed, easy to understand and remember, without the author becoming too patronizing or preaching.

The best part of the book is that you get an overload of Lexy’s personality. This isn’t another impersonal educational piece where the author presents a bunch of information in general terms, avoiding mentioning themself, personal mistakes and experience. The book isn’t only written by Lexy, in some ways it is Lexy in a nutshell: witty, self-aware, confident but not arrogant, compassionate but not pitiful.

But the Structure Isn’t for Everyone

The first quarter of this book contains basic poker information that any active poker player, yes, even a recreational one, can skip without regret. 

The main flaw of this book, in my opinion, is a chaotic narration. It feels like Lexy wants to help you so badly and in so many areas at the same time that she jumps from topic to topic forgetting sometimes what the chapter was actually about in the first place.

For example, the book infodumps on you with strategic advice and examples of spots right inside the section dedicated to familiarizing you with different types of tournaments. 

Furthermore, some of the information could be judged to be as a little outdated or too live-oriented to have any use for online tournament players, like visual tells that don’t really exist in online poker. And when Lexy talks about bounty tournaments she never mentions Mystery Bounty, even though her book was published in 2024, when this format was already the most popular among knockouts.

She also talks about bum hunting and the use of HUD but forgets to mention that the former is universally prohibited in poker rooms while the latter is at least restricted in the majority of them. So, the reader has to be not only to be extra attentive while reading, but also willing to check the acceptability of various things in poker after reading the book.

Who Is This Book for?

‘Mastering Small Stakes No-Limit Tournaments’ is a good book for small stakes players who play live tournaments primarily in a casino or poker club setting in the US.

I personally think that this book is especially good for people with ADD, ADHD or any other attention disorder due to its mildly chaotic narration and jumpy structure that won’t let you get bored while reading.

However, as with any educational literature, Lexy’s work requires you to be focused enough to digest a lot of examples and ideas, so it’s better to be read in portions while focusing on topics you want to master at the moment.

As for what to read next, check out our previous review of Shuffle Up and Deal with It by Sara O’Connor.