Precision Is Impossible — And Overrated: Review of “Improve Your Poker — Now”

The Best Aspects of “Improve Your Poker — Now!”

A lot of books about poker are either extremely boring or just too specific to discuss with poker friends who play at different levels. “Improve Your Poker — Now!” is a welcome exception. It’s light and easy to digest, retell and even discuss, partly because of its humorous approach to teaching and partly because of its respectful approach to amateurs. You never catch yourself feeling stupid or inferior.

The lightness part of the book comes directly from the co-author of this book — a lawyer who went through Alex’s coaching but retained his ability to look and talk about poker as a non-professional player.

The books starts off on the right foot by outlining its limits when it comes to expectations. It’s not for beginners, but for amateurs who are supposed to have a somewhat serious approach to poker. If you’re a recreational player who sees poker as a fun evening game, someone at the very beginning of your poker career or already playing professionally — this book is not for you. And the authors will tell you the same.

I read “Improve Your Poker — Now!” as a real amateur, even though my understanding of this term is a little different from the authors’. To be honest, I found the book a little confusing but overall interesting and enlightening. It also has the simplest and the most clear explanation of blockers I’ve ever read.

One thing in the book I consider brilliant — the Alex’s Keys section where Alex Fitzgerald summarizes every important aspect of each chapter in a short list.

The book also contains a very healthy stance towards using solvers and additional software for studying poker. The authors don’t try to sell a bunch of apps to readers but actually honor the fact that they’re an important part of learning poker right now.

So, my conclusion after reading “Improve Your Poker — Now!” is quite simple: if the book’s content is what you want, do not hesitate to delve into it. It has a decent amount of data and conclusions to change your perspective on poker and also has just enough interesting topics and controversial takes to fire up discussions within your own poker tribe.

Controversial Points of the Book

While “Improve Your Poker — Now!” is a decent poker book overall, it still has a few flaws that you should know about before investing your money and time.

First of all, this is a book for North Americans, primarily US players. On the surface, it tries to be “accessible” for any player who knows English. It even highlights the fact that Alex Fitzgerald coaches players from different countries but at the same time it has a lot of purely regional references, including topics such as:

• Baseball
• Taxes as they’re paid in the USA
• Local rooms and gambling venues (Excalibur)
• Expedia
• Golden Girls
• Fire Capacity of buildings
• Igloo (snow houses of Inuit people)
• Royal Rumble (wrestling)

Some sport related metaphors may seem too specific even for the US players. Maybe an average American knows what a pitcher, battering box, MLB, fastball, change-up or homer are, but for foreigners, poker players, or people who don’t have any interest in sports, these words are just a distraction that forces them to stop their reading and Google for context.

Not every reader will find the narration smooth either. While some parts are easy to read, others are more like quicksand. 

Personally, I think the reason for this lies with the abundance of additional information in the book that does not correspond to its topic. The most striking example is five whole pages of Chapter Three — Tournaments dedicated to the first experience of registering and playing a live tournament in the form of a literal step-by-step guide. Of course, it could be interesting as additional advice for some readers but it breaks the narrative and doesn’t directly follow the main theme of the book — helping serious amateurs (not beginners!) to improve their game.

The structure is also a little messy up to Chapter Six. For example, be ready to read about Game Theory Optimal (GTO) quite a lot, before the Independent Chip Model (ICM), even when authors themselves call ICM an “incredibly important concept” and GTO — the model you “actually do not want to play”.

The main victim of this inconsistency is the topic of ranges that is scattered across the first four chapters with detailed explanations given only in the fourth chapter. You read a little here, a bit there but the core information about ranges is effectively delayed to the point where you’ll have forgotten everything you’ve read on the topic in previous chapters.

Finally, the book doesn’t contain infographics when it comes to examples of spots, only text descriptions that may be overwhelming for players who are used to see literally everything being visualized.

Who Will Get the Most Value From This Book

The book’s especially useful for players coming from the US and Canada who play live as amateurs but still have a serious approach to poker, with an emphasis on multi-table No Limit Hold’em tournaments. Online regulars can feel a bit undermined reading this book since the majority of examples are taken from live poker tournaments, so some of the information can’t be applied at online tables.

The book could also be useful for recreational players who have a good foundation of poker knowledge and just want to build on that to make their fun play more profitable.

Just remember to read it as a non-fiction guide: slowly and carefully without distractions and in parts so you’ll digest all the information better.

Writing some of the information down or using stickers to highlight specific terms id going to be really useful for you because some terms are explained in the book only once and then repeated on different pages without reminders.

Beginners will probably find some chapters and sections pretty handy but for the most part, this book will overwhelm them with a lot of unfamiliar terms and poker explanations. So, maybe opt for a more friendly poker guide to start with.

Finally, professional players, especially highly experienced once or those playing Mystery Bounty, PKO, Sit&Go, or ZOOM cash games, will learn very little from this book. In my opinion, it’s better to choose something more advanced or more specific at this level.