I just got my copy of the newly released Small Stakes Hold ‘Em written by 2+2 regular contributor, Ed Miller, along with poker legends David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth. I’ve only made it part way into the book but this could well be one of the best books on small stakes poker if the first part is any indication of the quality of the advice that follows.
I’ve been really excited by this book because I’ve been a regular reader of Ed’s posts on 2+2 and he advocates a completely different style of play than most authors. Even Sklansky and Malmuth admit that their books on poker assume that your competition is good players while most small stakes and mid-limit games are heavily weighted with poor and very poor players which often makes their advice incorrect for that type of table. Even up to the $5/$10 and sometimes $10/$20 levels you can find World Poker Tour watchers who are just starting out and making major errors that several years ago one would not normally see at those limits.
Miller’s posts on 2+2 admonish the weak/tight style most beginning poker books advocate. He is a big believer in playing the odds and not folding just because someone is representing a bigger hand. For anyone who has folded a pocket pair because of a raise, re-raise, and cap on the flop only to see the hand go to ace high, Miller’s 2+2 posts have offered sound advice on when one should and shouldn’t fold.
I have long recommended Lee Jones’ book Winning Low Limit Hold ‘Em to friends just starting out but Miller has specifically taken Jones to task for some of his recommendations. On one recent 2+2 thread Jones attempted to defend his book by pointing out that he and Miller had different styles and his opinions were just as valid as Miller’s but Miller then proceeded to point out factual and mathematical errors in Jones’ recommended strategy which both Sklansky and Malmuth jumped in to agree with Miller on.
If you want a taste of Miller’s style of writing as well as his advice, check out these threads:
Low-limit Preflop Quiz
Why you guys aren’t crushing these Microlimit games…
Like I said, I’m only partly into this new book but from what I’ve read so far . . . I like it!
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Hi, my name is Bill Rini and this is my poker blog. I've been blogging about poker and the poker industry since around 2003-ish. Like most people I started out playing poker as entertainment in home games whenever we wanted to sit around and smoke cigars, drink beer, and eat pizza, and needed a good excuse. I started playing online shortly after the first online card rooms opened and it wasn't long before I was playing 20, 30, or even 40 hours a week or more. One day I received a phone call about a program manager position at Tiltware which was the company that consulted to Full Tilt Poker on software development and marketing. After Tiltware I spent about 2.5 years working at Party Poker where I was the poker room manager.
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