Mastering No-Limit Holdem

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In the days before the Internet poker explosion, well before poker got all Hollywooded up via the World Poker Tour, instructional poker books were quite rare. And good poker books were about as common as a Chicago Cubs World Series win.

As with any cultural or social phenomenon, with popularity comes a veritable flood of media promoting it, teaching it, or exploiting it. Poker is no exception: a large national-chain bookstore near me now has an entire section devoted to poker literature, as opposed to the few titles that used to be mixed in with their “Games” section. And with greater selection comes greater difficulty in separating the wheat from the chaff.

Well, I’m here to tell you about some wheat.

Mastering No-Limit Hold’em, by Russell Fox and Scott T. Harker, is an excellent starting point for those players who have some limit poker chops but are looking to broaden their experience by playing the no-limit variety of the game for the first time, or for players who have already been playing no-limit hold’em but are having trouble winning on a regular basis.

(At this time, a disclaimer/conflict-of-interest-disclosure is in order: I know both Russ and Scott personally. They’re both very solid players, and fine specimens of humanity. But, despite that fact that I think they are both swell guys, if I thought that their book stunk (stank?), I’d tell you. And them. And I will not see one nickel from them for this review. So there.)

Make no mistake: this is NOT a book for beginners; in fact, the authors say so in a sub-section to Chapter 1 entitled “What We Assume About You”: “We assume that you have some poker knowledge, and are most likely an experienced limit hold’em player.” So the usual “flush-beats-a-straight-beats-a-set” primer is pleasantly (at least, for me) absent.

And that’s a good thing. One of the problems with the poker boom is that, with the proliferation of the televised World Poker Tour, new players all want to play no-limit hold’em, or, as a friend of mine overheard at the Mirage poker room, “that game where you can go all-in.” This is good in the short term for the knowledgeable players who reap the benefits of easy money, but very, very bad for the new players who are likely to lose their bankrolls and quit the game for good, thereby making good games dry up. So, it stands to reason that, in the long term, a large influx of inexperienced players into the no-limit arena might be bad for all players. But, if you already know your way around a limit hold’em table, then the move to no-limit is a natural progression in your poker education; it wouldn’t be a mistake to consider Mastering No-Limit Hold’em as your first textbook for No-Limit Hold’em 101.

Fox and Harker chose to break the game down in very specific detail, rather than rely solely on broad concepts as some previous books have done. After some good introductory chapters on topics such as relative stack sizes and play in the blinds, they’ve taken a novel approach by describing play on the flop, turn, and river in each of three situations: when you think you are ahead in the hand, when you think you’re behind, and when you’re not sure where you’re at. For this reason, the book provides more real-life situational advice and better illustrates important concepts than most previous literature on no-limit hold’em.

A common theme throughout the book is appropriate hand selection, which is imperative if you are to be a winning player. There are several spots where detailed advice on hand selection from various table positions is offered, and it’s well presented and clearly explained.

Harker and Fox also provide some solid information on the effect of the rake on your profits, some mental aspects of the game, and record keeping, and have also added some good quizzes and a solid list of further reading that are all good choices for the player that’s serious about improving his or her no-limit hold’em play.

Again, if you’re new to poker, do yourself a favor and start by learning limit poker first. Your financial exposure is, as the name unintentionally suggests, limited; the required bankroll for limit poker is smaller and easier to replace; and the bankroll swings will be easier to stomach. But if you’re already an intermediate-to-advanced limit player, then Mastering No-Limit Hold’em serves as a terrific introduction to the game that Doyle Brunson calls “the Cadillac of poker”.

By Mike McManus (aka North Shore Mike) a poker player, and customer support manager for online card room Full Tilt Poker.com.

Book Review: Mastering No-Limit Hold’em