His book, The Final Table, was on Gareth’s to-do list for a while, and then things lined up perfectly just at the right moment. The result is that aspiring tournament players across the globe have been gifted another poker strategy masterpiece.

As you can guess from the title, The Final Table is all about tournaments or, more specifically, about that last stage of any tournament, where there are only a few people standing between you and the coveted top spot.

James certainly doesn’t lack credentials as a player, so I was eager to read the book. While the topic was clear, I was curious to see how he approaches this extremely important segment of tournament play.

A Proper Tournament Textbook

If you’re looking for some light poker reading, this book isn’t it. Gareth James’ The Final Table feels more like a poker textbook designed to teach you everything you need to know about the final stage of any tournament. Some people may love this approach, and some may not, but it boils down to what you’re looking for. If your goal is to significantly improve your final table strategy, this book can definitely get you there.

What I really liked is that James makes no assumptions about his readers and thus makes sure the book is useful to everyone. The first part breaks down all the important theoretical concepts, such as ICM, risk premium, and bubble factor, offering detailed explanations and hand examples of each.

Even if you have no knowledge of poker theory and only play poker recreationally, you won’t feel lost reading this book. The first few sections set up the foundation for the lessons to follow, and you’ll be able to keep up.

At the same time there are a lot of examples and detailed calculations for different spots for more advanced players. These are useful on their own, but are also a great resource to help you come up with more examples to think about.

After laying down the groundwork, James continues to build upon it, combining ICM with postflop strategy, focusing on different board textures and situations involving different positions and stack sizes.

This is where things start to get more serious, as you’ll come across many tables, calculations, and breakdowns, and the only way you’ll profit is if you take the time to really read and understand them. Using a poker tool that lets you set up hands and play through them is probably a good idea here. It will allow you to visualize the concepts being discussed in the text, making it easier to remember the examples and making the learning process more engaging.

I was quite pleased to see that an entire segment of The Final Table was devoted to those final tables where you’re still not in the money. While this is not a situation that most players think of when discussing final tables, it happens quite often in small-field tournaments. So, if you happen to play a lot of these, this section will be very helpful.

READ ALSO: Course Review: Train and Play Like the Pros by Gareth James

Teaching Through Examples

There are many different approaches to teaching poker, and all of them have their good and bad sides. For his book, Gareth James decided to teach through examples of actual hands, breaking them down and offering solver-approved solutions for various situations.

You’ll get every segment of play covered in detail in its own section, from the start of the final table, with eight to ten players, all the way to the final skirmish. Every single example can help you learn something. However, this only works if you really apply yourself. Just skimming through the hand history and analysis will do you no good. There are a lot of numbers in there, so you will want to pause and really think about it all.

I don’t suggest trying to read The Final Table in one sitting. In fact, I don’t suggest trying to “read” it at all. Instead, I’d say it’s much better to treat this tome as a proper textbook. The first few chapters, can be read in one or two sittings. This will help get your fundamentals in order, especially if you don’t have a good theoretical poker background. Once the book moves on to actual examples, the best way to proceed is to take the time to go through a few hands and really think about what you’re reading.

You’ll find hundreds of hand charts and tables inside this book, and it’s impossible to memorize these in one or two sittings. Or, at least, it’s impossible for most people. If you happen to be someone who can do it, you probably have a very bright future in poker.

But even more than that, a methodical approach will help you develop a deeper understanding of  the advice and suggestions make sense, even if they seem counter-intuitive at first. Developing a deep understanding of the concepts will serve you much better in the long run than mechanically memorizing some charts.

Should You Read The Final Table?

If you enjoy reading and learning poker through books, I’d argue that The Final Table is worth your time for the introductory section alone. Gareth James does an excellent job of explaining some crucial concepts that will definitely change the way you approach tournament final tables.

As for the rest of it, you can really pace your study however you want. The hand examples provided inside the book are “evergreen,” so they’ll be just as relevant a couple of months from now or even a year down the line.

You can always combine hands from different segments, too, if you want to gradually improve all aspects of your play (three-hand, five-handed, etc.) instead of focusing on just one area before moving to the next one.

If you’re looking for purely fun poker content, you won’t find much of that inside The Final Table. Gareth’s style is very detailed and methodical. But as a resource for learning to play final tournament tables, this book delivers in every way.

We got in touch with him to hear more about his new adventure in Las Vegas and to discuss his famous book on its 20th anniversary.

just finished Positively 5th Street by @jimbosweetness — thanks again @clayhebert for gifting it to me.

book is a wild ride that inspired me to build my own basement cellar casino. talk about taking action! pic.twitter.com/A8pQmcj0ai

— Ryan Kulp (@ryanckulp) November 26, 2022

The Anniversary of a Classic Poker Book

Younger players may not be familiar with the Jim’s book, so we asked him why they should read it. He told us: “If they have any interest in what the World Series of Poker was like in 2000, or in the murder of its host, Ted Binion, or in how an amateur prepared to play against pros to reach the final table of the Main Event, my book will tell them about it. If they’re interested in the rest of poker history, they should also read my other book, Cowboys Full.”

We had read that Jim’s book was going to be turned into a script for a television series, and he had some news on that topic, too. “The showrunner is Benjamin Cavell, screenwriter of the TV series ‘Justified’ and other shows. The writing and other aspects of production were on hold during the WGA writers strike, but he will ramp up again this week.”

My first and most generous guide to the #WSOP in 2000 was @FirstLadyPoker Linda Johnson. @WSOP pic.twitter.com/CGelxIJxkm

— James McManus (@jimbosweetness) August 26, 2022

James made the WSOP Main Event final table 23 years ago, so we asked what memories he had have of that final table in particular. “Since it was my first tournament ever, it felt normal to be at the final table, but of course it wasn’t normal at all. After being chip leader late on the previous evening, I never won another hand, so after three days of playing well and running good, the last day was a nightmare and huge disappointment. It took me a while to understand how lucky I’d been during days 1-3.”

This year also marks the 20th anniversary of Chris Moneymaker‘s triumph in the 2003 Main Event. In reflecting upon poker’s resurgent popularity over the last couple years, Jim said that “Three years of pent-up demand have led up to this point. And with all the new ways to cheat online, live tournaments, especially WSOP and WPT events, are sure to become even more popular.”

2000 #WSOP Main Event. Puggy and the guy from @Harpers. #PositivelyFifthStreet to become a limited series. pic.twitter.com/RbDIMLBAq1

— James McManus (@jimbosweetness) August 17, 2022

We asked what memories he had about the late Doyle Brunson, to which Jim replied “He amazingly spanned the eras of the Texas road gamblers, helping to bring No Limit Hold’em to Vegas and introducing state of the art poker strategy in his books, through the early days of the WSOP, through the internet boom, to today, always among the best living players for seven decades. And he always did it with class and generosity. That is simply astonishing.”

He inspired me and millions of others. One of the greatest players ever but without an arrogant cell in his body. #RIPDoyle pic.twitter.com/JY1dbz0Oqu

— James McManus (@jimbosweetness) May 15, 2023

A New WSOP Main Event and a New Book in the Works

You have plans to write a book about your experience at the 2023 WSOP. Tell us a little about it and what it will be about. “I’ll begin reporting on my action on June 15. It will definitely include lots of examples of how different the tournament is today from 2000, from the tiny Horseshoe venue in downtown Vegas to two huge hotels in the center of the Strip. Very few cell phones then; now everyone has one. Back then there were no GTO solvers or online training sites. They used to award 20 bracelets; now it’s almost 100. Players can even bring their dogs to the table.”

What events do you plan to play? How can those who are interested buy a percentage? “At least 10 events, mostly No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha with buy-ins less than $5K, as well as the $10K Main Event. To buy a percentage, please go to my Facebook page, right at the top. The markup is 1.2″.

Jim’s post on Facebook

Today the Main Event has a new venue and thousands of players. We asked Jim if he felt ready to play it considering his increased experience, to which he replied: “Today, far more players are competent at NLH, so it’s harder to build a big stack. To make the final table, you have to play well and #rungood for nine or 10 days instead of three. But I hope 23 years of study and playing tournaments gives me some advantages, though like everyone else in the field, I’ll be an extreme longshot to make the final table.”

Its believed by many that the 2006 WSOP Main Event attendance record of 8,773 could be broken in this year’s edition of the Main Event. Jim concurred. “All signs point to the record being broken, though unfortunately there are no more one-table $1k satellites, which is how I won my seat in 2000 (and many other times). Because of the idiotic UIGEA, American players also have fewer chances to win seats online than players in most other countries.”

10,011 players will enter the 2023 Main Event https://t.co/utEKE2a6LO

— James McManus (@jimbosweetness) June 11, 2023

To end off our conversation, we asked Jim what he likes most about poker, to which he responded: “I like many things about it. It’s our national card game, and increasingly the world’s. Tournaments let me compete for high stakes with a fairly modest buy-in investment. As a popular and potentially lucrative mind sport, poker satisfies my competitive urges long after I got too old to play physical sports. The WSOP is genuinely a world gathering, a chance to meet and compete against people of all ages and backgrounds, from every inhabited continent.”

Remembering the 2000 World Series of Poker Main Event

In 2000, James McManus traveled to Las Vegas to cover the Ted Binion murder trial and the WSOP Main Event. He tried his luck in a $1K Main Event satellite and with three players remaining he accepted a deal to win $6K and paid the difference to play in the tournament he had always dreamed of playing.

A total of 512 players signed up, surpassing the 1999 edition by 119. The best 45 participants would make it into the money and the champion would instantly become a millionaire, with a top prize of $1.5M. Jim started the day with 10K in chips and went into Day 2 with 35K. During Day 2 he was able to double up with K-K and was seated at a difficult table with Kathy Liebert, Daniel Negreanu, Mickey Appleman and Hasan Habib. He was able to survive the bubble by playing his favorite hand (98) and bagged 276K for Day 3, ranking third in the chip counts.

Chris “Jesus” Ferguson and Jim

On Day 3 Jim shared a table with Mike Sexton, Annie Duke, T.J. Cloutier and Jeff Shulman, among others. Chris “Jesus” Ferguson had an incredible run, and after eliminating Shulman, the final table of six players was formed. Chris was the runaway chip-leader with 2.8M and in second place was the humble journalist playing in his first Main Event, with 554K in chips.

How did James do at the final table? To find out, we invite you to read the excellent book “Positively Fifth Street“. While 23 years have passed since that tournament, in just a few days McManus will play it again and possibly have another legendary story to tell about another deep run.

Good luck in Vegas, Jim!

But people don’t get the most they can out of the poker books they read.

This is probably due to:

• Reading for entertainment and not really trying to use books as a tool for learning.
• Reading in hopes the information is absorbed into our mind so we can use it all in-game.
• Reading about strategies, but not getting concrete ideas on how to use them in-game.

I want to help you get more from the poker books you read with this 4-step process.

Step 1: Poker Books are Tools for Improvement

There’s an idea I heard a long time ago, and it’s that people read a book… just to read a book. It’s an activity that helps to pass the time or to allow one to say, “I read that book!”

They don’t necessarily read books in order to improve their life, learn something new or be exposed to fresh ideas.

With the next poker book you choose, I want you to commit learning from it. Say out loud, “I’m going to use this tool to improve my game.”

You’re not just going to read the book, you’re going to use it as a tool for poker improvement.

Step 2: Take Notes in Your Poker Journal

Yep, you’re going back to your high school and college days and you’ll actually take notes on the important things you learn as you read.

The physical act of writing things down increases the chance of remembering and using them. You probably do this already with a simple daily task list, right? You already know you’re more likely to get stuff done if you right it down.

Well, you’re more likely to remember and use the strategies from the book if you write them down.

Plus, your notes are a great pre-session warm-up to help you focus on the strategies as you play.

And of course, feel free to underline, highlight and write notes in the margin of the book you’re holding. You bought it after all, and it’s your book. It’s okay to tag it up with anything that will help you revisit the important lessons in the future.

To help you take notes, get my free Poker Journal in Word format by clicking here.

*Pro Tip* – Keep your journal open as you play and reference them frequently. If you’re playing online at home, this is easy. If LIVE in a cardroom, put your notes in Evernote, take a picture with your smart phone, or use the Poker Notes Live app. Nobody will know what you’re looking at between hands.

Step 3: Create Action Steps

If you’ve read any of my books or heard my Smart Poker Study Podcast, you know I give challenges and Play with Purpose and Study with Purpose tasks that help you to practice the strategies I teach. We learn best through action, not by reading, so practicing what you’re reading is the best way to learn from books.

“Action is the greatest teacher.”

This means you’ll have to create your own action steps based on the strategies you read. This gets easy with practice. Let’s test you out.

Imagine you read in a book that great hands to 3-bet bluff are suited and connected Aces, hands like A5s and ATs (straight and nut flush potential, plus they block your opponent from holding AA, AK and AQ). So, how can you use this information in-game to make better 3-bet bluffing decisions?

Well, when you play tonight and are dealt one of these hands, and you have the opportunity to 3-bet, you’ll consider making the play before you click CALL or FOLD. If it seems like a great opportunity to 3-bet bluff, you’ll do it. If it seems like folding or calling is better, you’ll do that.

It’s a simple way to practice a strategy you learned in a book, right?

*Pro Tip* – Take it one chapter (or even one section within a chapter) at a time. As soon as you learn something important and useful, like the suited Aces idea above, practice it before you continue forward in the book. Sometimes, in a single chapter, an author can give ideas for 20+ strategies to practice. It’s easier to implement these 20 ideas one-at-a-time instead of trying to focus on all 20 at once.

Step 4: Take Action!

So, you read and took notes and created some action steps. It’s time to take action!

Dedicate at least one play session to doing each action step and using the strategies. Find every opportunity to use them when it seems like it’s profitable to do so.

Make sure to note the hands where you made the plays and the ones where you chose not to. These are great hands to study in your upcoming study sessions.

And if you fold and exit the hand? Continue paying attention and look for opportunities that other players have to use the strategy you’re focused on this session. If you were Bob, who remained in the hand after you folded, and you had his opportunity bluff-raise here, would you do it? Is his opponent likely to fold? What size raise would get his opponent to fold?

It’s not the books that you read, nor the order that you read them in. It’s what you do with the information that counts. So, use this 4-step process with the next poker book you read, and treat the book as a tool you can use to improve your game.

First off, the book is a cosy 128 pages long, with sections covering virtually every aspect of Game Theory Optimal (GTO) play in bitesize format, so if you’re looking for a deep bible that will be something that takes you hours to read through, you’re in the wrong place – or the wrong bookshelf. What GTO Poker Gems does provide you with, however, is perhaps more encouraging to players. It is a guide to utilizing GTO plays and putting them into practice immediately.

With “12 insights from the solver that every player would use”, you can also correlate your learning from GTO Poker Gems with the GTO Ranges app, so working with the app and the book in tandem, you can see where the rubber meets the road, or the GTO theory evolves into GTO play.

READ MORE: Red Chip Poker GTO Ranges App Review

I didn’t come to GTO Poker Gems as any sort of expert with a deep knowledge of how to exploit players. I finished the book believing that at least two dozen notes I’d made will certainly improve my game on the back of my reading it. That’s the crucial appeal of GTO Poker Gems – it improves your gameplay no matter where you fit on the chart of understanding GTO.

Utilizing strong GTO play may seem like a daunting prospect; I’ll be honest it did to me before reading, but as the theories are laid out in front of you, you realize one key truth. Understanding GTO gives you the chance of winning pots on two levels.

Firstly, if you understand GTO, you can take advantage of those who don’t. Secondly, if you understand GTO then you’ll know the thought processes that others who use it are likely to take and can be exploitative. Exploiting a poker player’s patterns and predicted plays is a core skill of the game behind making profit.

GTO Poker Gems — Book Structure

Before the GTO theory starts, there’s a whole section on what to expect, so you can plan and plot your way through the knowledge you’re about to absorb, as well as getting ready to use the GTO Ranges app alongside the book.

The book is very clear on declaring in its first section that ‘There Is A Solution to Poker’, which struck me as incredibly bold. While I wanted to sink my teeth into unexploitable bluffing – which had the appeal of a manual on how to eat chocolate and lose weight ! – as well as other chapters such as Equity Distributions, Big Blind Defense and GTO Simplifications, I headed right for the gold. A solution to poker? C’mon.

As the chapter breaks down, GTO is essentially a solve for poker if given enough time to play out. Poker may contain luck, but maximise your skill and over the long-term, you’re going to see results. The GTO Poker Gems chapters all end with a set of takeaways called ‘The Gems’ which you can take away and there’s a nice appeal to each of them. I felt like a lucky pirate wandering from treasure chest to buried bags of gold on my own private island, filling my knapsack with priceless nuggets of information.

One such nugget is dropped early, and that is the notion of mixed strategies, which is simply explained as that a certain hand might be a call 70% of the time and a check 30% of the time. That doesn’t mean that you should call because that’s the action with the highest chance of success. It means that you can mix up your game and take a different strategy to stay one step ahead of your opponent.

In essence, that’s the core takeaway (or ‘gem’) you can take for this book – that there is always a GTO answer for your query about whether you could have played your hand better.

That is almost always the case, of course, but rather than make you feel like a dummy for ‘not getting it’, Sweeney’s take on GTO is easy to grasp and genuinely feels beneficial with every passing chapter.

An Easily Digestible Guide to Understanding GTO

From playing +EV poker rather than -EV (actions that will either cost you or give you profit over time), to analysing the nuts and bolts of a perfect betting strategy, GTO Poker Gems is full of information that sticks in your mind. There are tables and charts, sure, but never too many and no chart is placed in the book without a lot of attention to the reasons why. There’s a point where the ‘break-even’ point is breached and you can rely on the GTO you’ve learned making a profit in the long term. Once you’ve reached this point, you can look at how to take advantage of your opponents’ lack of knowledge.

The style of writing is accessible, too. There’s no constant math to digest and the use of language is economical and clean; a little like reading Lou Kreiger in his pomp. Sweeney knows how to put across the tips and tricks and knows when you need a little bit more meat on the bone. Whenever I felt like I wanted a little more explanation of the GTO theory as it was going in, there it was. If I felt I knew what I needed to, the page seemed to come to an end in that paragraph. That’s a rare skill among any writers, let alone in poker, where an extra chapter will often be added for little reason.

Overall, the book is full of GTO poker gems and lives up to its name throughout. If you’re looking for a way into GTO thinking when it comes to improving your poker skills, then I’d heartily recommend James Sweeney’s GTO Poker Gems. I’m glad I’ve read it. And if I’m about to play you at the felt, I’m hoping you haven’t!

Excelling At Tough No-Limit Hold ‘Em Games has everything I have come to love from D&B poker books. It includes practical tools that can be implemented to exploit recreational players and more advanced GTO fundamentals when playing against seasoned regulars. Jonathan Little and the Pocarr team drive home the GTO and exploitative principles using hundreds of real-world examples. For instance, Richard Hoadley, Main Coach at Pocarr, has an entire chapter filled with hands from his personal hand history. Have you ever watched a poker tournament on PokerGO and wondered what the pro was thinking as they choose their line from betting round to betting round? Wonder no more!

Jonathan Little has all of his bases covered in this one. He hits on all the aspects of the game that can take you to the next level. When we first start out playing poker, we develop tendencies that can be exploited by other vigilante players. We may still be winning at our current level overall, causing us to overlook these leaks. Think you know everything there is to know about continuation betting and defending against a continuation bet from OOP? Jon Van Fleet, with over $15 million in online cashes, would bet that you don’t! His insights into c-betting are so extensive and profound they couldn’t all fit into one chapter but instead needed two.

We can take for granted lines we have developed since we first started playing without knowing why we do it or if it is even optimal. Yeah, sure, you can be a winning player at the lower stakes but have unknown leaks that, if sealed, could propel you to a whole other level. The only way to do that is to accept that you don’t know as much as Jon Van Fleet and other Pocarr coaches about almost every aspect of the game.

It is actually a hard thing to acknowledge. In our heads, we are big shots cause we are crushing the low stakes. The truth is, if we concede that we may have shortcomings, we can then look to overcome them. Even professional poker players haven’t arrived. They continue to fight for an even greater edge against their opponents, never settling. They hire coaches. Well, guess what? Excelling At Tough No-Limit Hold ‘Em Games is written by those coaches that the pros seek out. The bottom of the book cover says, “How To Succeed Beyond the Small Stakes.” You want that, and Jonathan Little and the Pocarr crew can get you there! The ROI purchasing this book can’t be overstated.

One example I overlooked was how I played from the big blind in tournaments when I was shallow stacked. I had my default ranges that I called or folded along with a mix of premium and marginal hands I would check-raise. Pretty standard. Or so I thought. Pocarr coach Alexandre Mantovani to the rescue! He blew my mind when he suggested defending the UTG min-raise open with 77% of my range from the BB when nobody else ahead of me calls. This range seems incredibly wide! He points out that I can check-raise bluff with my OOP range when UTG’s range misses the flop, and it often does. Of course, this is an oversimplification, but you’ll get all the details in the book. Jonathan Van Fleet‘s hand history database shows that he is -68bb/100 when defending from the BB against a raise in non-all-in situations. He admits it seems like a bad result, but it is a fantastic win rate when compared to -113bb/100 when folding. This stat is a game changer!

Besides continuation betting strategies and c-bet defense from OOP tactics, the book covers a range of topics from mastering ICM to Progressive Knock Out Tournament strategies to basics such as passive exploits to crush the small stakes to adjusting your pre-flop game. All aspects of the game that I don’t want to take for granted. Even as a winning small stakes player, I can have tendency and frequency leaks that need to be plugged. There is always room for improvement, and the only way to increase my edge is to continue to study and research. The game changes; it is not the same game today as it was in the 2003 poker boom. D&B Poker keeps me up-to-date with the current cutting edge poker trends. This book is a must if you want to stay on top of the ever-changing game and move up the stakes and crush it.

Also, if you know someone who is an aspiring up-and-coming poker player themselves, this book makes for a perfect gift for the holidays! I know if I ripped into a present Santa left under the Christmas tree, and it was this book, I would be like a little kid who just got their first bike! So don’t be a Grinch; hook the poker player in your life up with Excelling At Tough No-Limit Hold ‘Em Games. Tis the season!

Head on over to your bookshelf and put all of your old outdated poker books about GTO into a box. You don’t need them anymore! The information in those pages is now obsolete and incomplete. There’s a new kid in town and its name is Modern Poker Theory. I can’t imagine that a more comprehensive book on the subject of GTO will ever be written. This is it, the buck stops here; Modern Poker Theory is the final stop on the route. The book’s mastermind Michael Acevedo has arrived and he is taking us along for the ride, so strap on your seat belts and get ready to learn a LOT about poker!

I have always had a fascination with brilliant people, but even more so with brilliant people who can explain what it is they know to us mere mortals. What use is it being a genius if you can’t communicate what you know? Michael Acevedo is the whole package. He has a background as a mathematician, is a professional online player, coach, and leading poker theorist. If you want to improve your game and increase your win rate, pay attention to what Michael has to say. He was also a financial analyst, so he knows a thing or two about increasing dividends.

I wrote #ModernPokerTheory with the intention to make Game Theory accessible to everyone, I’m very happy to see it has help you get actual results. Best of luck https://t.co/LsDxaFbaRJ

— Michael Acevedo (@GTOPoker) August 19, 2019

One of the greatest aspects of this book is how user friendly it is to apply during off-table study. I have read many poker strategy books and most of them are not as easy to use as Modern Poker Theory. What I mean by that specifically is that in this book the chapters are arranged in such a way that you can easily reference specific information about a given spot you are studying. If you are on an online poker forum doing hand analysis, for example, you can very quickly look up what range and at what frequency the villain should be calling the hero’s 3-bet with in position. You can then just as quickly find the specific section in the book detailing what ranges and frequencies the hero should C-bet or check raise with. There is no other book like it in this regard. You can practically use it in real time (although, you might not want to try that at your live home game this week with your buddies!).

Got some new reading material in the mail today! I’m super excited to get into @GTOPoker new book; I have a feeling it’s going to be life-changing! @DBPoker1 really hit it out of the park with this one! pic.twitter.com/43aBiDWKo3

— Tricia Cardner, PhD, EdD (@DrTriciaCardner) August 21, 2019

There are a lot of people who see the letters GTO and their lights immediately turn off. They completely unplug when they see those three scary letters because they have heard a lot of misinformation about what game theory optimal really truly is. Do not be one of those people! While some people are overwhelmed, others just believe incorrectly that GTO “does not apply to their game.” You also don’t want to be one of those people either! Acevedo thoroughly and masterfully illustrates how and why GTO is the foundation you want to build your poker strategy upon.

Plainly put, he explains that GTO is the strategy you implement when playing against someone else who is playing GTO. In other words, it is the most optimal strategy to play when playing against someone who knows what you are doing. If you find that someone is not playing GTO poker, you can then play exploitatively. The thing is, if you don’t know GTO strategy you are the player being exploited. Period!

via GIPHY

I know math can be terrifying. I know graphs and charts can be daunting. I know this because I myself am not one of the gifted few who are number crunching savants. Fortunately, as I mentioned above, Michael has a talent for simplifying complex concepts such that anyone can understand them. Seriously, he almost had me thinking I could do calculus. Almost!

The thing is, he not only breaks down the equations and formulas that poker math is comprised of, but he also explains the principles behind them. So even if you’re struggling to grasp the math, he still unpacks GTO strategy in a way anyone can comprehend by using countless easy-to-understand examples. He illustrates step by step, in laymen’s terms, what it all means so that you can apply GTO strategy to your game regardless of whether or not you understand the actual math behind it. In other words, he makes it such that you don’t need to be an auto mechanic in order to drive the vehicle.

Reflecting on my own learning process and growth as a poker player, the amazing thing is that once I read through Acevedo’s examples and his step-by-step illustrations, I was then able to go back and reread some of the equations that had been way over my head and make sense out of them! I literally learned some algebra from his teaching method. It was amazing!

@GTOPoker Explains in great detail the beauty behind using Game-theory in poker, and gets your attention when making references to Alphazero in chess or Chinook in Checkers. It is a groundbreaking theoretical work, made reader friendly and entertaining. pic.twitter.com/FA7d7OAgG5

— Peter Heine Nielsen (@PHChess) September 9, 2019

Modern Poker Theory is great for both MTT and cash game players. The book may lean more toward assisting with tournament play, but the principles can be applied to cash games as well. The book truly is comprehensive. It even covers exploitative play, as Michael points out how to take advantage of your opponents in different scenarios where the villain may not be using a balanced GTO strategy.

He covers everything from basic concepts of core poker fundamentals to the more advanced elements of game theory. He also discusses poker software thoroughly. Even if you are already familiar with specific software that he discusses, you are certain to pick something up that you didn’t know before. Acevedo has clearly mastered GTO solvers and commercial artificial intelligence software. So, especially if you are plugging away at PioSOLVER or MonkerSolver and are getting questionable outputs, this book would be worth purchasing for that aspect alone.

To summarize, I feel like I am now literally able to box up half my poker books and toss ‘em into storage. They are no longer needed. Modern Poker Theory is five books in one. I can also recycle nearly all of my poker strategy notebooks that I have handwritten over the years. They are no longer needed. Modern Poker Theory is so well organized that I can use it almost in real time. I can sell all of my old college algebra text books, too. They are no longer needed. All of the poker math I will ever need to know Michael Acevedo has just taught me!

So, if you want to replace your old stack of dog eared, coffee stained, scribbled in poker books with a brand new one written by a genius, then Modern Poker Theory is the one and only poker book for you!

#1 Best seller en @amazon #Poker #ModernPokerTheory pic.twitter.com/gIOKPhd3Ln

— Michael Acevedo (@GTOPoker) October 4, 2019

Speaking of tells, there is a chapter dedicated to the subject. I have read several books, written by experts who specialize in poker tells. However, the insights that the 2004 World Series of Poker Main Event champion Greg Raymer has to offer (based on three decades’ worth of experience) are even more ‘telling’ (pun intended). The wonderful thing is that Raymer is not only able to clearly explain what certain tells may mean, but he also illustrates how to use that information to adjust your strategy to best exploit the situation. After all, knowing what tells mean doesn’t do any good unless we know what to do with the information.

If you are a serious tournament player or are considering being a serious tournament player, this book is for you. The ICM chapter alone makes this book a must-have in your collection of D&B Poker study resources. We all mostly know how to apply ICM strategy, but we don’t necessarily understand the why. Once you understand the math behind ICM strategy, you can go from mostly knowing how to apply it to wielding it like a ninja with nunchuck skills.

It turns out that, unlike ninjas, tournament players shouldn’t put such a premium on survival. The good news is that it doesn’t mean we should put away our nunchucks. No, no. Rather, it means we shouldn’t stop attacking! Basically, at the start of a tournament when ICM strategy has not kicked in yet, you should not make decisions based on “finding a better spot”. You should make plays based off whether it is +EV or -EV, just like a cash game. Raymer says that he sees professional poker players getting this wrong all the time. So that chapter is for everybody, no matter what your current skill level.

I love that Fossilman’s Winning Tournament Strategies covers several tournament structures. It covers satellites, reentry and rebuys, bounty, short-handed, turbos, shootouts, heads-up, limit, and pot limit. I seriously feel like I could go into any one of these tournament structures now and know exactly how to adjust, whereas before I would have had no idea. This skill is huge and almost by definition makes you a bigger potential threat in any tournament you decide to play! Your local casino offers tournaments all week long. How many times do you pass on the opportunities to play because the schedule of events doesn’t include one with a structure you’re familiar with? That’s money you’re leaving on the table! After reading Winning Tournament Strategies you can go and get it. Plainly speaking, the average field that enters these uncommon tournaments don’t understand how to adjust correctly. They often don’t adjust at all; you can exploit that.

Finished the last recording session last night for the audio version of FossilMan’s Winning Tournament Strategies. It should be available from https://t.co/dJYtlqj8pN within a couple of weeks. Hope you enjoy! pic.twitter.com/971racPOhM

— Greg Raymer (@FossilMan) September 5, 2019

Every single chapter is gold. This book exceeded my expectations (which were, admittedly, really high). Have you ever looked up Raymer’s Hendon Mob stats? When someone of his caliber graces us with a poker book, we would be wise to check it out. I am positive that Fossilman’s Winning Tournament Strategies is going to be yet another book from D&B Poker that is going to get read and reread again just like so many of their other poker books in my stash. I can’t say this enough, if you are a serious tournament player or are considering trying to become a serious tournament player, you must get this book. Not having this book is like a ninja without nunchucks! Get the book, get the skills, and kick some butt!