The Poker Tournament Formula 2 – Arnold Snyder
First, I’m writing the review of this book before the PTF1 (Poker Tournament Formula 1) review. I just finished reading this book (PTF2) and decided while it’s fresh on my mind so I’ll lay out my thoughts.
The reason I bought this book was because the styles and techniques laid out in Mr. Snyder’s first book was (in my views) the best I’ve ever seen.
PTF2 – starts where PTF1 left off. PTF1 was a fast tournament play book where PTF2 covers the long more skillful tournament set up (blind times longer than 15 minutes).
I like this book because it doesn’t go in detail on what starting hand requirements a person should play. This is an advanced concept book and is not for folks who are just starting out playing hold’em.
I won’t take away from Mr. Snyder and lay out the content of his book online. You can purchase the book for all of that. However, I will describe a few of topics otherwise no one will be inclined to read his material.
One of the interesting things about the book (and it’s not even listed as a selling point) is the 10 functions you have with your chip stack.
Think about it for a second, can you list down all the functions your chips stack has besides adding to the pile? PFT2 goes into detail on how to use your chip stack to make information bets, value bet, dominate small stacks.
The books primary focus is utilizing the weapons you have at hand to develop a monstrous chip stack.
Anyway, I know I’m not listing out alot of information but I feel by doing so would take away from Mr. Snyder as a writer.
I will say that his books are nothing like the other mundane books I’ve read. Just about every other book (with the exception of Phil Gordon’s Little Green Book) tells you what you already know.
How to play certain hands; memorize a chart, etc, etc, etc.
I think what makes the PFT1 & PFT2 stand out is they were written by a guy who hasn’t played hold’em for the last 50 years. What I mean by that, is all the book out there now are written by pros who have been in the game for over 20-30 years and where playing hold’em is second nature.
I think this leads to’blindness where the content of most poker books is lost on ‘this is how you play this hand on this chart’.
Mr. Snyder comes from a black jack back ground and his books seem to reflect more of a journal of what worked and what didn’t from a research type method.
Now from my experience, I played in tourneys and I sucked. After reading PFT1 and applying some of his ideas, I soon found myself making it to the final table a hell of alot more often. Hopefully, I’ll get to put his ideas from PFt2 to use soon!
So, read the books!
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In The Money – Antonio Esfandiari
There’s an upside and down side to this book. If you bought it to learn poker you wasted your money. If you bought it to be entertained then it’s a pretty good book. I take nothing away from Mr. Esfandiari he’s a great player but the book lacks when it comes to poker.
Antonio spends his times retelling stories of how he learned poker and all of his magic tricks and very little on the game itself.
In a nut shell he pretty much preaches that you be aggressive, aggressive, and aggressive. That’s about it.
The one thing the book does tell is how he became such a great player is that he played hours upon hours of heads up poker with Phil Lock while they were roomies. After months of training like this, I think most individuals would become really good players.
Other than that, the book came with a DVD so you could learn chip tricks. According to Antonio, fancy chip tricks at the table will intimidate other opponents you play against at the table.
I’ve played against folks who can do the fancy tricks I’ve seen and they still played like crap. I can’t do a single trick and when I do try one it’s for ‘advertising’ purposes only at the table. If folks try and judge my poker skills by my ability to do chip tricks then I welcome that judgment. J
Read MoreWinner’s Guide to Texas Hold’em Poker – Ken Warren
This was the first Hold’em book I ever bought. I was just starting out playing hold’em and everything I have learned up until the purchase of this book was via experience and the internet. I seen this book at 1/2 price books and picked it up.
I must say, for a starting book on hold’em, this book is pretty good. It covers all the basic preflop strategies, turn and river strategies. However, this book is focused only on cash games. It has a list of hands and how they should be played. It also provides a detailed chart on card odds and what hands beat other hands and the percentage of the time they do beat them.
Over all, if your starting in hold’em and playing cash type of games this book is a good solid foundation to start your card playing career out with.
However, it goes over exact hand starting requirements and what hands you should play and shouldn’t play in certain positions.
This is good for an early beginner in to the game but if you follow hand charts to the letter a good poker player will soon catch on. And exploit the methods of your betting and hand playing.
Yet, I still recommend it to just about everyone. It’s a small book and had some very good tips that everyone can benefit from.
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Call of Duty 4 – Part 2: Online Play
Online Play
The online (xbox live) multiplayer aspect of COD4 is by far the best I’ve encountered. The realism (like I would know what combat realism looked like anyway) is the best I’ve seen. In my personal opinion I think the squad based groups where teams actually fight each other is most fun. On most occasions a team that consists of 6 people from around the globe will work as a team to eliminate the enemy team. Working as a unit and protecting each other and at passing off voice commands to warn soldiers of sneak attacks.
I can only really comment about the HardCore Team Death match because that is the game I play the most. The matches last 10 minutes or who ever reach 750 points first. A death of the opposing team is 10 points. You can earn 2 points if you wound an opposing player and a team mate finishes him off.
Everyone spawns at the same place and at the start of a match. As the game progresses the spawn points will move around the map.
There are 16 multiplayer maps that are extremely detailed and has multiple strategy that can be applied.
In addition to hardcore team death match there is sabotage, ground war, free-for-all, and quite a few others to mix up game play quite a bit.
Where hardcore differs from the rest of the game types is your HUD is removed so you can’t tell where other enemy players are. Damage from gun fire is also greatly increased. So, you don’t have to shoot someone 20 times before they die.
Also, there is a bonus map pack that can be downloaded from Xbox Live that adds four additional maps. The new bonus maps are also included in the game of year edition of COD4.
I will lay out part of my strategy for each map in future articles’. I also plan an in-depth article over PKs (player killers). It is a bane in every online multiplayer game and in COD4 is terrible.
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