Bonesnap

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!