In fact, like most poker books, if you skip to the key concepts and find that you know them all, you don’t need the book. Like most good poker books, Miller summarizes the key concepts towards the end of the book. It’s easy to pick out the latter.ģ) Big bets mean more than small bets, a concept carried over from a whole range of books. It’s up to you to divine that reason.Ģ) Most players don’t bluff at the correct frequency usually they don’t bluff enough though a few players bluff too much. How they act on the flop, turn and river narrows the range of their hands, regardless of their style of play.ġ) Players play a certain way for a reason. Although he doesn’t say it, I think is the general point regardless of how players play, they stick to a range of starting hands. Miller avoids the traditional descriptions of tight, passive, loose, and aggressive.

The Fish: a loose player who likes to gamble too much to be worried about pot odds and plays a wide variety of starting hands. The Regular: the standard player who fills out small stakes live action hold’em and usually does well in her home games The Nit: conservative in nature is mostly worried about losing big pots

You have to put in the work away from the table to get good at the game.įor Miller, a lot of hand reading comes down to using his range of starting hands for the three types of players you will find at an average small stakes game: It’s in working through the exercises Miller scatters throughout the book that your game will improve. If you have not mastered those concepts, pick up a copy of No Limit Hold ‘em Theory and Practice by the same author and David Skylansky or pretty much anything by Daniel Harrington.Īlso, if you are serious about mastering the concepts in the book, you will need a pen and paper to write down the exercises. Although Miller doesn’t say it, he assumes you know the power of position, can calculate outs and know how to figure out EV. This book is written for the $1 - $2 and $2 - $5 no limit players who understand the math behind poker but long to improve their hand reading skills.

Ed miller small stakes hold em