- One is by your own efforts. These include such things as concentration and focus, determination to succeed, discipline and the understanding of both mathematics and psychology. And practice which brings with it experience and the ability to learn from ones mistakes.
- The other is outside help. These include such things as poker lessons, computer simulations and even conversations with more experienced players. It also includes studying books. But which books to read – and to take seriously is the problem.
Hundreds of poker books have appeared over the last few years most of which have one thing in common. They claim to turn readers who follow their advice, systems and strategies into money-making machines. The other thing they seem to have in common is that they are mainly derivative and merely re-hash what most players know already. So when a book which contains new ideas and theories appears it has quite an impact. One such was Kill Phil, written a couple of years ago by New Zealander Lee Nelson and American Blair Rodman. The title was a take-off of the Tarantino movie Kill Bill and the “Phil” referred to on the cover of the book was any one of the famous Phils on the world poker scene – Hellmuth, Ivey, Gordon and the rest. The basic concept of the book was to provide ideas as to how ordinary recruits to the game could take on the tournament aficionados with a fair chance of beating them. It had many new ideas – and they work. Lee Nelson is an interesting character. A doctor specialising in prostate cancer he decided to take a shot at the poker tournament scene when he was in his 50s. He had so much success that he got himself a nickname, Final Table Lee. In 2006, at the age of 63, he won the Aussie Millons title in Melbourne and to date has picked up £1 million plus in competition earnings. Now, in collaboration with Americans Kim Lee and Tyson Streib, he has written a follow up (not lazily entitled Kill Phil 2) but Kill Everyone. It deals only with no limit hold’em and while Kill Phil was 90 per cent concerned with pre-flop play the sequel goes the whole way. What is different about the Lee Nelson approach is that it recognises that poker, like many other games, is in a state of flux. Things change and what was accepted as optimum strategy a few years ago no longer works so well. The book defines the difference between the Old School approach and that of the New School. Exponents of the latter are categorised as LAGs which stands for loose-aggressive, a style of which the high priest is Dane Gus Hansen. Hansen, who incidentally won the Aussie Millions title the year after Lee, has made numerous appearances on televised final tables and the range of starting cards he is prepared to play falls into the any-two-will-do category. Kill Everyone explains the why and the how? It is extremely complex and detailed, 350 pages of things you had better know to survive in the modern no limit hold’em world. Both Kill Phil and Kill Everyone are published by Huntington Press, Las Vegas. |
