I've read over 20 books on poker over the years. I've been quite impressed with the quality of poker books recently, compared to several years ago.
This book would be in my top two favorite and most useful poker books, with the other one being Will Tipton's "Expert Heads Up No-Limit Holdem".
His discussion on how to reason balancing has been vital to me. Also, I've found a major leak in my game when playing out-of-position. I'm generally a very aggressive player and almost always prefer betting out monster hands instead of trapping, since it grows the pot. I think a common rookie mistake is to get too sneaky-trappy, resulting in smaller pots than monster hands deserve. In general, my choice of aggression vs. trappy has worked out to my advantage.
But he makes some very compelling arguments where trapping is clearly superior. My major leak is that my aggressive "play big hands big" results in my checks universally being weak. The out-of-position disadvantage clearly needs to be balanced by properly trapping in the right spots.
Also, he turns the calling decision of pot-odds on its head. He concludes that you should defend (i.e. call) 60% of bets on the flop (when heads-up). This should surprise most players, I think, since generally we only call if we hit, and fold if we miss. You only hit 33%, so how to call the other 27% successfully, especially dry flops? Well, it only works if your opponent is "properly aggressive", like GTO. Against straightforward players, 60% is clearly a loser. But if you fold more than 60%, then opponent's "bluff 3/4 pot always" strategy simply has +EV against you. So pot-odds thinking must be compared to "don't give bluff-always any +EV".
Starting with the triple-barrel value play (balanced with some triple barrel bluffs) as a backbone of his analysis, you can understand the game much deeper. This triple-barrel play is really central to deep-stack poker. Once you've worked this out, you can reason how to shallow your strategy as stacks get shorter (like 30 Big-Blind tourneys).
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Top reviews from other countries
Ilya Watteau
Excellent but not for beginners
Reviewed in France on September 10, 2021Your Average Joe
A very powerful book with a lot of math and a lot of abstract concepts.
Reviewed in Canada on October 3, 2018Antonio Jesús Muñoz Serrano
Libro en perfecto estado y en el tiempo estimado.
Reviewed in Spain on May 28, 2014