Playing The Player—Details About The New Book

I’ve got a new book coming out May 22nd. It’s called Playing The Player: Moving Beyond ABC Poker To Dominate Your Opponents.

Folks, this one is really good.

Ok. It’s not news I think the book is good. I think every one of my seven books has been good and well worth your time and money. And I’ve pretty much thought that each successive book has been better than the last.

But this one is really, really good.

I was listening yesterday to the archives of Bart Hanson’s Deuce Plays podcast. I’ve already listened to each episode probably three times. They are very good. The archives are also free, so if you haven’t listened to these, you really have no excuse not to.

Anyway, I was listening to an episode where Bart interviewed his guest, international poker superstar Phil Galfond. Obviously an episode well worth anyone’s time. Bart asked Phil the following question (paraphrased): What is it that successful mid-stakes players [talking about online play here] do that the small-stakes regulars haven’t figured out?

Phil’s answer made me smile, because it is exactly the same one I would have given if asked. He said that small stakes regs often have strong fundamentals, and they understand the important concepts relevant to playing a no-limit hand in a vacuum. But they lack the ability to adjust their strategies to take advantage of the mistakes their opponents are making. (Q&A starts at the 8 minute mark of the linked podcast).

In other words, against many players in many hands, taking a non-standard line will make the most money. The successful mid-stakes players identify and take these non-standard lines while the small stakes players more often stick to the standard plays.

Playing The Player is written entirely about how to identify opponents and situations where taking a non-standard line will maximize your profits.

This book covers exactly the stuff that some of the most successful mid-stakes regulars use to get their edges over everyone else.

It’s advanced stuff… at least in the sense that I can play $2-$5 and $5-$10 in Las Vegas for many, many hours and come across almost no opponents who seem to understand and use the concepts in this book.

But even though it’s advanced, it’s really not that hard. There’s very little math in the book. You aren’t going to have to do EV equations or count hand combinations until your eyes bleed.

It’s logic. If you understand how to think logically, and you are willing to devote some honest time to working through hands away from the table, this book can potentially make you a much, much better no-limit hold’em player.

Here’s how the book works. I define various traits that you will find in many of your opponents. These are traits that I see commonly every day I sit and play. I show you what to look for to identify the trait, and then I break down the plays you can make to exploit the trait and therefore to make a profit off any opponent who has the trait.

For instance, I was playing $2-$5 yesterday. It was a multiway pot. I flopped a so-so pair and checked it, and the flop got checked through. A guy bet the turn, and I called. A worst-card-in-the-deck scare card came on the river, the guy made a large bet (for the pot size), and I folded. He triumphantly showed me a stone bluff.

I watched him play some more hands. Several times he made a fairly good hand on the river—top pairs, overpairs, and the like—and he checked them all.

In other words, this guy seemed to make big bets on the river as bluffs, but at the same time checked down all his decent value hands.

How would you exploit someone playing this way?

This is no small thing to notice about an opponent. Identifying this trait in this player will change how I play virtually every hand against him in the future, making nearly every hand more profitable for me.

This is how you get really good at poker. You find these little postflop tendencies that players have, you identify the counterstrategy, and you apply it ruthlessly. I teach you to do this step-by-step in Playing The Player.

This book is really good, folks. Some people are going to read it, the light bulb is going to go on, and they will go on to become monster no-limit hold’em players. I know it.

Release Details

The release date is May 22nd. As I’ve done with past books, I’m going to offer preordering beginning two weeks earlier, on May 8th. Also, as I’ve done with past books, those who pre-order will get a few perks for getting in early.

This time, however, I’m going to offer three options at pre-order time: e-book, paperback, or both. If you pre-order the e-book (or order both versions), then you’ll get your book emailed to you on the 22nd. If you pre-order only the paperback, however, then it will likely take two to three weeks after the 22nd for your shipment to arrive. Paperbacks will ship on a first-come-first-served basis as soon as I get them from the printer.

Paperbacks will ship by USPS Priority Mail and I will personally sign each one. I can ship to most countries now.

The price is $49.99 for either the e-book or the paperback (plus shipping and possibly sales tax on the paperback), or $69.99 (plus shipping and sales tax) for both. The e-book purchase gets you three versions: PDF, MOBI (for Kindle), and EPUB (for Apple products and most other e-readers). For payment I accept credit cards, Paypal, Skrill, and money orders by mail.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask in the comments.