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World Poker Tour: Making the Final Table
Erick Lindgren, one of the most recognizable and successful players on the World Poker Tour, presents No–Limit Hold'em tournament strategies for surviving and thriving at the tables.
This follow–up to WPT: Shuffle Up and Deal from poker professional Erick Lindgren with contributions from other stars of the World Poker Tour provides the next level of poker strategies and insights for today's poker players. The popularity of the World Poker Tour has driven the huge spike in amateur players entering No–Limit Hold'em Tournaments. As a result the old strategies of conservative slow play are no longer effective. Only the strongest and most aggressive players like Lindgren are reaching the final tables. In this book he will share what it takes to be the last one standing. This will be a must have for all poker enthusiasts.
Perfect for fans of the World Poker Tour as aired on Network Ten and is a hot Foxtel favourite
Australian poker champion Joe Hachem has just been all over the media after he won $10 million.
Erick Lindgren has won almost $2 million on the World Poker Tour, including two first place finishes.
The World Poker Tour television series has revolutionized televised poker by offering expert analysis, and varying camera angles and close–ups of the players' hole cards, creating a whole new brand of high–tech, high–stakes, high–anxiety entertainment.
This follow–up to WPT: Shuffle Up and Deal from poker professional Erick Lindgren with contributions from other stars of the World Poker Tour provides the next level of poker strategies and insights for today's poker players. The popularity of the World Poker Tour has driven the huge spike in amateur players entering No–Limit Hold'em Tournaments. As a result the old strategies of conservative slow play are no longer effective. Only the strongest and most aggressive players like Lindgren are reaching the final tables. In this book he will share what it takes to be the last one standing. This will be a must have for all poker enthusiasts.
Perfect for fans of the World Poker Tour as aired on Network Ten and is a hot Foxtel favourite
Australian poker champion Joe Hachem has just been all over the media after he won $10 million.
Erick Lindgren has won almost $2 million on the World Poker Tour, including two first place finishes.
The World Poker Tour television series has revolutionized televised poker by offering expert analysis, and varying camera angles and close–ups of the players' hole cards, creating a whole new brand of high–tech, high–stakes, high–anxiety entertainment.
- GenresNonfiction
208 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2005
14 people want to read
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June 20, 2023In this book author David Apostolico offers an insightful and captivating exploration of the world of professional poker. The book serves as an invaluable source of knowledge for both novice and experienced players, delving into the strategies, mindset, and dynamics that drive success in the high-stakes arena.
Apostolico's writing style is engaging and accessible, making complex concepts and strategies easily understandable. He takes readers on a journey through the process of qualifying for and ultimately reaching the final table of a prestigious poker tournament. Along the way, he provides detailed analyses of hands, decision-making processes, and the psychology behind playing the game at an elite level.
Moreover, the book offers valuable insights into the world of tournament poker, including discussions on bankroll management, table dynamics, and the art of bluffing. Apostolico draws from his own experiences and interviews with professional players to provide a comprehensive view of the intricacies involved in competing at the highest level.
"World Poker Tour: Making the Final Table" is not only a source of strategic knowledge but also an engaging narrative that keeps readers engrossed throughout. Apostolico's storytelling ability creates a sense of excitement and tension as readers follow the journey of players striving to achieve greatness.
Overall, "World Poker Tour: Making the Final Table" is an exceptional source of information and inspiration for poker enthusiasts. Whether you are an aspiring player or a seasoned pro, this book offers valuable insights, strategies, and a deep understanding of the game. Apostolico's expertise and storytelling make it a must-read for anyone seeking to enhance their poker skills and experience the thrill of the final table.
Apostolico's writing style is engaging and accessible, making complex concepts and strategies easily understandable. He takes readers on a journey through the process of qualifying for and ultimately reaching the final table of a prestigious poker tournament. Along the way, he provides detailed analyses of hands, decision-making processes, and the psychology behind playing the game at an elite level.
Moreover, the book offers valuable insights into the world of tournament poker, including discussions on bankroll management, table dynamics, and the art of bluffing. Apostolico draws from his own experiences and interviews with professional players to provide a comprehensive view of the intricacies involved in competing at the highest level.
"World Poker Tour: Making the Final Table" is not only a source of strategic knowledge but also an engaging narrative that keeps readers engrossed throughout. Apostolico's storytelling ability creates a sense of excitement and tension as readers follow the journey of players striving to achieve greatness.
Overall, "World Poker Tour: Making the Final Table" is an exceptional source of information and inspiration for poker enthusiasts. Whether you are an aspiring player or a seasoned pro, this book offers valuable insights, strategies, and a deep understanding of the game. Apostolico's expertise and storytelling make it a must-read for anyone seeking to enhance their poker skills and experience the thrill of the final table.
September 9, 2012
Erick Lindgren’s poker book takes the reader through a brief course of sea stores r from Lindgren’s rise in the poker world. The structure of the book is unique form other poker books I’ve read, as it takes you on successive lessons of how your tournament starts, though a middle stage of the tournament and then what will happen at the final table.
In the narrative, Erick seems confident that these few lessons will get you to the million dollar prize of the World Poker Tour, even adding a chapter called “Living the Life of a Pro” that discusses the best way for you to make poker your career after your million dollar win. There’s a certain innocence to the pages, as if he really believes each one of us will succeed in this just by using his bluffing strategies, as if the million dollar prize is out there for each of the thousand readers of the book. He really intends to tell you to play more poker within the year that you win the million, as each poker entry is in effect tax deductible, reducing the tax burden of your million dollar win. I suppose this allows the reader to dream along.
This brings to mind the topic of “living the dream”, which is a topic I’ve seen repeatedly in gambling forums such as this one: http://www.covers.com/postingforum/po.... The dream is of course moving to Vegas and make a living as a sports bettor/poker player/professional gambler. It makes me wonder why so many have this dream – rent a barely adequate apartment and just play games for a living. Is it a statement about how difficult or disheartening real life work is? Does it speak to our need to be independent rather than depending on a corporation or a family for our connection in the world? This is probably worth a separate essay outside of this book review. Anyhow, Erick is living the dream, having dropped out of college, winning his nearly 2 million in a couple of years on the World Poker Tour as of the 2005 date of this publishing. Now in real life, Erick may not be as well off if we can believe the profile found on Poker Pages, where 3 of the last 4 years have sub-$100,000 winnings which also doesn’t account for entry fees when he doesn’t win: http://www.pokerpages.com/player-prof.... I wonder how these guys are doing really, when their main competition gets stronger every year in the higher stakes games.
Another topic for a separate essay – Erick describes how being a professional poker player is really akin to being a professional golfer or tennis player. This could have been true in 2005, but in more recent years, unlike golf tournaments, we don’t see the same winners repeating but rather a new group of players that seem to surface in a world that seems closer to equal opportunity than a sport where the higher skilled veterans have advantages. It’s not golf after all I think, so I would have been more pleased if Erick described the steps to excellence but with the caveat of “don’t quit your day job”. Instead, it’s a series of lines about “when you are on TV…”.
Throughout the reading, I felt a certain kinship with his style of play. He emphasized recognizing the weakness of the opponents and then a corresponding adaptation of your play. You’re looking at an arrogant player with jewelry and an entourage? Look for him to bluff you out and wait for your turn to reraise. Meet a nicer well mannered player? Assume he’s a stone, waiting for his Aces to roll in and an easy mark to bluff out of several pots. The well heeled businessman? He’ll probably play straight-up and not try to bluff against you. Fold if he starts raising and milk him for some chips if you hit. It’s not like I haven’t heard of such adaptive play before, but he goes to the point of playing trash when the situation dictates.
One example that will stick with me is a scenario where you are on the dealer button and everyone has folded to you. He indicates a raise to the small and big blind is almost automatic for him because of the risk reward balance. Basically, if the small and big blind are 50 and 100, respectively, his 200 bet will earn $150 1/3 of the time and even if he’s called, he still has a 1/3 chance of winning something like $200 or $250. So the loss on this bet occurs only 4/9 of the time (subtracting from 1 the 1/3 and the 1/3 of 2/3). Kind of makes sense. He feels the same way about a quick half-pot bet after the flop when he is only heads-up against someone. If the opponent folds at least 1/3 of the time, the move is a winner even if he loses the rest of the time. This is a quick summary, where Erick is more detailed in his analysis. So I do feel like I learned a few pointers in this book.
Where I started seeing holes was in the “playing after the flop section”. His 3 examples found in this section consist of his holding Queen-2 suited, 10-4 suited and a King-Jack offsuit. In each case he performs a re-raise after seeing some initial action from the opponent. I just don’t believe the first 2 of these hands should ever get you into the flop to begin with. Then, with the King-Jack example, he actually gets the 2 pair but with the 5 common cards showing 4 spades. He gets bet into wit a significant amount and folds, but describes how that was actually a bad move given the character of the opponent and the opponent style. Bizarre.
You see, I think Erick puts too much stock in believing the bets of his opponents over the fact that any degenerate gambler can hit the flush, get dealt two Aces, nail the full house, etc. I tend to believe the significant raise as the bluff potential is less than 50 % unless someone is a real maniac at the table. The suggestion that certain players can be read like you are going to be developing psychic abilities after enough table time seems asinine. We’re not able to do a mind probe and won’t be growing Vulcan ears either, in spite of how many hands we see. So I found myself not buying a lot of what was being suggested.
What I did agree with, but kind of knew already was the strategy of putting out nuisance raises to try to trim the opponents to 2-3 people. Once you are down to a limited number of players, you increase the chances that no opponent has a hand they feel comfortable challenging you with. So the early raises, even on junk, can produce some winning opportunities even when you don’t hit. He also largely discounts betting on position, which I also tend to agree with given the above strategy. Once there are fewer players, it might even act to your advantage to be able to bet first. It was affirming to read someone else discuss a strategy I’ve been using for years.
In the narrative, Erick seems confident that these few lessons will get you to the million dollar prize of the World Poker Tour, even adding a chapter called “Living the Life of a Pro” that discusses the best way for you to make poker your career after your million dollar win. There’s a certain innocence to the pages, as if he really believes each one of us will succeed in this just by using his bluffing strategies, as if the million dollar prize is out there for each of the thousand readers of the book. He really intends to tell you to play more poker within the year that you win the million, as each poker entry is in effect tax deductible, reducing the tax burden of your million dollar win. I suppose this allows the reader to dream along.
This brings to mind the topic of “living the dream”, which is a topic I’ve seen repeatedly in gambling forums such as this one: http://www.covers.com/postingforum/po.... The dream is of course moving to Vegas and make a living as a sports bettor/poker player/professional gambler. It makes me wonder why so many have this dream – rent a barely adequate apartment and just play games for a living. Is it a statement about how difficult or disheartening real life work is? Does it speak to our need to be independent rather than depending on a corporation or a family for our connection in the world? This is probably worth a separate essay outside of this book review. Anyhow, Erick is living the dream, having dropped out of college, winning his nearly 2 million in a couple of years on the World Poker Tour as of the 2005 date of this publishing. Now in real life, Erick may not be as well off if we can believe the profile found on Poker Pages, where 3 of the last 4 years have sub-$100,000 winnings which also doesn’t account for entry fees when he doesn’t win: http://www.pokerpages.com/player-prof.... I wonder how these guys are doing really, when their main competition gets stronger every year in the higher stakes games.
Another topic for a separate essay – Erick describes how being a professional poker player is really akin to being a professional golfer or tennis player. This could have been true in 2005, but in more recent years, unlike golf tournaments, we don’t see the same winners repeating but rather a new group of players that seem to surface in a world that seems closer to equal opportunity than a sport where the higher skilled veterans have advantages. It’s not golf after all I think, so I would have been more pleased if Erick described the steps to excellence but with the caveat of “don’t quit your day job”. Instead, it’s a series of lines about “when you are on TV…”.
Throughout the reading, I felt a certain kinship with his style of play. He emphasized recognizing the weakness of the opponents and then a corresponding adaptation of your play. You’re looking at an arrogant player with jewelry and an entourage? Look for him to bluff you out and wait for your turn to reraise. Meet a nicer well mannered player? Assume he’s a stone, waiting for his Aces to roll in and an easy mark to bluff out of several pots. The well heeled businessman? He’ll probably play straight-up and not try to bluff against you. Fold if he starts raising and milk him for some chips if you hit. It’s not like I haven’t heard of such adaptive play before, but he goes to the point of playing trash when the situation dictates.
One example that will stick with me is a scenario where you are on the dealer button and everyone has folded to you. He indicates a raise to the small and big blind is almost automatic for him because of the risk reward balance. Basically, if the small and big blind are 50 and 100, respectively, his 200 bet will earn $150 1/3 of the time and even if he’s called, he still has a 1/3 chance of winning something like $200 or $250. So the loss on this bet occurs only 4/9 of the time (subtracting from 1 the 1/3 and the 1/3 of 2/3). Kind of makes sense. He feels the same way about a quick half-pot bet after the flop when he is only heads-up against someone. If the opponent folds at least 1/3 of the time, the move is a winner even if he loses the rest of the time. This is a quick summary, where Erick is more detailed in his analysis. So I do feel like I learned a few pointers in this book.
Where I started seeing holes was in the “playing after the flop section”. His 3 examples found in this section consist of his holding Queen-2 suited, 10-4 suited and a King-Jack offsuit. In each case he performs a re-raise after seeing some initial action from the opponent. I just don’t believe the first 2 of these hands should ever get you into the flop to begin with. Then, with the King-Jack example, he actually gets the 2 pair but with the 5 common cards showing 4 spades. He gets bet into wit a significant amount and folds, but describes how that was actually a bad move given the character of the opponent and the opponent style. Bizarre.
You see, I think Erick puts too much stock in believing the bets of his opponents over the fact that any degenerate gambler can hit the flush, get dealt two Aces, nail the full house, etc. I tend to believe the significant raise as the bluff potential is less than 50 % unless someone is a real maniac at the table. The suggestion that certain players can be read like you are going to be developing psychic abilities after enough table time seems asinine. We’re not able to do a mind probe and won’t be growing Vulcan ears either, in spite of how many hands we see. So I found myself not buying a lot of what was being suggested.
What I did agree with, but kind of knew already was the strategy of putting out nuisance raises to try to trim the opponents to 2-3 people. Once you are down to a limited number of players, you increase the chances that no opponent has a hand they feel comfortable challenging you with. So the early raises, even on junk, can produce some winning opportunities even when you don’t hit. He also largely discounts betting on position, which I also tend to agree with given the above strategy. Once there are fewer players, it might even act to your advantage to be able to bet first. It was affirming to read someone else discuss a strategy I’ve been using for years.
July 23, 2022
This is really just a short primer on big-money tournament poker strategy, and for what it is, it's fine. It has the overly familiar style of self-help non-fiction, and ridiculously has a section on what to do when you win a million dollar poker event (which is mostly focused on the basic financial advice you would give to any lottery winner). I appreciate him not belaboring his point the way some poker books can, but there's just not much content here. It's not particularly long or in-depth, I read this cover-to-cover in a couple hours over two days.
June 28, 2014
this is my second time reading the book, compared to some poker books i really liked this one because he doesn't drag out subjects he to the point with most topics. Also enjoyed it because i believe it helps learn an aggressive game which most players including myself need to add to there game. im not sure if the 2 had anything to do with each other but i did read this book in 4 days and the day after entered a 45 person tournament and won the whole dame thing :-) i hope you enjoy the read as much as i did.
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December 20, 2007I respect Eric Lingren, so read his book. Another good succinct quick read.
February 9, 2008
Good knowlege based book for the poker player.
August 20, 2014
Good ideas.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews