Daniel Negreanu's Power Hold 'Em Strategy

[GUMBY]

I like DN and like reading poker books, but is this one worth it. I love Phil Gordon's books and HOHE I&II are great tourney books.

I'm sure you can get something out of this book, but is it worth the $20 or so on Amazon?

Thanks,

Keith

[Willem]

I will certainly buy this book at some time. I am in the process of reading all his columns on http://www.pokerpages.com an I really like them. Not only from a poker strategy point of view but his approach to the game is very good I think.

I have seen "Hold 'Em Wisdom for All Players" on an online bookstore. I assume this the same book since it's the only book he wrote to this date.

[ciaran]

This is a separate book from Hold'em Wisdom for All Players, and according to Cardoza (the publisher) Power Hold'em hasn't been released yet (if anyone's gotten it already, I need to know as we're supposed to get it as soon as it's out).

[Pentahouve]

I wrote to Cardoza last week as I had been expecting Power Hold'em Strategy to be published on Feb 6th. This was the date given by Amazon. When I checked on Amazon at the end of Jan the date had been changed to Jan 2008. Cardoza's reply was:

As of yet, we do not have a release date, check again in the summer to see the progress, thanks!

I'd be interested in hearing any reviews of 'Hold'em Wisdom for all Players' as I may get this in the meantime.

[Willem]

[Doc T River]

According to Daniel on a 2plus2 podcast, this book will be published this summer shortly after the WSOP.

[Doc T River]

According to a post on 2plus2 by Mike of Professional Poker, using his 2plus2store screenname, he had spoken to the publisher [Cardoza] and the book went off to the printer yesterday. The ship date is May 27th with the expected release is June 14th.

If you compare the description of the book on Amazon with the description on Cardoza's site, it seems the book has changed a lot.

Amazon shows the book as being 672 pages while, according to Cardoza, it is actually going to be 504 pages.

The original was supposed to be 10 chapters covering all variants (pot, limit, and no-limit) of Texas Hold'Em in regards to cash game and tournament play and it was supposed to be 'in-depth." 672 pages with 10 chapters means each chapter would have been slightly more than 67 pages on average. How in-depth could they have been?

The new book has chapters by Todd Brunson, Erick Lindgren, Evelyn Ng, Paul Wasicka, and David Williams. And Daniel, of course. While shorter, this new book, according to what is on Cardoza's site, focuses just on different aspects of no limit. Hopefully, the subjects can be treated a little more indepth.

Overall, I am a little disappointed based on who the authors are as most of them, Todd and Daniel being exceptions, are not known for their writing.

But I will wait to see the actual book before I pass final judgement.

[Taardvark]

The book is set up similar to Super System.

The first chaper is a beginner's strategy to NL tournaments. Any player that has played any number of tournaments can skip this.

Todd Brunson's chapter is about playing NL cash and really doesn't talk much about strategy but about other items required for success. Funny writing style but it's nothing that other books haven't covered before.

Lingren discussed playing online. If you've read Scott Fischman's book you've pretty much read about everything that Lingren discusses. Nothing really new to offer here although reading Lingren's thought processes on certain things has some value (if you've read his book again there isn't much new).

Paul Wasicka talks about short-handed play. I don't play short-handed cash games or tournaments but this was well-written and intelligent, exactly what you would expect of a player of Paul's caliber.

The book starts to take off with David Wiliams' section. His section talks about making yourself unpredictable, etc ("mixing it up"). Again well written and intelligent and provides information that is either different than what you've read or is new material. This section of the book is very good in my opinion.

Daniel's section is next and discussed the small-ball approach to hold em. I have to say this is better than I expected it to be. I love Daniel's game, but he's such an inuitive player that I didn't know how useful this would be to mere mortals but he really explains the thought process behind various plays well. I'm not quite finished but I am really enjoying this section of the book as well.

There is no discussion whatsoever of limit hold em, which I think is fine since the market is absolutely saturated with books pertaining to that variant.

There is nothing about pot limit although Daniel indicates he feels his small-ball approach works well for that variant as well.

The majority of the book discusses tournament play, with Wasicka and Brunson's sections almost exclusively devoted to cash games.

This book is uneven, with several average sections and two very good sections. It's definitely worth the read.

[Doc T River]

I just picked up Daniel's More Hold'Em Wisdom For All Players and thumbed through it. In this thumbing through, I noticed there is a discussion about small ball which makes me view this piece as a companion of Power Hold'Em.

If someone is interested in getting into the mind of Daniel Negreanu, they might want to pick up Power Hold'Em and the two Hold'Em Wisdom books.