Every Hand Revealed by Gus Hansen

[Doc T River]

Every Hand Revealed by Gus Hansen. Released Spring 2008. A detailed hand-by-hand look of Hansen's Aussie Million win in 2007.

Matthew

[nsidestrate]

It will be interesting to see what he has to say about Gobbo. This one is on my watch list as well. Amazon doesn't have it in stock yet.

[Taardvark]

[Taardvark]

[nukeduke]

I'm about halfway through this and enjoying it. The "intuitive" side of his thought process is very interesting and something that is void or at least semi-ignored in many strategy books. I'd say this is a must read before going to the WSOP. I'll finish it up in teh next few days and write a litltle more.

[nsidestrate]

I really enjoyed this book. Some of it is just wise-ass commentary, but there is some interesting poker thinking. Gus lays out a very mathematical approach to MTT play. If I had to summarize some of the key points I took away from his approach, I'd say they would be:

1) raise pre-flop a ton when it checks to you, especially once the antes kick in. The risk reward is pretty much in your favor.

2) defend your blinds quite aggressively in this situation. The addition of the antes often makes calling raises pretty +EV in the moment and having a reputation for defending your blinds nets rewards when you don't have a hand, but people don't want to tangle with you.

3) OOP, lead into raisers when you catch a piece of the flop. This goes with his general philosophy of putting the other person to the difficult decision. He also gives an OOP lead more credit than many players when he has raised.

4) In general, he seems to call pre-flop (re-raises or raises) anytime he gets more than 2:1 and often down to 1.5:1. He had a little chart describing his decision tree at various odds and it was pretty interesting.

5) He seems to be extremely cognizant of stack sizes and pot/stack ratios which is one of the more difficult challenges for me in live poker settings. This year, I'm going to work much harder at keeping close track of the other stacks at my table.

6) He isn't especially loose in the early stages, but he is pretty willing to gamble it up to build a big stack.

He was brutally honest with himself when he thought he made a bad play and was almost equally critical of bad plays by others. It made for an entertaining read.

6)

[Taardvark]

It's on it's way from Amazon and I can't wait. He plays a completely different game from anything I do and I find his plays fascinating. I've heard a lot of good things about it and look forward to reading through it before the WSOP. I have a couple of meaningless events to play in my poker group over the next several weeks so I might pick and choose a couple things and see how they work for me.

[doubleup]

I ordered a copy too...Gus is my hero

[Taardvark]

I really enjoyed this book. I've gotten to the point where pure theory books just don't have a lot to offer me anymore since they are rarely bringing anything new to the table.

This book was a first of it's kind in not only was it a book of hands but you also get those hands in the full context of play. If you saw some of these plays in isolation you'd think the guy is just completely off his rocker but within the context of earlier hands, his plays make complete sense and more often than not represent the correct move.

Some things I took away from this (some of which I've been working on already):

-Protect your blinds more often from late position pre flop attacks. Mix of calls and reraises depends on players, etc.
-slow down c bets will flat calls when you have position with the intent of stealing on the turn or river. Use this judiciously
-If your stack size warrants it take advantage of good pot odds, even with marginal hands and hope to flop a monster
-Most players miss flops. Use that to your advantage
-Don't overuse the all in move. I was really surprised how little he was actually all in during this event.

I have a couple of meaningless satellites to play in my poker group as I've already qualified for the WSOP event we are sending players to so I think I am going to give several of these items a test drive and see how they work for me. I imagine some of them won't work great because of the quality of players I am up against but I'd still like to experiment and stretch my personal comfort zone.

All in all I was very impressed with this book and enjoyed it a great deal. If you are a tournament player I suggest picking this one up and giving it a read.

[poker_Elmo]

Great book!

What is most striking to me is how honest he seems to be in the book. And, related to that, all the mistakes he thinks he made. The book is full of his mistakes - and he won the tournament!

For those of us who are constantly trying to improve, it is refreshing to see a pro being brutally honest with his own play and shows that you can't expect to simply "not make mistakes", the key is to minimize them and keep the cost of the mistakes you do make to a minimum.

[doubleup]

I took quite a lot away from this book as well. I definitely think the aggressive approach is the way to go in MTT's. Gus is a great card player and definitely don't think this publishing is going to hinder his success in any way. More players may try to shoot for him now but it's just too difficult to know whether he has the goods or not. He's got switching his play up down perfectly.

[egarevel]

I have been playing in a similar manner for a while. And I'm relieved that it can really work at a high level. I still have a lot of holes but this book has assured me that I'm on the right track. Apparently, this style needs a lot of good hand reading, which unfortunately I'm not yet too good at. Great book so far.

[maf66]

I'm loving this book. I've almost finished it in no time at all. This really is an entertaining and educational read.

Nside has done a good of summarising it's contents and these are very good plays to try if you want to loosen up your play. Just don't try them unless you're deep stacked, or you will go broke quickly.

I can see myself reading this book several times over in the foreseeable future.