Small Stakes Holdem

Winning Big with Expert Play

Ed Miller, David Sklansky, and Mason Malmuth Reviewed by TwoGun on Jun. 02, 2005. Overview By far the best book on Limit Hold'em on the market today, Small Stakes Hold'em is a great read for both beginning and intermediate players. It effectively explains the theoretical foundations of Limit Hold'em and helps a player make proper preflop and postflop decisions. While the writing is a bit bland, there is a wealth of information contained in this book. Poker Advice The book is structured to help players beat loose, low-limit games. These are the types of games common at most brick-and-mortar casinos and on the internet. In my experience, anyone who practices good game selection can find these types of games all the way up to $15-$30 Limit Hold'em. While this book will not teach you how to beat the sharks, it will help a reader win at the more typical type of poker game. Small Stakes Hold'em gives solid advice for both preflop and postflop play. It instructs the reader as to what decisions he or she should make at the table and explains the reasons for these actions. It details how to be a tight-aggressive player, which is critical to winning at Limit Hold'em. The book covers basic concepts such as counting outs, pot odds, and preflop starting hands. However, it also goes into important, more advanced topics such as going for overcalls and making value bets with marginal hands. These sorts of topics are the ones that most Limit Hold'em books lack. While many Limit Hold'em strategy books skimp on some of the finer aspects of the game, Small Stakes Hold'em thoroughly and accurately describes how a player should make decisions at many critical stages in a pot. Presentation Small Stakes Hold'em is well-organized and easy to understand. The writing can be quite dull, but it effectively communicates the information of the book. A nice feature of the book is its "Questions and Answers" section, which quickly reinforces most of the important strategies detailed in the book. Small Stakes Hold'em is also quite long, weighing in at 369 pages. However, this is just a further testament of this book's depth. This is the book I would recommend for anyone looking into purchasing a book about Limit Hold'em.