For those of you who are interested in exactly what this book contains, please find below a preliminary Table of Contents. The reason I say preliminary is that we are still working on the text itself meaning it is not completely finalized, and that the page numbers given below are from our initial draft and won’t be accurate when the book is published. In fact, we expect this text to be close to 600 pages. Also, we have not yet set the retail price.
Table of Contents
About Dan Harrington................................................................................................................ vii
About Bill Robertie.................................................................................................................... viii
Introduction.................................................................................................................................. 1
Organization of the Book..................................................................................................... 3
Part One: Basic No-Limit Hold ’em Concepts........................................................................... 5
Introduction........................................................................................................................ 6
Structure: Full Ring versus 6-Max........................................................................................ 7
Seat Names.......................................................................................................... 11
Style: Tight and Loose, Aggressive and Passive................................................................... 13
Straightforward Players and Tricky Players............................................................. 15
Ranges.............................................................................................................................. 17
Position.............................................................................................................................. 19
The Four Basic Principles of No-Limit Hold ’em............................................................................... 21
No. 1: The Strength Principle................................................................................... 21
No. 2: The Aggression Principle.............................................................................. 22
No. 3: The Betting Principle.................................................................................... 22
No. 4: The Deception Principle................................................................................ 23
Opening Hand Ranges........................................................................................................ 25
Opening from Later Positions.................................................................................. 28
Bet Sizing for Opening Raises.................................................................................. 31
Varying Your Raise Sizes........................................................................................ 33
Preflop Limping................................................................................................................... 35
3-Betting and 4-Betting Preflop............................................................................................. 36
Flop: Heads-Up or Multiway................................................................................................. 39
Heads-Up on the Flop............................................................................................... 39
Multiway on the Flop................................................................................................ 41
Types of Bets on the Flop.................................................................................................. 44
Value Bets............................................................................................................... 44
Bluffs...................................................................................................................... 45
Semi-Bluffs............................................................................................................. 46
Continuation Bet.................................................................................................... 47
Donk Bet................................................................................................................ 47
Information Bet...................................................................................................... 48
Understanding Flop Texture................................................................................................ 49
Bet Sizing on the Flop and Later Streets.............................................................................. 54
Playing the Turn................................................................................................................. 57
Betting the Turn..................................................................................................... 58
Checking the Turn.................................................................................................. 62
Playing the River................................................................................................................ 64
Expectation and Expected Value......................................................................................... 69
Pot Odds............................................................................................................................. 72
Expressed and Implied Odds................................................................................................ 73
Reverse Implied Odds.......................................................................................................... 75
Stack Sizes.......................................................................................................................... 77
Short Stacks............................................................................................................ 77
Medium Stacks........................................................................................................ 79
Full Stacks............................................................................................................... 79
Deep Stacks............................................................................................................ 79
Tailoring Your Strategy to the Stack Size................................................................... 80
Implied Odds............................................................................................................ 82
Hand Strength and Pot Size.................................................................................................. 84
Pot Commitment.................................................................................................................. 87
Stack to Pot Ratio................................................................................................................ 88
Part Two: Playing Online.............................................................................................................. 90
Introduction......................................................................................................................... 91
Online Play versus Live Play................................................................................................ 93
Stakes..................................................................................................................... 93
Multi-Tabling........................................................................................................... 94
Physical Reads........................................................................................................ 95
Buy-Ins................................................................................................................... 95
Summary................................................................................................................. 96
Databases............................................................................................................................ 98
Heads-Up Displays (HUDs)..................................................................................... 98
Understanding Poker Tracker Data...................................................................................... 100
Basic Information.................................................................................................... 100
The Classics........................................................................................................... 102
Other Useful Preflop Statistics................................................................................. 107
Post-Flop Action Statistics....................................................................................... 110
Post-Flop Summary Statistics................................................................................... 117
Constructing Your HUD...................................................................................................... 120
A Minimal HUD..................................................................................................... 120
A More Useful HUD.............................................................................................. 121
A Very Detailed HUD............................................................................................ 122
Conserving Space................................................................................................... 123
Drawing Inferences............................................................................................................ 125
Sample HUD No. 1................................................................................................ 125
Our Game Plan.......................................................................................... 127
Sample HUD No. 2................................................................................................ 128
Our Game Plan.......................................................................................... 130
Sample HUD No. 3................................................................................................ 131
Our Game Plan.......................................................................................... 133
Monitoring Our Own HUD..................................................................................... 133
Other HUD Statistics......................................................................................................... 135
Taking Notes..................................................................................................................... 138
Structuring Our Notes............................................................................................ 140
Notes Unrelated to Specific Hands......................................................................... 141
Preflop Notes........................................................................................................ 144
General Post-Flop Notes........................................................................................ 145
Flop Notes............................................................................................................ 148
Turn Notes........................................................................................................... 152
River Notes.......................................................................................................... 153
Some Examples of Note-Taking............................................................................. 153
Sample Hand No. 1................................................................................... 153
Sample Hand No. 2................................................................................... 156
Sample Hand No. 3................................................................................... 158
Making Notes after a Session................................................................................ 160
First All-in Hand....................................................................................... 164
Second All-in Hand................................................................................... 165
Conclusions.............................................................................................. 166
Final Thoughts...................................................................................................... 167
Multi-Tabling.................................................................................................................... 168
Last Thought on Multi-Tabling............................................................................... 174
Selecting Sites, Tables, and Seats....................................................................................... 176
Selecting a Site...................................................................................................... 177
Big or Small, New or Old?..................................................................................... 177
Database Support?................................................................................................ 178
Datamining?......................................................................................................... 178
Honesty?.............................................................................................................. 179
Player Strength?.................................................................................................... 180
Rake and Rakeback?............................................................................................. 181
Rakebacks and Bonuses?....................................................................................... 182
Selecting a Table............................................................................................................... 184
Evaluating Your Seat......................................................................................................... 186
Part Three: Ranges and Distributions.................................................................................... 194
Introduction: The Old Way of Seeing................................................................................ 195
What is a Range?.............................................................................................................. 199
Playing Against a Tight Range.......................................................................................... 200
Playing Against Looser Opening Ranges........................................................................... 210
Estimating Calling Ranges................................................................................................. 213
What is a Distribution?..................................................................................................... 218
Calculating Distributions....................................................................................... 223
Distributions Against a 12 Percent Range.......................................................................... 224
Distributions Against a 25 Percent Range.......................................................................... 229
Studying Hands.................................................................................................................. 234
Summary............................................................................................................... 250
Part Four: Beating Micro-Stakes Games................................................................................ 253
Introduction: How Micro-Stakes Players Play................................................................... 254
Offense and Defense in Poker........................................................................................... 255
General Advice for Beating Micro-Stakes Games............................................................... 258
Starting Hand Guide for Micro-Stakes 6-Max Games......................................................... 267
Strategy No. 1: Playing Tight............................................................................... 267
Strategy No. 2: Loosening Up............................................................................... 270
Blind-Stealing.................................................................................................................... 273
Bet Sizing in Micro-Stakes Games..................................................................................... 276
Attacking Limpers with Isolation Raises........................................................................... 280
Limping and Calling.......................................................................................................... 284
3-Betting and 4-Betting in Micro-Stakes Games................................................................ 286
The Johnny All-in Move.................................................................................................. 293
Playing with Ace-King...................................................................................................... 298
Value Betting at Micro-Stakes........................................................................................... 300
Semi-Bluffing at Micro-Stakes........................................................................................... 305
Trapping........................................................................................................................... 308
Dealing with Strong Bets Post-Flop................................................................................... 313
Looking Forward............................................................................................................... 321
The Problems................................................................................................................... 322
Part Five: Beating Small Stakes Games................................................................................. 371
Introduction: Moving Up.................................................................................................. 372
Adapting to Small Stakes................................................................................................... 374
Player Types........................................................................................................ 374
HUD Statistics...................................................................................................... 376
Table Selection..................................................................................................... 378
Preflop Ranges and Actions.................................................................................. 378
General Post-Flop Tendencies............................................................................... 380
Flop Play.............................................................................................................. 380
Turn Play............................................................................................................. 381
River Play............................................................................................................. 381
Fancy Plays Start to Matter.................................................................................. 382
Defense Starts to Matter....................................................................................... 383
Good Hand Reading is Now Important................................................................... 384
Playing Against Short Stacks................................................................................. 385
Preflop Starting Hands.......................................................................................... 387
Blind Stealing and Blind Defense....................................................................................... 393
Blind Defense........................................................................................................ 396
3-Betting and 4-Betting.................................................................................................... 400
Responding to an Opening Raise........................................................................... 401
A Sample Situation................................................................................................ 402
A Second Example................................................................................................ 411
Attacking Weak Raisers........................................................................................ 414
Responding to a 3-bet........................................................................................... 414
Flop Tactics at Small Stakes.............................................................................................. 420
You Were the Aggressor Preflop........................................................................... 420
Playing Big Hands................................................................................................. 420
Playing Top Pair Top Kicker/Overpair Hands...................................................... 423
Playing Draws....................................................................................................... 426
Playing Weak Hands or Nothing Hands................................................................. 429
Defending Against a Continuation Bet.............................................................................. 431
Value Betting in Small Stakes Games................................................................................. 437
Trouble on the River............................................................................................. 437
Extracting Value with Bigger Hands....................................................................... 444
The Problems................................................................................................................... 449
Glossary...................................................................................................................................... 509
Index........................................................................................................................................... 521
