Raiser's Edge: Tournament-Poker Strategies for Today's Aggressive Game [Paperback]

I only know how to play tournament poker, but as the former regional director of Asia for PokerStars, setting up the biggest card room in Asia and having established most of the major tournaments in Asia, I know a lot about the set up the game and the wide range of players who are on the tournament circuit in both Asia and the Australia regions. I use to be able to follow along with the hand analysis between pros about 3 years ago, but in the last year I realized that I have no idea what they are really talking about. The frequency in how players are 3 and 4 betting seem to be every single hand and I remember when this type of live playing style was considered to be a 'train wreak waiting to happen', but now the loose-aggressive player (LAG) and the hyper aggressive players player is the norm at these tournaments. The gap in tournament poker knowledge and understanding has increased dramatically because of the influence of these LAG players who are nearly all from the online tournament world. Which is in of itself a strange turn of events because back in 2002-2005, online players playing live were still considered a joke. By 2009 or so I think there was a general mutual respect due to players like Elky and Durrr in the public eye, but now in 2011, all live tournament players have been forced to adjust to these LAG and hyper LAG players and their styles.

This book is a book that I've been waiting for that bridges the gap for live tournament players who do not play frequently online and can't understand where this type of play is coming from or for guys who learned how to play tournaments a few years back, this book will bring you up-to-date. I think I qualify on both accounts. A lot of the younger pros tell me that the old school pros can't follow what is going on in the game now. I think the fact that one of pioneering LAG players, Raszi (who was an ex-Starcraft player and got is first $10 transfer from Elky to play online) started coaching Daniel Negreanu this past year in online poker is a big tell tale sign of the gap when you got a player of Daniel's caliber admitting that he isn't as competitive.

This is not a beginner's book whatsoever, you already need to understand and be able to apply fundamental concepts such as positioning, reading another player's hand ranges, controlling pot size and value betting as if it were your abc's. You also need to have enough experience to have experienced dealing with all the different types of players, so if you are regular live tournament player, this book should be required reading, at the very least to confirm what is the state of the game at the moment.

What I really enjoyed about this book is that it really puts you in that situation of either playing or defending as a LAG player. The way the book is structure is that the first 4 chapters deal with the general concepts that are critical to playing in this environment with a focus on really articulating what is the profile of the Hyper-LAG style and an emphasis on understanding hand reading (figuring out the range of another player). This sets the foundation for the applied practical part of Tournament play starting from 'Early-Stage Play'. Again, what I really like about this part is that it is that it starts from the perspective of the Hyper LAG player and basically tells you how to exploit the non LAG players at your table. But it also gives you the perspective on how to also defend against this move if you are on the receiving end of this. So it shows you how a LAG would approach the tournament and their thought process which was fairly opaque to me previously.

Then next chapter of the the book introduces how very key elements are the game are now played in the LAG era: Playing the Flop (C6), Pot Control (C7),Your Image (C8), Bluffing (C9)Min-raising. So, it isn't so much an explanation on what these are, but really articulating, how these are being used nowadays in this LAG playing environment. There are a lot of percentages thrown out, for instance, when the authors explain in detail step by step how they would approach their action in a hand, they will say , "When we miss the flop completely we'll c-bet 60% to 70% of the time here..." but these percentages are for very specific situations related to the concept, so I would say, if you haven't had the experience of being in that spot, then these percentages and tips will be a bit overwhelming, but when I personally have been in that situation where they throw out a percentage, I really get the significance of what the percentage means.

By Chapter 11, they get down to the Mid-Stage tournament play and what I like about this is that they break down the strategies and approaches by your stack size (100 BB plus, 75-100 BB, 50-75 BB, 40-55 BB, 30-40 BB, 25-30 BB, 18-25 BB, 13- 17 BB, 12 BB & under) which I've personally have never look at this way in such precision, other than the dominating big stack or middle or short and if you're under 10 BBs you need to shove. So for me (keeping in mind that I'm no where close to a pro), it was eye opening in how precise the effect of stack size has become in dictating range in relation to the options for 3,4,5 betting.

Chapter 12, which was mostly contributed by Tysen Streib, initially went a bit Stephen Hawking's for me as it is really a different pace from the rest of the book up to that point. I wouldn't do it justice by trying to explain what are Tysen's conclusions (which are easy enough to simply take as is), but essentially for 3 and 4-Betting Tysen lays out what are the equilibrium solutions - in order to flush out the actual trends/characteristic. His main emphasis is on that it's not the point to follow the correct equilibrium solution, rather to understand what the E.S. solutions represents about the action itself. So if you take the time and really go through each of the charts and study them (color charts are at the back of the book and it makes a big difference), it provides you with some trends to use as a mental foundation or you can skip all that and just go to the exploitive solutions on page 200-211 and work backwards from there in the chapter. I think this type of chapter is also a real reality check separating 2 types of players who have this information in their back pocket and those who just don't know even these types of resources exist. It made me feel after I was able to go through all the charts that the difference between the players who have this knowledge and the ones that don't is like the difference 8 years ago between the player who knew the starting hole card percentages and the one that didn't. lol.

Advanced Tournament Concepts after Chapter 13 is pretty easy reading and it deals with a lot of different types of plays like squeeze play, check raising on the river and thin value bets. So again, very situation and I think it is something you need having experience first to really appreciate the author's comments and the comments are always two sided in how to approach it as well as the advantages and risks. But much of the information is again very detailed and practical so while it is easy reading, the actual ability to put it into practice is something else. The final chapters of the book deal with the final table and HU play with another set of supporting equilibrium charts for the HU, but the second last chapter of the book (C 17) is entertaining with a comparison of weaknesses between playing live verse online poker players; as well as the Appendix on tells is very well written.

The only major criticism I have is that since there are a number of contributing authors, sometimes the hands or examples are 'I' or 'Elky or Lee' or when stating this author said this or that, it gets confusing who is actually speaking and while the book states this some chapters do have a main author and he sometimes writes it the first person, it did take away from the flow of the book at times. Also, some of the material is really situation specific, so unless you have had experience in that situation, it wouldn't necessary be that insightful/useful because you won't be memorizing what to do to in this or that situation should that situation occurs. In some ways that is a plus as well because those chapters are chapter you can re-read after a tournament and constantly be getting more out of it. But after reading the book, I did get a lot more out of it by reviewing it with another pro afterwards who gave me their own examples. I'm not saying that it is necessary, but it did help.

I do need to say that I've personally known Lee since 2007 when I met him at the APPT when he was a sponsored Pro and I was the senior manager at the time. He is a close friend and if I was to ever take a year off and learn from someone about anything and everything, it would be him. Also, I've known Elky since 2001 and was responsible for getting him his first sponsorship contract with Stars back in 2004 when we use to live together in Korea and were part of the competitive Starcraft scene (him as a player and me on the industry side). This is my first Amazon book review and it was because this book was written by two people I have the greatest respect and love for I ended up getting and reading this book and putting a lot of effort into this book review as well (so I am definitely bias). It was also recommended by a few other pros as it had become increasingly clear that there was a huge gap in my knowledge when it came to the current trend in tournament poker. I am in the Hedon Mob DB for getting 3rd in an APT side event, otherwise I've spend a majority of my time explaining why hold'em is a better game than baccarat to Asian punters. I can sincerely recommend this book to either a pro who would like to have a good reference book on their shelves or any regular live tournament player. I guarantee it will close any gap in knowledge for the current tournament scene.

Cheers,
David Jung
Hero Poker CEO

Team Nelson has done it again! This time round, Lee, together with Tysen Streib, has joined forces with
Bertrand Grospellier (who is currently one of the most successful tournament players around) and Tony
Dunst (another strong young pro) to teach us how to play the modern, ultra-aggressive game, or at least,
to show us how it is done. It completes the trilogy Kill Phil, Kill Everyone, and now The Raiser's Edge, which
will take anyone serious enough to improve his/her tournament play from apprentice, to journeyman, to master craftsman.

It discusses the strategies and thought processes of these successful tournament pros. The authors discusses meta-game and image concepts that they employ to exploit weaker players and to defend themselves against the modern hyper-aggressive players. They dissect hand examples of lines that they take in relation to position, aggression, image and different tournament stages, from early through to final table. This includes a detailed discussion of heads-up play with an analysis of HU Equlibrium Solutions provided by the very thorough Tysen Streib.

A particularly good section for relatively inexperienced players is the chapter on mid-stage (with antes) play. These players generally find themselves either short- or medium- stacked, and find it difficult to play with these stack sizes.

However, where the book really excels, especially for experienced players, including pros, is the detailed discussion
of the 3-betting and 4-betting prevalent in today's modern game. There is a fine line between being a good LAG and a maniac 'spazzing' chips. Not only do we get a perspective from successful pros who play this style of game, but it is backed up by analytics provided by Tysen Streib. Tysen presents 3-betting and 4-betting equilibrium strategies, and then offers exploitative startegy guidelines based on his computer modeling(his charts in the book are just so, so useful). This, together with the play discussion by the pros, makes this the most valuable section of the book for the serious, advanced tournament player.

An important contribution to tournament poker literature, but you will have to seriously study its contents. You will be well rewarded for your efforts - maybe first prize - at least final table :-)

All in all this is a nice sequel to the previous books Kill Phil and Kill Everyone, but I don't think it's quite worth the buy for a lot of players out there.

Right of the bat I think the content, which is offered, is too deep in terms of all the tables and equilibrium analysis etc. But at the same time it doesn't really offer that much content about exploitive play, which is really what we should be looking at to go to a higher level and to be able to run deep in tournaments.

Examples like 'don't 3bet JJ from the blinds when deep against a LAG, cause you're gonna get owned' show that the book tries to propagate the loose aggressive style, but doesn't elaborate on combatting the style. It basicly says - lay your hands down and blind yourself out until you flop a monster.

Furthermore I think the advice that IS being given is often trivial. Advice like 'if a player calls a lot, adjust by value betting more and bluffing less' just doesn't cut it.

The hand examples from the book are pretty nice and some are really good examples. I like the infamous 'laying down TT' in the blinds example that was presented - from a standpoint of 'what spots should you be looking for and what value do stack sizes have', but don't fully agree with math behind it. All of a sudden the button is only bluff raising 5% and the rest are monsters? Surely this is done to manipulate the TT into a slight dog and therefore a beautiful laydown.

Another thing that was bugging me when I read the book is the fact that Bertrand is continuously referred to as Elky. Elky likes to play one-gappers when xxxxbbs deep from blablabla. It's like we're talking about God. Please....

I honestly expected more from the book. I did take some things away from it and especially from the hand examples that show well how hand ranges come into play in 3bet pots, but all in all I expected some deeper though processes to be exposed.

Good luck at the tables.