By dlestock

December 13, 2010

Tri has delivered an amazing book to the up and coming PLO player. My favorite aspect of this book is the balance between his playing philosophy and backing it up with hard math. One great example of this is the beginning of chapter four, where he says single suited hands such as 4556 or 5567 are trouble hands and often dominated. He then gives you concrete examples of made hands with 4556 that are actually beaten with big draws. It's one thing to expound sweeping rules about poker, but backing them up with math makes it concrete.

The second area in which the book excels is examining the differences between good PLO and NL play. Simple differences such as 2 pair being a good hand in NL versus terrible in PLO can easily plugs leaks for a beginner making the PLO plunge. More advances differences, such as making profitable calls calling off most of your stack with huge draws, are meant for the more advanced player.

In short, The PLO Book is a must read for the transitioning player and will greatly improve your win rate in this variance heavy game.

By Ludovic

December 15, 2010

I started playing PLO seriously about six months ago,having played NL for a number of years. I bought the PLO Book after I had been playing for a couple of months, when I felt I still wasn't getting a lot of the subtleties of the game. Compared with getting a coach to teach me, the PLO Book was an absolute bargain. It actually led me to have a much deeper understanding of what I was doing and why, rather than just trying to apply NL skills and theory to a totally different game.

For me, the most useful parts of the book were the sections on when and why to play big pots preflop, rather than just raising because my cards looked pretty, and the concrete suggestions on how to play post-flop especially on the flop and turn. Too many other PLO books either seem to be written about entirely different games, or fail to give practical help to allow people to quickly learn how to make their own decisions.

The other good thing about the book is the practical way in which it is written, and the focus that it has on the games in which you will play. Tri's willingness to answer questions and look at hands on the forums is also a useful asset that comes along with your purchase of the book.

By Raising Cain

December 15, 2010

I got this for Christmas last year and was very happy with it. Unlike other PLO books, the bare bones mathematical/hand-range/hand-combo approach that it employs will give you several light bulb moments that you can carry across many situations and across many types of poker games. Months after reading the book, I played NLHE 1000bb deep against a PLO bracelet winner and the book helped me a ton in understanding what they were doing and how to counteract it, partly because I could see how their PLO experience had affected their NL game, but mostly because the concepts in this book carried over to thinking about NL. Certainly worth the price of one pot. [See also my lengthier review on "Exploiting Regulars," which I just ordered and read...]