A little Rasta bird: back in the world of poker?

The Education of a Modern Poker Player documents the efforts of a serious amateur as he pursues his ambition of rising through the stakes from NL10 ($10 game) to NL100 ($100 game) and beyond.

John Billingham is an English maths professor, and a keen player of games. In the summer of 2009 he discovered online poker and was hooked. A year later he decided to trick a couple of impressionable young poker pros, Austrian Thomas Tiroch (TwiceT) and Romanian Emanuel Cinca (EmanuelC16), into teaching him how to play poker on the promise of writing a book with them. Little did he know what he was letting himself in for. The Education of a Modern Poker Player is the product of JB's cunning plan, and documents his progress from being unable to beat NL10 to establishing himself on NL100. Over the course of this entertaining book, TT and Manu explain how to beat these small stakes games, and illustrate all the important concepts with real example hands. There is a particular focus on Fast Fold Games, such as Rush and Zoom, in which JB eventually became a specialist, and practical explanations of how to take advantage of weak players in this format.

The Education of a Modern Poker Player includes:

· An extensive set of real example hands

· Practical advice on strategies to beat 6max No Limit Hold'em

· A basic strategy for Fixed Limit Five Card Draw

· Clear explanations of the Mathematics of No Limit Hold'em

· Specialist advice on Fast Fold Games (e.g. Rush and Zoom)

In my examples JB runs like god and of course flops the nuts
I like the fact that they used symbols for the suits But writing the HH in stead of using something like the HH we use in the hand evals is something I don't like. Call me a hater but thats my opinion!

Basic strategy
Betting basics
We all know the terms "betting for value" and "betting as a bluff". But what do they really mean? I must say I'm really impressed with this chapter. Manu really explains both concepts really well. What I also like is the fact that JB is asking questions about the theory. It just gives that bit extra to the article. Well done Manu and JB!

Preflop hand selection
Before Manu goes into which hands we can/should open from every position he talks about how different hands hit the flop/where your equity will be. It is well explained but I advice everyone to make some notes using equilab and word. Using equilab you can visualize things more.

Now Manu goes into opening ranges from every position. I'm going to tell you right of the bat that I again don't like how the hands are written down. Hands like ATs are A-10s. It doesn't say anything about the book, but it's a weird way of writing it down, just something I'm not used to.

In stead of just giving us a SHC Manu talks about every position and what you CAN (not what you have to) open. I enjoy his approach. Text like this is very hard to read though so again I would advice to use equilab while reading this one just to make it easier for you to visualize. At the end there is some kind of SHC with a tighter and looser opening range. There is however one difference to other SHC's! At the bottom it says "guideline preflop OR ranges" which means you should adjust according to table dynamics.

Player types and hand reading
This starts of awesome! "Take a moment to think…"!! In poker we should think for our own.

Manu says that the basics of hand reading are very simple I'm scared! But he gives us tips where we should look at when we are trying to determine someones range.

There is also a conversation between JB and Manu and this is where this book is different to other books I think. This book is just fun to read, I was really laughing! This is how the conversation ends.
JB: Not sure if serious?
TT: Exactly.
If you want to know what happened before…

After talking about different player types Manu tells us how we can determine if someone has a strong range or not based on their play.

The subchapter ends with a summary and an exercise. The only way to improve is to practice!

Isolation
What does isolating mean? What should we look at when isolating? It's all in here!
Then the conversation goes on a weird sidetrack about stack depths. I found this weird and I think it could do with it's own subchapter maybe. Having said that the explanation both Manu and TT is awesome. I had to read it twice before I understood it but thats probably me
The next bit is awesome though! Manu gives us 3 examples about isolating. Now when talking about isolating I think about a fish that limps and I try to isolate him. Now Manu knows 2 more situations which I never really thought about. ♠_thumbsup:

Dynamics at the poker table
When thinking about table dynamics one directly thinks about how people see you at the table. But Manu puts a different twist to it. He also gives different examples how the dynamics can change because of position, who's in the pot… and then tells us how his game plan changes according to these examples
He ends this subchapter with a very interesting sentence.

If you become extremely aware of these dynamics, you are likely to get to the weak player's stack first, which will skyrocket your winrate.

This is very interesting because we want the weaker player's money and if don't get it first he might leave.

At first I thought it was weird to find a subchapter with this title because we don't have dynamics like we have on regular tables. But this made a lot of sense and it actually showed me that I'm on autopilot to often, I rarely change my game plan in the different examples.

Pot control and streets of value

In my experience this is one of the areas in which micro and small stakes players have the most room for improvement.

This is a quote from just after the small introduction Manu gives. I find it hard to find the optimal amount to bet. Sometimes I bet to big, sometimes to small, sometimes I don't bet at all So I'd better pay attention during this chapter!

How can top 2 turn into a complete disaster on the turn and river? Manu knows! Sadly I should to but in reality… Anyway with a hand example we see how a great hand can become badish and how the value of our hand changes. What I also noticed is that Manu is talking about player types and I realize that I'm making a mistake. I shouldn't color code fish as fish but rather as a player type. It's much easier to put him on a range then.

Controlling the pot is one of the hardest things for me. If I don't want to bet/bet/bet how am I going to play it? IP it isn't too hard but yet Manu gives 2 examples how the plan can change with the same hand on 2 flops. Bare in mind that we have TT on Jxx and Jxx so the boards don't change that much!

OOP it's a bit more complex but Manu gives his opinion and sums up the pro's and con's of both betting and checking when OOP w/ a medium strength hand. Again I found this interesting because he explains it in a way I've never heard of. Thanks Manu

Again a chapter I enjoyed and one that I really should read again while having my HM open!

Stats
I'll be short about this because this was rather basic. Manu explains what the most used stats mean. First I thought WHAT no examples? And then I looked at the title of the next chapter…

Using stats
Manu explains if we see a number what it could mean. For example is someone is c-betting 90% of the time he is overdoing it a bit usually. I liked this bit because I know what stuff means, but don't know the numbers. I know that I don't use WTSD and I should. I don't use it because I don't know how to. Here's a bit that I like as well. When Manu's done talking about the numbers JB takes over and does the maths. It's important to know the maths ourself. I think it's good that they back up the things they say with maths. I went over it rather quickly though because I've done all the maths myself last month.

We get a view into JB's HUD and it looks a bit like mine

Now it's time for the fun part about stats - learning how to use them

Wait I thought I just did learn how to…. Nvm I'm a fish

With a couple of example hands Manu shows us how we can use stats to exploit the villains. I tried to do it myself and then look what Manu wrote and it was a fun thing to do. These were basically in depth hand evaluations but with the focus on how we can exploit villains.

I really did learn something here and know now how I can use the showdown stats to my advantage. Very interesting chapter for me. I can imagine it's a bit standard for others though.

JB tries to play some better poker
This bit is a couple of pages long. Basically it's a HH review of JB's session on nl10. TT takes out the hands that he didn't like that much. It was interesting since I would play most hands like JB did. TT really goes into the ranges of the villain and then how much equity we have etc. This might have been a bit basic, but I'm making basic mistakes so it's good that I've read this. Interesting is that I knew what was wrong so it wasn't eye-openening, but I'm still making those mistakes. Well tbh I'm making them less and less.

What did happen during this chapter is that I literally LOL'd. My mum was like dafuq you laughing about I'm gonna quote TT, I'd love to write the whole conversation but I don't want to ruin it for you guys

Muhahaha. And you teach maths. Muhahaha!

I tell you what JB did before this made me laugh out loud. It struck my by surprise and couldn't hold it ♦
Also MrsJB joins in and crushes JB. Shame man, I can imagine him having a hard time at the beginning of this book.

Variance, normal distribution and hitting coconuts
Hitting coconuts? Dafuq? Lets see if it makes sense if I read the chapter.

Well I read it, the title makes sense, but I'm not sure what I've read. It's about normal distribution. It's something I've read about before but still don't get it a 100% Having said that both JB and TT give examples to explain it as easy as possible. I'm a fish

The bit about variance I did like! I've watched bogdan's vids about this as well and I think it something beginners just don't know enough about. I'm really happy they talk about this in the book even though I've already watched and read about it. Everyone who's running bad should read this imo!

Risk of ruin and bankroll management.
HOLY ****

Bankroll management is something that ppl talk about and have different opinions about it. But JB manages to prove mathematically what kind of BRM we should use. Really I don't know what to say, it's the first time I see this kind of stuff and just THANKS JB!

Fast fold games
TT and JB give an introduction into fast fold games. It's nothing too special, just a nice introduction. It's nice to see TT's graph though
After that they go into the mind game + variance in fast fold games. Specially the variance bit I liked (looks like I have a thing for variance).

Recreational players and FFG
Manu explains how recreational players play differently on fast fold games. Again nothing groundbreaking but if you've never played fast fold games or have read about it it's a must read.

Strategy adjustments
Usually we have a set strategy i.e. some kind of SHC. In a fast fold game however we can change that strategy and exploit people more. Why?

Deep stacked play in FFG
I can't say to much about this because deep stacked play isn't discussed in here really, it's more of an introduction. They will however talk about deep stacked play later in the book.

This chapter also has a part where Manu tells you how you can really exploit the regs in fast fold games. Really interesting bit, but I think it should've been in the "strategy adjustments" part… Bit odd here imo.

Moving up to nl25
This chapter contains a bunch of hands that TT evaluates. This happened before in the book as well. But now they are more interesting, less basic. It showed me that I'm valuetowning myself on the river by not betting And there is a nice bluff catching line in as well.

Earlier I complained about the way the HH is written and I have to admit that JB is right. Once you get used to it it's OK.

Starting nl50
Again a bunch of hands evaluated by TT. There isn't much that I can say about this though. It's well done, well written and there is an interesting summary at the end. Things we should remember for sure!

I finished the first part now. To be honest I really enjoy reading this book, I've read some interesting strategy articles, some were very basic and a lot of hand evaluations. Right now I really hope to read some more advanced stuff. I am a little bit further in the book and I know JB is going to talk about 5CD. I'm really looking forward to that tbh! It's never bad to learn another form of poker.

Part two
Interlude
Both TT and JB explain why it is important to learn a different form of poker. Once FT borrowed JB's roll he started playing 5CD. This chapter is just an introduction like the title says.

JB does show us his 5CD graph and this made it a bit more interesting to learn the game ♠_evil:

A basic strategy for fixed limit five card draw.
JB explains where most of us know 5CD from and tells us what the up- and downsides are to this variant of poker. I think he forgot to mention one upside though. Apparently it's a bit easier then NLHE. I can't say much about that though.

The rules
Since I don't know anything about 5CD I kinda need to pay attention to this bit I think.
How many betting rounds are there? How much money goes into the pot? What is a big bet? All those things are very well explained by JB. Again I think he forgot to mention one thing and this confused the crap out of me at the beginning. As a NLHE playing when I see a limit called 10c/20c I expect to be the Small Blind 10c and the Big Blind 20c. Well this isn't true for 5CD. The small blind is 5c, the big blind 10c and a big bet is 20c. I wouldn't mind having this explanation in there. Other then that though it's pretty clear.

Bankroll management
This is very short, but the BR management needed for 5CD is sooo small! I mean for someone that doesn't have a lot of money (or don't want to invest a lot) this might be the game to start off with!

Poker Hands
HM and PT don't work at 5CD games but PH does. Thats kind of JB to share us something that can provide stats I haven't tried PH yet so I can't say much about it. And even if I tried it and it sucked I don't know what I could use as a substitute anyway…

Discarding
Discarding is a big part of the game. Since this is how you 'leak' information to the other players and they to you. You can't just mindlessly discard hands and think the villain doesn't pay attention cause they do! JB also starts talking about how but the chance is that you will improve if discard x-amount of cards. Oh I can feel it this is going to be a mathematical game.

Draws
We all know draws, the FD, the SD, nothing new there. JB explains how we can play draws, how much equity we need and some other stuff. I'm not going to lie this is the third time I'm reading this part and it makes sense now. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying JB is explaining this badly, but it's hard if you've never played the game. The equity you need and the pod odds you get etc are straight forward but how to play draws was a bit confusing at first. Don't give up here! Give it some time, play some 5CD and you'll see it all makes perfect sense.

Ranges and distributions
How often are you dealt which hand. It's kind of important to know how rare straights, flushes, quads etc are dealt. It's not because someone draws 1 all the time he's got quads all the time. Or if someone pats all the time he doesn't always have a made hand. NOTE: if he is overdoing it! If he does it once every blue moon yeah then he has it.

JB does a great job at making this visual. You can see (or sometimes don't see) how much of the hand distribution are quads etc… It's much nicer then just the %'s.

Raise or call
There is something REALLY interesting in this part. How well is your pair doing if it's an underpair? Or if he has trips? When I played the first time I just opened a bunch of pairs thinking if I hit a set I'm pretty much golden I was not I tell you! Why is this part so interesting? From this you can kinda construct opening ranges, estimate how well you are doing etc…

Pre draw ranges
Well all of the above could help me to construct opening ranges, but I kinda was to lazy I guess? Plus I don't know have the knowledge, yet! So there are basic pre flop ranges in here which will probably still do good in todays lowest games.

Next there is a table which converts a open % into a range. Guess I should be learning this? We want to know what a certain % means and what hands are doing fairly good against this range. Basically this is a guideline so you're not playing against the back of 5 cards.

Basic post draw play
There are hand examples here where JB explains what one should do. I've read this once now and I know I have to read it again. It made sense though! But I know I'm valuetowning myself a bit

Playing a looser style
How can we play a bit looser in this game since everything JB wrote is kind of a tight game. I don't want to read this to much since I only played a couple 100 of hands and I probably don't want to loosen up already.

Hand examples
Again some hand examples in which I'm valuetowning myself I'm tempted to not agree with JB but that would be stupid I guess. I often think that villains are value betting thin which apparently doesn't happen to often.

A final word
JB gives his final word, but I'm gonna give MY final word here ♠_evil:

I think this part about 5CD was a good introduction to 5CD. Do I know enough to beat the lower limits now I've read this? Well maybe. I played a couple of 100 hands with some good results. I don't use tracking software so I can't say how good it is. The book first confused me a lot, but when I started talking to Vorpal everything kind of started to make sense. Will it make sense if you don't have Vorpal to talk to? Yes it will, but take your time! If you are going to fast you'll get confused at first. Take your time, read it over and over again, play some hands and read it over and over again. Again it's not badly explained, but having a very little bit of experience does help!

I was really happy that this chapter was in the book! I always focus on NLHE but sometimes I just don't feel like it. But then when I don't do anything in the evenings I get bored So this will be awesome when I don't feel like NLHE.

Computers and poker.
Game theory and balance.
I'm going to talk about these two chapters at the same time.

JB explains how you can get a computer to play a game. He starts of simple and then goes to more complex examples. This shows us how hard it is to make a good NLHE poker bot.

In the 2nd chapter he talks about how we can play balanced and unexploited in certain situations.

Now why do I write this short thing about 2 chapters? Well there is some maths in there and I didn't have a clue what it was all about most of the time. I'm not saying it wasn't good, can't say if it's bad either since I don't know what I read

Anyway I'm ready for part 3 of the book!

Part three: Less of a fish
Part 3! Lets do this!!
Advanced strategy
Creative bet-sizing
A lot of people make big mistakes when it comes to bet sizing. It's also something a lot of people don't pay enough attention to. I try to think about my bet-sizings, but I don't really know what the optimal sizing is.

TT touches on the subject of certain levels of thinking and why that is important when you setting up a bet.

But then the subject changes to betting for thin value. First a hand where we bet ridiculously small but it makes sense and it's something I've been playing with as well (because I know Manu and we talked about this). There is also an example where we can bet big for thin value. Well explained by TT, but you have to hand read properly. It's a bit tricky so I'm not going to try it just yet

Ok I don't want to spoil this because this might be potentially gold! Well it's something I never ever ever considered. But a slightly -EV bet can become a +EV. Like wtf am I talking about? I swear it's not a lie! You need to hand read and maybe need some image though for this. I know it's a spot I've been in before and I always lose money.

Manu talks us thru an example where we can overbet and play for stacks, while if we use a normal bet-size we are probably in a bad shape. I'll be honest I had to read this stuff twice yeah yeah I'm a fish.

Then there are 2 example hands that are played by high stakes pro's. I'm not going to say anything about these hands. I like the analysis, but you never know how those guys think.

Then there is one more convo between JB, TT and Manu that makes this book so much fun to read. In one if the examples durrr does something and JB asks a superb question

G-Bucks
Basically this is about ranges. How is our overpair doing vs a raise when villain has x in his range. I did the calculation myself and I was shocked! Really have to take a look into these spots.

There is 1 think I don't like about this part. The G-Bucks are basically sklansky dollars but with ranges (if I understood it correctly) In the hands example they only discuss our hand vs the villains range. They don't talk about our range though. What is our range for betting? What range do we continue with etc… Why don't I like this? Well first they say we have to estimate the equity of our range vs his range. But we are using just 1 hand. Maybe I'm just a silly fish but of course the guys are welcome to correct me!

Image

By correctly building your image, you will get tight and straightforward players out of their comfort zone and push them into making mistakes.

Oh I'm so ready for this!

Ok so the chapter is about how we can do stuff with our image. It's not about how to create that image though. But then I guess the whole book helps you creating an image without you knowing it.

Leverage
Basically how can we put as much pressure on our opponents stack by changing our bet-sizing both pre and post flop and depending on the texture.

I must say well done guys! This was golden again.

Playing deep stacked
Somewhere I said that they didn't go into deep stacked play enough but this chapter makes up for that!

Playing deep stacked is something that happens a lot when you are playing FFG's (or you have to reload) I usually don't reload because deep stacks means more money I can take from the fish even though I don't know how to play deep stacked.

Not adjusting correctly for stack depth will get you into what you may believe to be simple coolers

^^And probably that happens.

Anyway they start off by explaining how we should adjust our pre flop range. Because some hands that might have been good 100bb deep really suck when you're 1000bb deep! They also explain why we should and shouldn't bluff for a lot of money vs different opponents and how we should adjust our game plan vs different opponents. What follow are a couple of hands played by TT.

I did like this chapter and I will keep it in mind for sure. Playing deep correctly can make you tons of money.

Advanced hand reading
This chapter contains 2 hands and is 7 pages long. Please don't let this scare you off! Manu breaks down the hand beautifully! It's a bit tough to read but if you open equilab and put villains range in this chapter is gold. (It's not hard to read because it's badly written! It's just hard to keep remembering the whole range )

Nice one Manu ♠_thumbsup:

JB gets back down to business (nl50)
Again a chapter with a bunch of hands. These hands are a bit more tricky then the hands we've seen before. It's much harder to determine what the best play is, but JB has everything under control ♠_cool:

At first it didn't look that interesting, but the more I read it the more interesting these hands get!

Psychology and mindset
TT knows a lot about mindset. IIRC there is a video of him here somewhere in which he says that he became successful because of his mindset.

EDIT: found it ♠_cool:
http://www.pokerstrategy.com/video/11806/

Needless to say that this section is great. These are the subsections and I really liked all of them. I'm not going to go into this chapter a lot because the subsections are rather clear.

• Decisions, not outcomes
• Objectively assess the current situation.
• Reflect on your own behaviour and actions.
• You need instrinsic motivational factors to be able to implement the findings from step number two over and over again.
• Life balance.
• Goals

If there are typos in there it's me that's failing probably…

JB reaches nl100
I wasn't sure at first if I should read this or not since I'm not on nl100 yet but I've let you guys wait for way to long already.

As before there are a couple of hands which they discuss. This time though the hands get really sexy and tricky. I still like these hands and I like them more and more

Playing HU
Ok I have to be honest I never ever played HU, never read an article about it. Well I played some play money against DrD and absolutely hated HU.

After reading this chapter I really feel like giving it a go. I know it would be good for my overall poker skills!

The chapter is a really good introduction into HU imo. I think very important things are covered here. Everyone that hasn't played HU before have to read this chapter imo. TT talks about a general game plan, bet sizes, different boards, how to get information as soon as possible, preparation, how to play IP and OOP. What I do miss in this chapter is maybe some key stats that might be different from SH games and that he doesn't talk about rake. I know that if you play HU cash in low limits the rake will just crush you. I wouldn't mind a small warning in this chapter. HOWEVER someone that starts playing HU probably already has some experience and probably knows this!

Playing live
I read this chapter when I was outside chilling in the sun and it made me laugh so loud people were looking at me

What I really really liked here is that JB talks about the etiquette fails he made! I've played live once and didn't really know about the etiquette at a table. This made me sooo nervous going into the game. I was really scared I was going to do something 'wrong' (and eventually I did).

I really like this chapter because they don't only talk about that but also about keeping track of the stack (which btw sucks the first time!), live tells, rake, where you can/should play, what to consider when you are going to play live

nl200 and beyond
In this chapter are hands and don't agree with at first glance. You know JB does something and I'll be like

But then TT and Manu explain the hands and ok they are right but thats nl200 so I'm not going to judge this chapter. This is way above my league!

Part four
The end?
In here are some final words from all 3. Also they look back at the 3 introduction hands from the beginning of the book and take a look how JB would play them now.

Recommended reading
Well there are a bunch of books in different categories in here! And some I was planning to read as well. These are the categories.

• NLHE basics
• Further reading on NLHE
• Mindset
• Futher reading on psychology poker
• Poker Maths
• Academic papers on poker
• Live poker tells
• Other

Glossary
Title says it all.

The end

My opinion on the book
It's the first poker book I read but I really liked it. I always imagined poker books to be boring and full of strategy. Well this book is full of strategy but it also is fun to read. They wrote it in such a way it's funny and all.
Do I recommend the book? Yes! I read this while I had coaching and those things together improved my game a lot. Before this I was a BE player on nl25 and now I'm confident I beat it and playing nl50. For now the sample is to small on nl50 but I'm not scared, bring it on! ♠_evil: The book also learned me how to play 5CD which is a ton of fun as well.

First I want to thank TT, Manu and JB for the book. (No I payed for the book and I'm not getting anything for this review! I've done it for my own and for those interested!) I just liked the book. And thanks to the readers. I hope this review gives you a bit of an inside of what you can find in the book.

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