Quote Originally Posted by dev
I haven't read it, but a friend of mine read killer poker and we discussed a concept that involved playing only the top half of the deck. It was this really elementary kind of logic that said if you're playing higher cards you're more likely to win. Really, John, do ya think?

Anyway I didn't really read it, just talked about it for an hour or so. I've read a ton of books, I have an entire shelf devoted to poker, blackjack, and gambling books. It's right above the math, physics and statistics books and right below the programming stuff.

I'm a huge fan of reading to improve, but a lot of the stuff out there is just complete garbage.
Cool. I've read a few of the Killer Poker books. Some of the stuff he says is basically garbage if you try and use his thoughts as concrete advice on how to play poker, but I think it's more less intended to help people adjust certain things in their game.

Like in one book, he mentions to try playing a game called 'raise' where you keep count of how many times you raise in a game, and then try and beat it the next day. Obviously doing shit like this will make you bleed chips if it comes down to you raising every single hand being dealt to you, but I think rather than taking what this dude says at discreet face value, readers have to be able to understand the meaning of what he says and what he trys to accomplish. The way I interpreted it is he's trying to get into a weak-tight players head and help him learn how to up the preflop aggression with the 'raise' example.

Other than some of the crazy stuff he writes about, he talks a bit about psychology, and some opponent classification stuff etc. which can be found anywhere. I forget alot of the content so I'll probably read a couple again over my break. He also mentions that you should have a pretty solid understanding of the basics in poker before you read what he writes: which is why I think alot of reviews flame him because they're beginners who can't calculate pot odds yet, and aren't able to understand that some of the shit he writes is a little bit wack.

Since alot of books out there are in fact full of crap that is definately -EV, readers really need to be careful and try and think about what the author is stating, and whether or not it is deemed logical.

Speaking of books...I really need to get myself a copy of Professional No-Limit.