Review - Gus Hansen: Every Hand Revealed

[bdestefanis]

I'm on page 20 of Gus Hansen's Every Hand Revealed, and I decided I'd create a thread to catalog my thoughts as I read.

link that I cannot activate because I have too few posts: http://www.amazon.com/Every-Hand-Revealed-Gus-Hansen/dp/0818407271/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317161127&sr=8-1

This book looks very promising. It has been out for about four years now, but I know of no other book of its kind. As the title indicates, Gus takes us through every hand he played in the 2007 Aussie Millions Championship in which he beat 747 players to win $1.2 million. As the play unfolds for each hand Gus lays out the thinking behind each decision. This allows for much greater insights than say...watching the event on TV.

Also, it has a very nice cover with a black and white Gus Hansen fingering a stack of chips and looking rather menacing against a coffee toned gradient background so it will look nice on your bookshelf. You do have a bookshelf, don't you? If not, you can get one made out of fiberboard for $15 from Wal-Mart. Go do that, order the book, and ponder the enormity of Gus' ears, and by the time you get done I'll have updated this thread.

[bdestefanis]

So, I'm on Day 2 and I've realized that I probably play too many hands. At the beginning of Day 2 the author states that he is ready for "another 12 hour session." So, I assume his sessions are running 12 hours. I wonder how many hands he plays per hour. He played 40 on Day 1. Let's assume he actually played 10 hours, subtracting 2 hours for pee breaks, hitting on sluts, and ballin'. That's 4 hands per hour. He increases his hands by 20 on Day 2, and by the final Day he is running at about 12 hands per hour.

This is Gus Hansen, mind you, so he's playing stuff like J9o now and then. At the beginning of the book he states that he will be using the see-a-lot-of-flops strategy. It seems like he would be playing more hands than this.

If Gus plays in a hand, it is documented. Even if the description is as simple as "everyone limped around to me, i bet, everyone folded. i won 500 chips." However, some hands are marked as "Crucial" hands and given much more attention and analysis.

It is interesting to see where Gus makes mistakes. The analysis of his mistakes is often more interesting than that of his correct plays.

Each chapter is concluded with an analysis of that days events and play. By the end of Day 1 Gus sits at around 75k while the chip leader, Patrick Antonius, holds a whopping 315k. I have read on the FTR forums that early stack sizes are not indicative of ending stack sizes. This appears to be true in this case.