Book Ideas

OK, so I am comfortably settled into this huge house on the Maine coast  and will be here for the rest of the month.Off-season extended rentals FTW- it’s too cold to get in the water and most of downtown is closed, but that just makes it a better writer’s retreat, am I right? I’ve got about 80% of a poker strategy book outlined and half of the first chapter written.

Here’s where you come in, target audience: what do you want to see in Foucault on Poker (other than a better title?) Without revealing too much at this nascent stage, I’ll say that this not going to be a catch-all book. There are plenty of those on the market, most of them suck, and doing it right would take thousands of pages and hours.

I want to focus on ten discrete topics, big picture stuff that tends to trip up or hold back players from being successful at small- and mid-stakes cash games. I’ve got my own ideas, but I don’t have ten yet, and in any event I want to know which topics you would like to see covered.

So… comment away!

41 thoughts on “Book Ideas”

  1. Andrew

    One topic I would like to see discussed is a problem I have. I get so frustrated when I pay off a value bet on the river with a 2nd best hand. I often reflect back on the hand and it seems so obvious to me that I was beat based upon the action but I have a hard time coming to that determination during the hand. This is probably just a result of me being a really bad cash game player but I am trying to get better. I would like to see some indepth discussion of what you look for that helps you determine that a fold (or for that matter a raise bluff to get your opponet off a better hand) is the proper action. Along with that would be a discussion of getting away from problem hands on earlier streets before they cost you much money.

    Thanks for the vine.

    • That’s actually my goal for the whole book. Right now I’m trying to get a better sense of which leaks people would most like to see covered. Any suggestions?

  3. Hi Andrew,

    Nice to hear that you are writing a book. You’re an excellent writer. For what its worth I especially enjoy reading your trip reports on cash games. You usually capture the colour and feel of the game really well so perhaps to break the book up a touch you could write a chapter on playing a live cash game and your approach, the hands that came up, the dynamics etc.

    What I’d really like to see the though is something that is often talked about but rarely explained effectively. Experts suggest that when sitting in a cash game you want to be exploiting the weak players at the table. This is fairly obvious to anyone, yet how one goes about that is less so. Play more hands with them, weaker hands, positions, spots to punish them, etc.. This is supposedly where one should make most of ones money yet I tend to find myself often playing good solid poker, avoiding the good players, yet not necessarily intentionally going after the bad players with a strategy or mindset.

    Best of luck sir.

    • Thanks for the suggestion, Nick. This is actually the first chapter, what I’ve been working on this week. It’s not hard to beat weak players, but it is hard (and important) to beat them for the most that you possibly can. I think I’ve got a lot of very concrete examples of how to do that.

    • Seems like your comment got cut off. But I’ll respond as best I can- my intention is very much to focus on exploitive play, not on balancing. The book is going to be about how to recognize mistakes your opponent is making, exploit them to the fullest, and avoid making them yourself.

  5. First off I want to say I am glad you aren’t doing a catch all book. It’s an impossible task for one book and as you see from the Harrington series of books it would take multiple thick texts to even do an admiral job, let alone something comprehensive.

    Second, before I even get into topics, have you given any consideration to pairing down the book even further? I think the space that is not currently being served in the market are 100% niche poker books. With e-books taking off I am surprised this hasn’t caught on yet.

    Specifically, when a player works on their game don’t we tend to pick a leak or area (bet sizing) and focus on it hard at it with away from the table study and session focus for a period of time until we feel we’ve gained a real solid grasp and then move on to another area and build our game that way? I think once you’ve learned a solid ABC game/foundation that is the best way to improve at poker.

    With that in mind, have you thought about taking all the difference concepts/situations and creating a suite of niche books to cover one topic deeply? So 3-bet, 4-bet, 5-bet game would be an e-book. Bet-sizing would be a e-book. Hand reading. Etc. etc. instead of what happens now which these elements are just a chapter or a section of a chapter in a mash up book trying to cover everything.

    Thoughts on that?

    Topics I’d be interested in…

    1. Hand reading/ranging
    2. Bluffing: Increase the effectiveness and minimize the spew
    3. Process/framework for poker study and improvement
    4. Value betting (monsters, medium strength and thin value)
    5. Cbetting
    6. Note taking w/ the purpose of building a strategy to exploit villains
    7. Playing pots as the caller – most books focus almost exclusively with play as the bettor
    8. Poker defense: Blind defense, dealing w/ aggression, defending against cbetting, blocking bets etc
    9. Maximizing your database and hud info/using it to make strong reads
    10. REALLY turning poker theory into practice

    Personally I’d rather not get another book trying to cover all these topics. But rather pick a book on just one subject and try to master it and move on to the next one. Maybe that is just me.

    Interested to see what topics other people have.

    • Thanks, Dannie, this is exactly what I was hoping for when I made this post! I can’t promise I’ll address all of the topics you suggested, but some of them are already in the outline, and you’ve given me a few new ideas as well.

  6. 1) Choosing the right spots to call down/playback with marginal hands against aggressive bettors.
    2) The factors you consider when deciding whether to raise or just call with a draw.
    3) 3-Betting vs. flat-Calling preflop
    4) Limping behind vs. isolating preflop
    5) Common spots where solid players fold too much
    6) C-Betting: Deciding not to c-bet, good spots to delay c-bet, and attacking c-bets profitably.

  7. Hi Andrew,
    I am glad to hear that you are writing a startegy book, I’m sure it will be one of the best out there. Topics I would be interested in….

    How to play from sb and bb in Blind vs Blind confrontations.
    How to maximise value against calling stations especially those who call a lot of your cbets.
    Also, I purchased Poker Tracker 3 recently and I am not sure how best to utilise the statistics provided in the HUD to my advantage yet. For example, if someone is folding to cbets x% of the time, you could maybe describe how best to exploit his/her.

    Good luck!

    • Thanks, Jeremy. Let me just say I think you would be very pleased with what I already have outlined. 🙂

  9. Hi Andrew,

    Thanks for soliciting input from us loyal readers.

    I like alot of what people have already suggested.

    A couple other things I’d like covered:
    When to give up on a hand (usually as the initial raiser) vs. when to keep bluffing on the turn and river
    How to translate HUD stats into a range for an opponent and how to adjust your play based on that information
    How do you select the tables/games that you are going to play, maybe an example of why you selected a particular table to play at in an online game.

    • Thanks, Dana. Your first suggestions will be pretty well integrated throughout the book. So there won’t be a chapter on using a HUD, but I’ll talk a lot about how stats will factor into identifying various leaks and choosing the best strategy to exploit them.

      Table selection is an interesting idea. I do feel like I do a better-than-average job of that. I’ll have to think about how best to address this.

  10. I’d like to see a breakdown of flops into various “types” and see how various types of hole cards would “typically” play given a several typical preflop scenarios. Then, after making an exhaustive list, work backwards combining your opponent’s preflop/postflop actions and position to narrow their range. Kind of a backwards look at hand-ranging…

    • Are you a member of Poker Savvy Plus? Not that it couldn’t find its way into a book, but the first videos I made for PSP did pretty much exactly this. You should check them out, there’s a 7-day free trial which should give you a chance to watch at least some of them.

  11. I’m too busy at the moment to read through all the comments, so maybe I’m repeating something someone else mentioned already. What I’d like to see would be something like the story time vids you did for PS+. There’s enough “when X do Y” stuff out there, but I haven’t really read a lot about how game theory should influece one’s decision making.

    • I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you, just playing Devil’s Advocate: what do you think would be the advantage of doing this in book form as opposed to the videos of this type that I already make?

  12. Another interesting topic would be turning a made hand into a bluff. This is probably one of the biggest leak of small stakes NL players. F.e. hero calls a BTN raise with 76 of spades in the BB. Flop comes KT7 with two hearts hero c/c. Turn is an offsuit 2 and goes check-check. The river is the Q of hearts and river checks witht he intention of c/cing or c/fing. Imo it would be a far better play to bluff at the Q cause you can credibly represent a flush (unless villain knows you’d always c/r on the flop) or Kx/2pair. Villain will fold Tx, 88/99…

    Might not be the best example but I’m sure you know what I mean. Most small stakes player automatically go into “showdown mode” when they pick up some SD value.

  13. I totally agree with Nick C. Not only are you an excellent writer about trip reports and about hands you’ve played, I think this sort of writing (with strategic discussion appended) is in general much more enjoyable to read than a dry theoretical treatise, and also a more effective way of teaching. The more real-life hand examples the better, in my opinion.

    • But I’ve always wanted to write a thesis! 🙂

      Point taken. I’m not sure how exactly to work this in, but I think you’re right that an entertaining read will be more effective and better received and is probably an opportunity for me to differentiate this from other poker books.

  14. Hey Andrew I think some good ideas have been written from posts above. One idea that I haven’t seen yet is overbet. Both how to use them and how to play against them.
    Thanks,
    Joe

  15. I’ll toss my hat in the ring for Dannie’s point 3) Process/framework for poker study and improvement.

    I’ve never seen much of anything written on how current top pros improved their game. What’s most often said is that you improve by playing more, reading/watching videos and coaching. Apparently posting hands to 2+2 does something magical for you too. While I have no doubt that these things help, these answers don’t seem right to me. I doubt very many top pros were coached to the top and clearly just playing more won’t do much without careful study and reflection.

    So tell us how you did it Andrew!

  16. Bankroll management. Without question needs to be covered. You do it well, 99% of players do not.

    • You wouldn’t be talking about anyone in particular, would you? 😉 On a more serious note, do you think the problem is lack of knowledge or lack of discipline? I don’t feel like I know any more than the average serious poker player about managing a bankroll, I think I am just more disciplined, and that’s a lot harder to teach.

  17. Ok, so I have a few, presuming these aren’t already in the plans:

    A solid opening chapter describing and detailing what everyone calls “solid fundamentals”, explaining where most players fall down and why, and a guide/help for being objective about your own game. This is something I think most people struggle with, people see plays and think they know why they were happening, and recreate, or think they know why each bad call they make was bad, etc., but being genuinely objective about your own game is difficult.

    Another chapter detailing these common leaks, how to spot them in your opponents, and how to exploit them. Preferably with hand examples of players with these leaks, and how they are best exploited in a multitude of different varying scenarios that can occur, or at least if the most exploitative play differs being OOP, in a 3-bet pot, as the aggressor/defender etc.

    Hand reading/range reading, applying these in a quick and simple manner, so this can be made easier when multi-tabling against the clock. I find it easy to calculate a range, but attributing number of combinations/likelihood of each, our strength against these, the odds we’re being laid if drawing, how high our bluff frequency should be in this spot against this range, how often we’re ahead, which decision is best given this information, and if we’re to bet/raise, an appropriate amount to extract value/garner a fold if that’s the intent, can be extremely difficult! It’s this particular strength I’d probably say provides the majority of peoples pitfalls and majority of successful players profits.

    Gameflow during a session/over time with a player, and how this effects range decisions and calculations, and other metagame issues. I personally feel pretty comfortable here, but there are times when it’s very difficult to determine whether a player is taking me to value town or steaming of money because he’s sick of my relentless three-betting, etc.

    Considerations and changes to make depending on full ring / 6 max / in between the two and even shorter handed. This is big because I’d like to see how it affects a top players thinking, and ways to combat changes your opposition will make, the best way to combat leaks at fuller/shorter handed games depending on the playing style of your opponent.

    General views, opinions and pearls of wisdom picked up from experience that would not come into particular sections, this could be like a closing section detailing anything you’ve noticed, such as tighter players upping their aggression when the game breaks to take advantage of their previous image, how aggressive tournament players tend to float less in deep stack cash games than non-tourney players at the same stakes, these may seem pretty stupid but general pearls of wisdom that don’t fit into particular chapters would be good.

    I imagine this is a predominantly cash game book, which is what I’d prefer, but if there was a section on stack size considerations, as this could be relatively small there could be a general tournament considerations thrown in the mix there, as the two probably cross over better than any other cash game section. This would be my least important, just a small thought I had.

    If I think of any more I’ll be back. But just like to say very cool of you to do this, I’m a big fan of your work and writing style.

    EndlessChase,
    England

    • Thanks, Chase. I’m actually looking at building a book pretty much exclusively around the stuff you mention in your first two paragraphs, and you’ve definitely given me some more to think about regarding those. I’ve been thinking a lot about what should be in a poker book, and one thing I’m realizing is that a book can’t and shouldn’t try to do everything. Particularly since I have so many venues for communicating poker strategy (instructional videos, strategy articles, blog posts), I’m trying to focus on things that I feel a book can address in ways that other media cannot. I think gameflow is an example of a concept which, while important, could probably be addressed better in a video format rather than a book, where players can actually watch me playing a large number of hands with the same players and get a feel for adaptations as they happen at the table.

      The pearls of wisdom thing is an interesting idea. It’s not something I’d really thought about, but now that I have, it strikes me as something best suited to articles and blog posts. Lest you think your efforts in vain, rest assured that I am at least as grateful for ideas for articles and blog posts as I am for the book!

      And may I say how very cool it is of you to offer such thorough and well-thought-out suggestions.

  18. Calculating implied odds and everything that goes into it. Essentially this will call on putting your opponent on pre-flop ranges and determining how likely he is to call off later streets with varying hand strengths, while also taking reverse implied odds into account. This will essentially draw heavily on hand-reading skills and on determining a player’s postflops tendencies. Both are tricky subjects, but the second is one that I think most players don’t know how to do. Too many players just have a standard threshold, for example, of how deep they need to be to call a PF raise with small pairs because they blindly think that having X amount of BBs behind gives them the correct implied odds to setmine, when really your true implied odds are based on way more than just effective stack sizes.

    • I’m glad you suggested this. It’s something I was on the fence about including, but you’ve convinced me I probably should. Now I just have to figure out where to put it….

  19. Andrew –
    Sorry for being a little absent from the blogosphere lately – but I’m glad to see that you’re writing a book. This might sound too broad but one general subject I feel like isn’t talked about enough specifically is the value of information and when, if ever, it’s ok to basically give away your hand and when it’s not. For instance: dry ace high board, you check/call a c-bet with AJo. Or you c-bet and call a raise with AK. In these kinds of spots, it’s rare that you would be able to get more value by raising on the flop. But you’re giving away the exact strength of your hand 99% of the time (ok, sometimes you slowplay sets in these spots, but those sets are pretty rare and sometimes you fastplay them, and you almost never have air in these spots). How deep and how good does the opponent have to be before you start thinking about putting more bets in earlier, or even folding earlier, just because the information disadvantage on future streets is so -EV? Is the best way to combat this just to randomize your calling-down tendencies to keep the opponent from bluffing profitably, and just allow him to value-bet with abandon? Mix in more slowplays? Fastplay more marginal hands earlier? This kind of similar to, but not exactly the same as, the idea of when to “polarize” vs. when to “merge” your range, I think.

  20. Hey Andrew,

    What I would like to see is some space dedicated is what hands to lay down (both pre-flop and post-flop and why), especially deep in tournaments when there has already been action in front of you. Similarly, when your in the SB or BB and are getting great odds to call a pre-flop raise (after one or two cold-callers for instance) with a speculative hand. I know many of these topics fall into the “depends” category, but elucidating what these factors are and elucidating which ones you often consider would be especially enlightening.

    As a side note, I’d like to commend you for your work w/ inner-city youth and know that many of those kids will attribut their success later in life to the confidence you instilled in them during their debate league. You truly are an inspiration for me to become both a better poker player, but more importantly, a better person. Keep up the good work, dude.

    • Thanks for the kind words, Yad. I just finished a draft of Chapter 1 today, and I can tell you that at least some of what you’re asking about is in there.

  21. Two suggestions.
    1-Specific plays that a successful player must have in his bag (as oppossed to poker theory)
    2-creation of a game play for improvement, how to progress, a checklist of development/progression.

    Whatever, good luck and thanks for your posts.

  23. Exploration of 3bet dynamics (how to deal with 3bets from in and out of position, when to 3bet, who to 3bet..etc)

  24. No suggestions on theoretical/instructional content but one on style: keep it personal as you do in this blog rather than a dry presentation of theorums/applications. Personality has the effect of engaging the reader suckering them into following the instructional content.

    A few years ago when I retired, tv poker prompted me to see what would happen to me in on-line poker. I thought, “I enjoy games & cards: maybe poker could be a supplemental source of income.” I found out otherwise: hadn’t the right inclinations to develop skills & quit ahead pennies. But found I enjoyed learning something about the ideas behind the games and the personalities. Have continued to follow your blog, Hard-Boilded Poker, Ed Miller’s blog, and the stud forum on 2+2.

    In the meanwhile, I’ve revived my interest in the Oriental game of Go. A great game, growing in the West, and to my mind (and that of many other players) superior to chess. No money in it in the West (rather the reverse), but fortunately not necessary to me. The American Go Association E-Jornal recently did a poll on members’ favorite go book. The winner was a book written some 30+ years ago by a Japanese professional, Toshiro Kageyama, called “Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go.” It’s a book much loved by beginning players still at a low skill level and which I (now at a more or less middling level) and others continue to find valuable for its content. But it’s also an intensely personal book, full of personal anecdotes and adjurations. For example: the shape your stones form on the board is very important. Good shape plays use your stones with maximum efficiency; bad shape will either cause you to fall behind in development or leave weaknesses that sooner or later your opponent can cash in on. Kage’s chapter on shape tells you, “You must learn to love good shape more than a beautiful woman.” I think he’s exaggerating to make a point, but it does make it doesn’t it. “Aji” is an important concept in go. “Agi” is the Japanese word for taste. On the Go board it refers to a lingering “taste” in a position, good or bad. Usually good aji for one player means bad aji for the other. Bad aji is not immediately fatal to a position but means a weakness your oppenent can pressure to realize other gains. Kage talks about seeing a Japanese book title with “Aji” in it, thinking it was a go book, then discovering it was really a cook book, then going on with come comparisos between good or bad taste in cooking versus on the go board. It’s evident in your writing that there is are parallel concepts in poker: the way you bet your hand can create good or bad aji for you as the hand advances.

    I hope for example that you let some of your ideas about the relations between poker and life make it into your book. Doyle Brunson is another example of someone whose writing is engaging in good part because of the way he lets his personality into it.

    Bob Gilman

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