Review: Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time Volume I
The poker book section of your local Barnes and Noble has, to this point, been dominated by your more mainstream, recognizable authors – Brunson, Hellmuth, Negreanu, and the like. But just as the younger generation of players has been steadily making inroads at the table, so too are they starting to elbow their way on to the shelves. One of the strongest entries from the new generation of pros is a collaborative effort authored by three top players who cut their teeth primarily online: Eric ‘Rizen’ Lynch, Jon ‘Pearljammer’ Turner and Jon ‘Apestyles’ Van Fleet.
Overview
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WPTOH is a book focused exclusively on tournament play. Volume One covers early stage play through bubble play. The book focuses exclusively on hand analysis, drawing on a couple hundred hands from actual tournament play, and doesn’t provide anything in the way of fundamental theory or generalized strategy.
Book Structure————-
The book is broken into four core parts. Each author helms their own section, and then the three collaborate on the final section. Each section follows an identical format – a hand is described and then the author gives a few paragraphs of analysis on how the hand could / should be played, how they decided to play it and why.
Unique Advantages—————-
Since the book is constructed entirely of individual hands, it’s great for casual reading. You can easily pick this book up, spend a only minute or two with it and still get value out of it, which isn’t the case for books that focus more on broader concepts.
The author selection is a huge advantage for this book. While all three are successful players, they each have a unique approach to the game. Turner plays more conservatively, Van Fleet is well know for his at times hyper-aggressive approach and Lynch falls somewhere inbetween the two. That range of styles means the reader gets a more robust picture of the possible ways to approach tournament play than single-author texts usually offer. This is especially pronounced in the collaborative section of the book, where each author offers their own independent take on a series of single hands.
All three are competent writers, and the rapid-fire nature of the book keeps it from getting too boring or repetitive.
Disadvantages
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While it’s nice to have hand after hand of quality analysis, the book does suffer from a lack of structure. It would be nice for the hands in each section to be subdivided by specific topics (opening pots, pocket pairs, blind versus blind play, etc).
The book also ends up spending several pages on very similar concepts. While there’s nothing wrong with reinforcing critical concepts, it does feel from time to time like you’re essentially reading a rehashing of analysis you just read a few pages ago.
Conclusion
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Hard not to recommend. It doesn’t cover a ton of new ground, but handles the fundamentals very well.
Focus: 10/10
No filler whatsoever.
Quality of advice: 8/10
These are excellent players who can express ideas well.
Examples: 10/10
The book is essentially a string of examples.
Readability: 8/10
It’s a poker book. All three write well, but it’s not exactly gripping stuff.
Overall (not an average): 9/10
If you play tournaments at an intermediate level or above, you should buy this book. Beginners should wait until they’ve read Harrington and then pick this up to refine their game.
VERDICT: A solid book that won’t change the game (ala Harrington) but will sharpen yours.
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