Review: Middle Limit Holdem Poker
4 Star, Book Reviews, Limit Texas Holdem
January 26, 2009Author: Bob Ciaffone & Jim Brier
Publisher: Self Published
I’ve been playing more limit holdem recently, and I suspect it will be the next “project” on CardSharp once I get more or less finished with NL holdem. In preparation for that I’ve been going back over all the books I own on the limit version of the game as a means of organizing my thoughts. When I first read Ciaffone’s book a couple of years ago, I thought it was the stone cold nuts as far as limit holdem goes. On a second read, with many thousands of hands of mid and high limit holdem under my belt, I still think it’s the best book on the game, but not quite as good as I once believed.
Unlike Ciaffone’s other offerings, this is a big book. It clocks in at 300 some odd pages, and the content density is much higher than most books because it has a very dense presentation when compared to say a 2+2 book. The book is structured in a logical way – opening remarks and general information about limit holdem up front, then discussion about each street of play in order, and then special topics in the back. As with the other Ciaffone books, this one uses a lot of examples. In fact, probably more examples than any other poker book. There are literally several hundred example hands scattered throught the sections. All of this adds up to a very substantial book that you’ll need to spend a lot of time with.
In terms of quality, Ciaffone does a pretty good job here. It’s clear that he (and presumably his co-author) can beat the games in question, and they quite thoroughly lay out their methodology for doing so. I also think they do a better job than their competition (2+2’s Holdem Poker For Advanced Players) at explaining the reasoning behind their plays. That was my major objection to Sklansky’s offering, so I’m glad to see they did better. One thing to pay particular attention to while reading this book is the focus on the number of opponents you face when deciding how to play a hand. This is something that I believe a lot of players bungle, and Ciaffone is the only author that makes correctly adapting to the number of opponents remaining in the hand a priority in his books.
I said earlier that I used to love this book, and now merely like it quite a bit. The reason is that while I feel the strategies presented are on the whole good, I feel they lack a certain something. They’re just not quite as a aggressive or as tight in certain spots as I believe is worthwhile. For example, I don’t believe Ciaffone advocates 3-betting preflop sufficiently frequently. I also feel he opens too loosely in the first couple of positions. Not disastrously so, just a bit. There are also some topics that are essential to the upper limits, such as countering your opponent’s steals, that I don’t feel are covered in sufficient depth. Perhaps my objection stems from the fact that this book is specifically focusing on the middle limits, and as a result the coverage is biased towards the opponents and tactics you will see there. To be fair, Ciaffone’s comments in several places seem to indicate that he is also aware of these issues. But I do think that the book could be a bit better on these fronts.
Still, I’m happy to crown this the best limit holdem book I’ve read. If you haven’t read it and play limit frequently, I suggest you get a copy.
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February 1st, 2009 at 3:10 am
I agree that the book is reasoned and the advice is mostly solid, but dated. The games that I play in do not resemble the 1980-90s Las Vegas mid limit games that the problems are from.
February 1st, 2009 at 10:48 am
That’s an interesting observation, because I didn’t feel like the problems were out of character with the 2000’s Vegas limit games that I’ve played. What games are you playing? Anything in particular that seemed off?
February 4th, 2009 at 3:12 am
Those problems actually have MORE people seeing the flop then I see in the 10/20 and 20/40 games in the east nowadays. Quite a few hands begin with “Utg raises and 5 people call”
Also after these large pots develop on the flop, the authors advocate dumping top pair type hands or decent draws to a single show of strength from one of the players. Players consistently forming large multiway pots are not going to be nits that only raise the turn with lock hands. There may be a few, but not enough to safely throw away cards in big pots.
February 17th, 2009 at 6:28 am
I agree that the content of this book is good. I’ve just moved up to from 2/4 to 5/10 and 10/20 limit (live) and this book together with the one by Tanenbaum are my main points of reference. I haven’t yet decided which of these is best.
One thing though: I find this book extremely difficult to read. It has long stretches of text without enough headers and with murky language. It would be great if the author would have highlighted his main points, so that you can look things up after you’ve already read the book.