I simply loved the book, but I didn't take away a lot of poker knowledge, at least not actual gameplay. I guess if someone is thinking of going pro it may have offered some good advice, but as someone who at best is considering playing some poker on the side when I get a job, I just found it to be a very interesting semi-biographical piece that was really well done IMO. On the 3 points, I totally disagree with the first one. No matter who you play with, everyone has a bad session once in a while. If I played in a game with Phil Ivey, he'd take my money the majority of the time, but if we played 100 sessions, I'm sure I'd come out ahead in at least a couple, even if he wins over 95% of the time. If that one time happens to be the time you decide to play above your means (and I don't think anyone can be assured of being a 90% favorite to make a substantial amount of money on any given session, no matter how soft the game), you lose everything. Play some poker where you can afford to lose what's on the table and you'll play much better poker, and if you can find a game within your means and play a lot and are the better player, you have a much better chance of building the BR than if you take that shot and miss.
2. I like to buy in for around middle. When I'm playing live we usually all buy-in for what would be the max ($0.25/$0.50, $50 buy-ins usually) but when I play $0.25/$0.50 online I usually buy-in for $30. That's enough to
bluff and still have some chips left as a threat on a later street, but not too bad when your 2-carded K high flush runs into the 2-carded nut flush. But buy-in depends on your style, buying in for the min obviously worked out very well for Greenstein and several players play very well when they buy-in for the max. I think you've just got to decide for yourself
3. 100% true. I usually multi-table but one day for some reason I played only one table. Not only did I lose money there, several
hands where I lost a few bucks here and there, no huge losses, but they added up, but when I looked at my stats in pokertracker I was playing WAY too many hands when I was single tabling. In real life there are people there, you can pay attention to them, try to practice getting a read on the players, and if all else fails they're usually friends so you can have a friendly conversation. Online action goes pretty fast, not many opportunities to make reads, on top of the fact that you can make way less reads online simply because of the nature of there not being real people there. Of course you can't go overboard. If you play too many tables at once you end up not thinking and making dumb plays because your head's not in the hand. I've found 4 to be a good balance but even then I feel a little rushed when I'm playing in several hands at once (got the flush draw in the upper left, trying to calculate pot
odds, nuts in the upper right, how can I extract the most money from the people there, facing in all-in in the lower left and the lower right I've got top pair mid kicker). I know some people who like to play 9 at a time. That's way too much IMO, but hey, if you can handle it, and turn a profit there, you're a pretty quick thinker.
In terms of avatars, at every single site I don't use one and I turn them off. I don't want to be making decisions based on what I see in them and I don't want other people remembering me. I've got PokerAce so that's fine for stats (so I don't have to remember, "that guy with the dog in the picture plays way too many hands"). Most people at the tables I'm playing at aren't incredibly complex, so if there's one player who looks like he's playing pretty good, making some moves, I'll make a mental note and keep an eye out for them, but they're few and far between.
