Book Review and Study Group Discussion: Crushing the Microstakes

WVHillbilly

WVHillbilly

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First let me start by saying that Nathan “BlackRain79” Williams approached me about reviewing his new book, Crushing the Microstakes, well before Christmas and between the Holidays and my general slowness I’m just getting to it now. I do apologize. Now on to the review…

I really didn’t know what to expect from Crushing the Microstakes because I’m not really sure what to make of Nathan himself. His poker knowledge has always seemed solid on the forums and in his videos on Drag the Bar, but I’ve never been able to wrap my head around why he’s never really moved up beyond micro stakes. After reading his book, I’m still at a loss as to why. His poker knowledge seems 1st rate and he certainly understands the best way to a huge winrate is maximum exploitation of your opponent’s biggest flaws. The entire book is essentially devoted to explaining exactly how he goes about doing just that.

Nathan lays out his strategies from preflop through the river. All of his advice is clearly worded and thoroughly explained. There is no dense math or fancy play involved. His advice is strictly how to extract the most value from the players you’ll encounter most often at micro stakes. I’m certain that you could take someone who had never played poker before, give them this book, and they’d be able to easily beat 5nl online with very little effort. Essentially he’s thought of just about everything you need to be successful online at micro stakes.

Something else that I’d like to note about Crushing the Microstakes; There are very few, if any, errors. Compared to a lot of self-published poker eBooks I’ve read this book is VERY well written and edited. To me, it really shows the amount of effort Nathan put into writing the book. He doesn’t credit or thank anyone for editing so I assume he did it all himself and if so, I’m very impressed.

I do have a few minor issues with some of the advice but only because it’s so stake specific. Nathan does clearly state that some of the strategies in the book will only work at the lowest levels. I just think micro stakes should be a cheap place to practice and learn for higher stakes play and I’m afraid micro players could develop a few bad habits if they’re not careful to understand exactly WHY Nathan advocates certain things like limping small pairs in EP or varying your open raise size based on your hand strength. I understand that these things will undoubtedly increase your winrate at 2nl/5nl but I think I’d rather sacrifice a few pennies now so I didn’t end up costing myself dollars later. I also wish that the book was available in some format beyond .pdf. A version for the Kindle would be a good start and a printed version would be awesome but might need to be priced beyond the target audiences range.

In all, the book is very good. Well written with great poker advice. If you struggle to beat micro stakes online Crushing the Microstakes will be well worth the $20 price tag. About the only question I have after reading it is why is Nathan still playing micro stakes poker? Unfortunately he left that answer out of this book.

Crushing the Micro Stakes is available from Nathan’s website at www.blackrain79.com.
 
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WVHillbilly

WVHillbilly

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I have also talked to Nathan and he's open to helping out with a study group based around the book. I know our Hole Card Confessions study group produced less than stellar debate but I'd like to try again with Crushing the Microstakes. So if there is interest please post ITT and go get the book.
 
curly

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this sounds like my kind of book and I will be checking this out in the near future.

I can't speak for Nathan about why he played micro stakes as long as he did, but I can say that ever since I have been playing online I never moved up either, so this book I am certainly interested in. Thank You for reviewing it.
 
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I have also talked to Nathan and he's open to helping out with a study group based around the book. I know our Hole Card Confessions study group produced less than stellar debate but I'd like to try again with Crushing the Microstakes. So if there is interest please post ITT and go get the book.

I'm in for this. I've been thinking about getting the book anyways. I've just gotten back into poker, but pre BF I used to do OK up to about 10nl where I was essentially a slightly winning/break-even player. Since returning I've mostly been playing SnG's and MTT's, but with time constraints and all I'm finding myself slowly transitining back to cash games.

Anyways, hopefully we can generate some interest from some of the other micro-players. I'd really like to actually work on my game some instead of just mindlessly mashing the same buttons over and over again. Wait a minute...its the micro's isn't that what you're SUPPOSED to be doing? :D
 
absoluthamm

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It is a great book and has opened my game up quite a bit. I haven't yet incorporated everything from the book into my game as that obviously takes time, but what I have has really turned my game up. Also, WV, you can convert PDFs into .mobi or .epub files that view better on the Kindle with a program called Calibre. The images don't always work out great, but if you're on a black and white kindle, you're probably not expecting that much anyway.
 
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2nd review I've read now of this book and it sounds really good. I've bought a few recently that I haven't gotten round to reading yet so gonna have to get through those first. Sounds like this may be a better starting point so maybe I'll buy this first and take part in the study group.
 
WVHillbilly

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It is a great book and has opened my game up quite a bit. I haven't yet incorporated everything from the book into my game as that obviously takes time, but what I have has really turned my game up. Also, WV, you can convert PDFs into .mobi or .epub files that view better on the Kindle with a program called Calibre. The images don't always work out great, but if you're on a black and white kindle, you're probably not expecting that much anyway.
Good to know but making it available in that format to begin with seems like the better option.
 
absoluthamm

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PDFs are able to be secured and are cross platform(you can read PDfs on Kindles, Nooks, ipad's, etc). As far as the physical book, yea, I am pretty sure that is just inconceivable due to the small masses that would purchase it as a smallish book run is expensive and the ROI is very small, especially in comparison with a PDF which is entirely pure profit if self-managed.
 
alaskabill

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WVH,

Nice review. Nathan is a full ring player if I recall. Is most of the advice applicable to 6 max also? Obviously hand ranges change a bit but overall do you think it would be a good book for a 6 max spewtard like myself? :)

Even though I failed massively in the study group I helped start for HCC I would certainly try to participate in this one.

One problem I encountered with the HCC effort was that most of the time I found myself basically in agreement with the author and while I learned a lot It was hard to find discussion points IMO.

It sounds like you think this book has quite a few discussion points.

At the very least the existence of a study group helps me justify the purchase of the book. :)
 
WVHillbilly

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PDFs are able to be secured and are cross platform(you can read PDfs on Kindles, Nooks, iPad's, etc). As far as the physical book, yea, I am pretty sure that is just inconceivable due to the small masses that would purchase it as a smallish book run is expensive and the ROI is very small, especially in comparison with a PDF which is entirely pure profit if self-managed.
True but as I found out when I sent the pdf of this book to my kindle it was basically unreadable due to the way the pages scaled. I assume the program you mentioned earlier takes care of those issue but my preference would be to have that conversion done BEFORE I buy a book rather than having to do it myself afterward.

WVH,

Nice review. Nathan is a full ring player if I recall. Is most of the advice applicable to 6 max also? Obviously hand ranges change a bit but overall do you think it would be a good book for a 6 max spewtard like myself? :)

Even though I failed massively in the study group I helped start for HCC I would certainly try to participate in this one.

One problem I encountered with the HCC effort was that most of the time I found myself basically in agreement with the author and while I learned a lot It was hard to find discussion points IMO.

It sounds like you think this book has quite a few discussion points.

At the very least the existence of a study group helps me justify the purchase of the book. :)

It is a FR centric book (guess I should have mentioned that in the review) but because it's all fundamental concepts most of it would apply to 6max as well I would think. Obviously the ranges would differ for the player types described and a 6max player will generally see more aggressive plays with weaker ranges but on balance the book would be useful to any microstakes player imo.

Oh and the success/failure of HCC had nothing to do with you imo. I think a lot of people failed to keep up with the reading for the most part and like you said there really wasn't a lot that Owen left out that needed to be said.
 
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Definitely would be interested in this, probably will have to pick up a copy as I only have a BR for microstakes.
 
ONaRoll

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Have never got on with playing micro cash[apart from HU] but this book sounds like a must read for those who do and may even get me interested again .
 
Nathan Williams

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First off, thanks to WVHillbilly for taking the time to do this review. I really appreciate it.

I have also talked to Nathan and he's open to helping out with a study group based around the book. I know our Hole Card Confessions study group produced less than stellar debate but I'd like to try again with Crushing the Microstakes. So if there is interest please post ITT and go get the book.

Question to you and others as well: What was the issue with the HCC study group? Why did it not succeed? There was actually already a study group with my book at a rival forum (cough 2+2) organized through Skype. We had around 8 people in it I believe and had a good first session (breaking the book up into 5 sections) and there were plans for 4 more sessions. However they have not happened yet. Several of us are on different continents so the timing and organization seems to be the biggest hangup.

I am all for a CC study group on my book though. I would love to try again and hopefully learn from the mistakes of past ones. I don't know how you guys would like to do it. But I am open to lots of different ideas. If you want me to talk on camera like Owen did on the first one we could arrange that. Via Skype, text based or voice group chat. Lot's of different ways I am sure.

Also, WV, you can convert PDFs into .mobi or .epub files that view better on the Kindle with a program called Calibre. The images don't always work out great, but if you're on a black and white kindle, you're probably not expecting that much anyway.

I have had some people wanting this elsewhere as well. I apologize for not having it out sooner. I know some people do not like to read on a computer or laptop and I don't personally own an e-reader yet. It is a priority of mine to get it done. I have messed around with Calibre myself and had the same problems with the images from the book being all messed up. I plan to work more on that and hopefully get something out soon.

WVH,

Nice review. Nathan is a full ring player if I recall. Is most of the advice applicable to 6 max also? Obviously hand ranges change a bit but overall do you think it would be a good book for a 6 max spewtard like myself? :)

WVH already got to this for the most part. But yes I do believe my book will help 6max players as well. Most of the concepts and strategies that I talk about are applicable to both games. I play both games myself, actually more 6max than full ring these days, and half my students play 6max as well. I think the games play similarly enough that there is plenty of crossover. I do not recommend my book for HU, SnG or MTT players because the differences are much larger there.
 
absoluthamm

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I am down for a study group whether it be on Skype(text or voice) or some other medium. I think a session type study group works better than a forum based one just in the sense that it's real time. I'll be looking forward to whatever is decided upon.
 
ckickenking

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I thought his book was basically for HEM user.
 
absoluthamm

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Just because he uses HEM doesn't mean it's for an HEM user. Anything he has shown as far as statistically in HEM can just as easily be done in PT3. I in no way thought that.
 
WVHillbilly

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Have never got on with playing micro cash[apart from HU] but this book sounds like a must read for those who do and may even get me interested again .

Have never got on with playing micro cash[apart from HU] but this book sounds like a must read for those who do and may even get me interested again .
Echo.

Echo.
 
Nathan Williams

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Oh ya, I guess a forum based study group would work too. I'm down for whatever. Regarding the HEM/PT thing. Ya I don't think that is much of an issue as they are fairly similar programs. I actually used PT2 for years before HEM. And I am thinking of switching back to PT4.
 
WVHillbilly

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Oh ya, I guess a forum based study group would work too. I'm down for whatever. Regarding the HEM/PT thing. Ya I don't think that is much of an issue as they are fairly similar programs. I actually used PT2 for years before HEM. And I am thinking of switching back to PT4.
Yeah I'd like to have at least some part of it be forum based just because more poker content is a good thing for CC.
 
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When would something like this start??
 
WVHillbilly

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Probably right around March 1st. Gives plenty of time for people to get the book (instant delivery) and read it.
 
palmerd2

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I would be very interested in a study group. I got the book the other day and am looking forward to reading it. PM me with details :)
 
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