Let's start with the good news first. This book is reasonably priced and not as overpriced as many other poker books. It contains a lot of information and much of it is pretty good. I especially like the discussion about game types.

Now the bad news. Most of the problems and weaknesses that the book has are caused by the title. This may sound strange but it’s nevertheless true. In his desire to make the book as complete as possible he writes about topics that he has not much idea about. There is a chapter about no-limit and pot-limit play that’s two and a half pages long! Carson gives the reader just a single hand from real play as an example and a conclusion that consist of two sentences! Chapters like that are terrible nuisances. If you have ever played hold’em you know it’s a completely different game from limit hold’em. Other authors like Ciaffone and Reuben have written a whole book about no-limit and pot-limit play but Carson thinks the differences can be explained in two sentences! Unfortunately there are more chapters and subchapters that are just as superficial and are obviously only included to make the book as complete as possible. There is a short chapter about “Tournaments” and single half page about “Cheating and Online Poker” that are simply worthless because neither contain any substantial information.

No doubt Carson has read a lot about hold’em poker. But when you read his book you ask yourself instinctively, does he really understands what he is writing about and what he mostly has read somewhere else? When Carson tries to be original, when he writes something you haven’t read before, it is plain wrong or controversial at best; eg. you have probably often heard the opinion that AKo is an overrated hand in hold’em. Carson drives this to extremes. When discussing play in tight games he says: “Even seemingly strong hands such as A♦K♠ should often be folded in early position if the game is very aggressive.” This is total nonsense. There might be some extremely rare occasions that you want to fold AK but I have yet to see a professional that would fold this hand - no matter what the game conditions are. Remember there are only two hands that are clearly superior: AA and KK. Because you have a king and an ace in your hand there are only six combinations left for the top two pair. If the game is so tight that your opponents will only play against you when they have one of these two hands you have found a goldmine because you can raise with anything and pick up the blinds most of the time. Against all other hands you are only a small underdog (against an underpair or AK suited) or a favorite.

Here is another example of Carson’s bad advice. It’s accepted wisdom that if there is a maniac at your table you want to have him on your right so you can act after him. Carson has a completely different view. He thinks it’s best to have this type of player to your left. The problem with sitting to the left of the maniac is that the range of hands you can play is extremely limited. Let’s say you have KJ. That’s usually a good hand against a maniac because chances are that you have him beat. You raise and as expected the maniac reraises. So far so good. But what do you do if a player behind the maniac raises again? Now you can’t even call the two bets because you are probably beaten, out of position and the maniac might even cap it. Now you can say exactly the same thing can happen if the maniac sits on your right side. Yes, but much less often because it was you who were three betting, not the maniac. That’s a big difference! Every decent player behind you will notice this and be much more reluctant to raise again. Worse yet, if the maniac acts behind you, it’s very easy for the other players to make you fold the best hand because of the maniac’s presence. For example you raise with AQ and the maniac reraises. The button has AJ suited and reraises again. The flop brings three blanks. Now you are in trouble. You don’t have anything. The maniac plays any two cards so the flop might have hit him. Even if not, the player behind him made it four bets which means he has probably beaten you at this point. You check, the maniac bets and the button raises. As a good player he does that for two reasons. He might still have the better hand than the maniac and he wants you out. Now there is no way that you can call because the maniac and the button could raise again. But if you sit behind the maniac you can turn the tables and make a better hand behind you to fold.

This is a strange book, not only because it contains a lot of good and some doubtful and useless information but because it is not clear who the target audience is. The book starts with chapters about “Entering a Public Cardroom” and “The Play of the Hand”, obviously only of interest for a complete novice. But beginners need a clear and simple presentation of the fundamental poker principles like bluffing, calling, raising, semi-bluffing, position etc. For beginners, it is equally important to show how to put that information to practice. Novice players lack experience so they need to be given a lot of examples the way Lee Jones does in his book “Winning Low Limit Hold’em”. All this is missing in Carson’s book. Even beginners will want to play a hand to the end but Carson has a lot of discussion about pre-flop and flop play, but only three pages deal with the play of the last two cards. These omissions lead me to the conclusion that this book is not very suitable for beginners. Maybe Carson writes for advanced players? I don’t think so. Most of his concepts and advice are based on two assumptions: that the opponents don’t have a clear understanding what they are doing and that the games are loose/aggressive. It’s evident that these two conditions occur mostly in low limit games. The games Carson describes do exist in mid and high limit poker too but only rarely. The caliber of the opponents in the higher limit games is much higher then Carson assumes the readers will encounter and the games are usually tighter.

Carson’s book could make good supplemental reading for people who already know every hold’em book. Read it with a critical mind. If you see something new and interesting keep in mind the underlying conditions the advice is based on and make sure it is logically sound.

(Tristan Steiger)

Buy the book!