Mastering Small Stakes No-Limit Hold'em: Strategies to Consistently Beat Small Stakes Tournaments and Cash Games Paperback – August 1, 2017

Lots of great strategies

I've been a consistent reader of all of Jonathan Little's books. What separates him from most other authors is that he teaches readers the "why", not just the "how", in very clear and humble language. His earlier works have focused on general principles-raising ranges, player profiles, post-flop strategy, etc. In all of those and in this work, he excels at encouraging the reader to think through why a certain line might be better than another, and not to take the same lines against every opponent.This book adds to that with some of the best range analysis discussions I've come across in a long time. It takes from game theory and distills it to a level that an advanced beginner or intermediate player would understand, and then recommends adjustments for different player profiles and stack sizes. I would not recommend it for a completely new player, but for someone who's played a few months online or live and can understand what range analysis is actually describing, this book is indispensable. I've found it greatly improving my play, adjusting my value and bluffing frequencies and ranges and thereby increasing my overall profitability. For those poker players who become fixated on perfect pre-flop play, this and previous works by Little force them to connect pre-flop play to post-flop (it certainly has me) and understand why adjustments pre-flop against raising ranges and player profiles allow flexibility in one's ability to play post-flop, which is where many beginners and general amateurs struggle.I recommend taking this book a couple chapters at a time, applying lessons at the table and then re-reading the chapter until the principles are understood.

This is a great book. I have read the "Secrets of no limit holdem" books and been waiting for a rewrite (because poker keeps changing), or a book like like this - as a poker review for me - but as a great book for people who haven't read many other books yet.One thing I liked is that Jonathan took time in several places to discuss how to play against the "maniacs". We do run into people like this, and the general advice in the past has been to wait until you have the nuts and then take them down. In this book Jonathan explains for many, many different situations how to play against both tight and loose opponents and also often includes how to play against the maniacs.This book shows lots of ranges for your own play, and lots of ranges for what to expect your opponents to have. Everyone advises that thinking about ranges of hands, rather than just specific hands, is very important, but few books take the time to actually explain and visualize these ranges. By the use of charts for ranges we are better able to visualize them.This book covers many, many situations and I find the repetition of the same good advice for various situations to be helpful.The book is long, and you probably won't read it at one sitting, but it is worth the effort. And the organization makes it easy to return to sections you want to review.

this is a great book with a ton of useful information it it for lower stakes poker players looking to learn. my only gripe is, at every opportunity the opponent is referred to as “he”, and never “they” or “she” at all. poker has traditionally struggled with being a mainly male dominated sport, and its very easy (easier, in fact) to just write “they” when referring to a hypothetical opponent. I wish this wasnt a problem with the book, but i really just cant read it without being put off balance by the lack of consideration in word choice.great book, good intentions, poor writing / editing.

I nearly gave this book four stars, but I feel that would be reviewing on a different scale than for other products as I've often given five stars to simple items because they do their job. This book is very well done and inspired me to change the way I study poker. It does have some typos and a missing or switched diagram at least once. Little could have framed the information quite easily in a way that would have put exactly one diagram on every other page for easy learning progression (if I flip to a random page for review it takes a while to figure out where the diagram is that matches the text as the diagram is often a page turn away while the diagram on the page is for text on the previous page). But the content is very good, straight forward, and simply explained (as much as poker chart strategies can be in a book this size).

A great book, but a lot of information to absorb. Its going to take a few readings to get the most out of it. Well written and easy to understand though. Already greatly improved my game, and I haven't even finished it yet.

I really like all the Jonathan Little books I have, and this one seems pretty good so far (if a bit dense). However, almost all of the charts he's used so far (a total of 42 by page 86) have been wrong compared to what he is saying, which is frustrating. For example, in a section about playing pre-flop big blind behind limpers, there's a chart that shows: Raise for value 6.5%, Raise as a bluff 42.8%, and Fold 50.7%. Clearly you would not fold when you can check, so this is a misprint. Unfortunately, many of the charts are misprints, most of which are not just a typo like this one, but actually confuse the strategy he talks about. Little doesn't really use charts in his other books, so I guess he doesn't have a good editing system for them? Whatever the case, I hope they reprint the book with the charts fixed.

This is a great book for learning to think about ranges and applying that to your betting actions. Jonathan has done a good job presenting all the common betting scenarios and how to take advantage of mistakes small stakes players make. He covers deep stack, medium stack and short stack play in each scenario. This is more a text book on poker play, the type of book you come back to over and over until you master the material. Having now read through the book, now I need to go back and thoroughly study it.