Two plus Two publishing have released many good poker books over the years and a semi recent release was to help the various Sit and go poker tournament specialists improve their one table poker tournament performances. The two plus two poker books are always presented with carefully chosen paragraphs and explained in a way that helps both the experienced and the amateur player learn what the book is intended to teach them. They are a personal favourite publisher of my growing poker library and thankfully this book matches the high standard set by their other poker books.
The book is titled Sit ‘n Go Strategy Expert Advice for beating one-table poker tournaments. It is divided into four specific sections allowing the reader, if they wish, to go straight to the section they wish to study. Those sections are low blind play, mid blind play, high blind play and career play. As the majority of poker articles relating to sit and go play are split up in this way the book does not try to re-invent the wheel when teaching players their version of online poker strategy for SNG’s which is a plus point of the publication in my opinion.
Splitting the play into sections helps understand how to win sit and go poker tournaments. The blinds play a major part of the game and the book rightly acknowledges this. You are given essential concepts for pre-flop and post flop in each section with lots of hand examples with each discussion discussed. They split the types of hands you can hold into various categories making it easy for you to classify your hand. You may have a monster, strong draw, hands where you were the pre-flop aggressor or marginal hands.
Most of the hand examples are excellent however one small criticism I have (I am hard to please!) is that sometimes when the hand is getting very tricky and a tough decision would be made on the turn they allow the example to have you hit your improvement card. It would be good for more tough spots to be discussed but the examples do clearly explain their concepts discussed in the theory text.
The sections on mid and high level blind play are excellent. They are substantial and you will find yourself studying the book over and over learning the concepts. This is definitely not a book where you will read through once and think “I know everything”. There is much to learn and it will take time. The good news is from what I can see nothing is missed out and a wannabe SNG star will love this book and constantly refer to it as a reference. It is almost a SNG bible.
Perhaps a small disappointment for readers looking to turn sit and go grinding into a semi-professional form of income is the section on career play. Whilst the title of the chapter is career play the discussion moves to discussing hand reading skills and whether or not you should show hands. This is more a discussion at general poker strategy that applies whether you want to make SNG poker a career or not. Discussing multi-tabling is also relevant to everyone and it is ever so slightly misleading to put this information in this chapter.
After a shaky start in that section they discuss poker software and what to use in terms of VPIP and so on which is good advice. They also discuss bankroll management and the need to be more cautious if poker is your main income stream. Variance is discussed in detail and after you read this section you are left with a clear understanding that poker involves luck and how even a good player has to be careful with their bankrolls to keep their head above water when the downswings occur. For someone who was not aware of these concepts it is vital reading and therefore it is excellent that information like this is included in the book.
Overall I think this is an excellent book. Of course no-one can guarantee you will win money but after reading the book you will hold more tools to help you win sit and go’s. I am happy to highly recommend this poker book to anyone interested in one table poker tournaments.
By Malcolm Clarke