The Course: Serious Hold ’Em Strategy For Smart Players

302 Pages·2015·3.898 MB·English

by  Ed Miller

The
COURSE
Serious Hold ’Em Strategy
for Smart Players
ED MILLER
Best-selling author and noted poker authority
The Course
Serious Hold ’Em Strategy
For Smart Players
E M
D ILLER
Copyright © 2015 by Ed Miller ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No part of this document or the related files may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without
the prior written permission of the author.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to

Ed Miller
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Henderson, NV 89052
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EdMillerPoker.com
ISBN-13: 978-0-9825042-5-3
ISBN-10: 0-9825042-5-X

Limit of Liability and Disclaimer of Warranty: The author has used his best efforts
in preparing this book, and the information provided herein is provided “as is.” The
author makes no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy or
completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaims any implied
warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose and shall in no
event be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage, including but
not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. Poker comes
with an inherent element of risk, and the author specifically disclaims liability for
any financial losses sustained in connection to the contents of this book.

Trademarks: This book identifies product names and services known to be
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are used throughout this book in an editorial fashion only. In addition, terms
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C o n t e n t s
Introduction 7
PART I: THE 30,000 FOOT VIEW 13
The Many Forms of No-Limit Hold ’em 15
Where Does The Money Come From? 33
PART II: BEATING LIVE 1-2 GAMES 41
Skill #1. Play A Simple And Effective Pre-Flop Strategy 43
Skill #2. Don’t Pay People Off 81
Skill #3. Assess Your Hand Value 92
1-2 Hand Quizzes 121
PART III: BEATING LIVE 2-5 GAMES 143
Skill #4. Barreling 145
Skill #5. Evaluating Board Texture 166
Skill #6. Making Live Reads 189
Skill #7. Emotional Numbing 211
2-5 Hand Quizzes 234
PART IV: BEATING LIVE 5-10 GAMES 253
Skill #8. Exploiting Aggression 255
Skill #9. Playing Deep 267
Skill #10. Taking On The Pros 276
5-10 Hand Quizzes 286
The Next Step 294
Conclusion 300
Acknowledgements 303
I n t r o d u c t i o n

When I was a kid, my dad watched a lot of golf. Every Thursday
through Sunday, our television was tuned to that week’s PGA
tournament. This was before the Internet, and we had only one
TV, so many days I was a captive audience.
Through those thousands of hours of watching televised golf,
I heard hundreds of players interviewed before tense Sunday
matchups and after crushing losses. For the most part the words
washed over me. If you’ve heard one cliché-filled athlete
interview, you’ve heard almost all of them.
But one day, in one of these interviews, I heard something that
stuck with me. I couldn’t tell you who said it, but the idea was
powerful. You don’t play against the other players, the golfer said.
You play against the course.
When you enter a golf tournament against a hundred other
players, you can think about it one of two ways. You can think
about it as “you against the field.” To win, you have to beat every
one of your opponents. You’ve got to beat the one who drives a
million miles, and you’ve got to beat the one who never misses a
putt. You’ve got to beat the one who can get out of every jam, and
8 THE COURSE
you’ve got to beat the one who thrives under pressure no matter
how intense.
That’s one way to think about it. The other way is to ignore all
that. Those other players don’t matter. They’re going to do what
they’re going to do. It’s not your concern. In some sense, a golf
tournament involves only two players—you and the course. The
course sets the rules. It creates the challenges. It puts up the
obstacles. Your job is to analyze the problem, formulate a strategy,
then execute.
That’s it. If you pick the right strategy, and your execution is
crisp, the winning takes care of itself. The other players will beat
themselves one way or the other. If you conquer the contours of
the course, then you can ignore all the competition and claim
your victory.
It’s a powerful idea. It separates the things you can’t control—
the other players—from the things you can—your own strategy
and execution. It’s also an idea that perhaps applies even better to
poker.
In poker, it’s easy to get distracted by all the other players. This
guy called twice and spiked a gutshot straight against you. That
guy won’t stop calling every time you play a pot. The woman
across the table made the nuts against you three times in a row.
It’s all noise. Ignore it. A hold ’em game is not you against nine
opponents. It’s you against the course. Master the course, and
you’ll see results.
If you don’t ignore it, you risk getting caught in a dangerous
trap—trying to change your opponents. If someone keeps calling
and drawing out on you, then the natural response is to try to get
ED MILLER 9
that guy to stop calling so much. Maybe you bet bigger. You
figure that if you use a big enough gun, you’ll be able to blast the
guy out of your pots.
This approach, however, is exactly the wrong one. The more
you simply react to what your opponents are doing—and
especially the more you try to change the way they play—the
more you ensure that you’ll never win at this game.
Just play the course. In poker, the course isn’t your opponents,
but it is created by your opponents. Your opponents, by the
strategies they use to play the game, decide where the sand traps
and water hazards go. They also decide where you’ll find the
fairways and greens. The more flawed your opponents’ strategies,
the wider the fairways, and the bigger and more forgiving the
greens.
Your first job is to survey the course. Every time you sit down
to play, you examine the action to determine where the hazards
lie and where the plum landings spots are. Next, you devise a
strategy to hit the good spots as often as possible. Finally, you
execute.
If you do that consistently—survey, strategize, execute—your
opponents won’t be able to keep up with you.
♠
This is my ninth poker book. When I tell my non-poker-
playing friends that I’ve written nine poker books, they ask, “Is
there really that much to say about poker?”
10 THE COURSE
The short answer is yes. No-limit hold ’em is a game with a
depth and subtlety that equals chess. People have been playing
chess for hundreds of years. They’ve written thousands of books
on the game, and still haven’t mastered it. In contrast, while no-
limit hold ’em has been around since early in the last century, its
popularity exploded more recently, beginning with the 2003
World Series of Poker. Only since then has the poker community
devoted significant resources to teasing out the game’s finer
strategic points.
I co-wrote my first book about poker strategy in 2004. The
collective strategic knowledge about hold ’em has been in a
constant state of flux since then. With each new book I’ve written,
I’ve learned more about the game.
This book is the product of how I’ve learned to teach poker for
the past ten years. I won’t waste your time telling you that a flush
beats a straight. I also won’t rehash basic strategy points you can
find in a hundred different places. That’s what Google is for.
Instead, I’ve focused on presenting only high-value concepts.
If I’ve done it right, this book will give you a series of “aha”
moments, one after the other. These concepts are the most
important, practical, and instantly applicable ideas that win
money in real no-limit hold ’em games.
The book is broken down into a series of skills. Read the first
skill, practice it, master it, and move onto the next. Once you
have mastered the first three skills, you can expect to have
sustained success in the lowest-level games offered in public card
rooms.
ED MILLER 11
After you get through the next four skills, you should have
what it takes to win at the next level. And finally, if you master all
the skills presented here, you should be able to play a professional-
level game at some of the higher stakes.
Hold ’em isn’t a simple game. You shouldn’t expect success to
come quickly and easily. But this complexity is precisely what
makes it worth playing. If it’s not easy for you, rest assured it’s
not easy for your opponents either. Most people who play the
game regularly in public card rooms are, quite frankly, terrible
players who make mistakes on nearly every hand. (They will also
be happy to volunteer “advice” about how you should play more
like them. Ignore them. Always, always ignore them!)
On top of this, the game’s short-term luck factor serves to
obscure relative skill levels among players. If you play ten games
of chess against someone who is much better than you, there’s a
good chance you’re going to lose nine or all ten of those games.
After an experience like that, no one could believe they were in
fact the better player.
Yet, in poker, the better player won’t beat the worse player
every time—not even close. The noise of hand-to-hand results
often hides the edge the better player enjoys. Throw in a little old-
fashioned self-delusion, and many people play for years and years
thinking they are among the best players in the room, while
actually being among the worst.
This book’s main goal is to cut through all that noise. I want
you to understand clearly what it means to be good at poker. I
want you to focus on the stuff that’s truly important. And I want
you to tune out everything else.