Editor's note: Former Card Player European Bureau Chief Rolf Slotboom has read just about every poker book available, and in this series of columns, he analyzes one poker strategist at a time. He looks at the strengths and weaknesses of both the person and his products - whether it's books, DVDs, or just articles. Extensive reviews and ratings of individual books and DVDs can be found on Rolf's site, www.rolfslotboom.com.
Ed Miller is known more than anything for his breakthrough book
Small Stakes Hold'em - Winning Big With Expert Play, published by Two Plus Two. This book had a huge impact on the way limit hold'em was played, and instantly put Miller
among the top poker theorists. Despite being very young when he wrote the book, his
Small Stakes Hold'em is in-depth and of very high quality. It discusses a rather loose-aggressive approach that until then was rarely associated with "good" play. Poker theory at that time almost always recommended tight-aggressive play, but the author clearly showed the benefits of an entirely different approach, with a great explanation of counting outs that was quite revolutionary. It was a daring and controversial book, but Ed's analysis was so good that no one could dispute his advice.
It is now a few years later, and it needs to be said that the book is not as useful as it was when it was first published. It, in large part, assumed extremely loose play and rather clueless opponents - but even at today's small stakes, the level of play has gone up in such a way that it has become
extremely hard to find the exact conditions that the author discusses. Nonetheless,
Small Stakes Hold'em is one of the best books ever published - no question about that.
Completely in line with the other Two Plus Two greats David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth, Miller was originally a limit player. Because of the recent no-limit hold'em boom, they all have been forced into a slightly different direction now that the public wants to play no-limit, and as a result, there are now many Two Plus Two books and articles on no-limit hold'em. But in the case of all three authors mentioned, I appreciate their no-limit advice a lot less than their limit advice.
In his second book,
Getting Started in Hold'em, a book clearly aimed at beginners, Ed's limit advice is again top-notch. However, the advice in the no-limit section is not nearly as good. Ed introduces a short-stack approach that seemed revolutionary to some when it was published. However, I am not too fond of his recommendations, as they should have involved check-raising and limp-reraising a lot more than they do (more in line with my recommendations on short-stack play as discussed in my expert hold'em DVDs
Rolf Slotboom's Winning Plays, and also my book
Secrets of Professional Pot-Limit Omaha). Perhaps more importantly, a good big-stack approach is lacking in
Getting Started in Hold'em, making the no-limit section not just a little superficial, but simply not very accurate. Having said that, the book as a whole is still a good introduction to those who are fairly new to the game.
Ed's good and analytical approach also helped
No-Limit Hold'em - Theory and Practice (written with David Sklansky) become a big success. Quite clearly, this was the best no-limit hold'em book at the time of publication, because of the good mathematical approach for which Sklansky is famous. And putting together two of the brightest minds in poker just cannot lead to a bad product. Yet, even though I recommend the book, I still think it is not more than just "very good" - and, as I said, this is simply because I value both authors' limit advice more than their no-limit advice.
Next issue: Phil Gordon.
