Recommended Reading: Part II

In my last column, I mentioned two books, Kill Phil and Kill Everyone. In this column, I am going to go into more detail about the first of these books. It was written by Blair Rodman and Lee Nelson. Blair is a very successful gambler and has been killing Las Vegas poker, both cash games and tournaments, for more than 20 years. Lee has escaped down under and become one of the top tournament players in Australia and New Zealand. If you ever want a great poker vacation, go to Melbourne for the Aussie Millions in January, combined with a stop to enjoy New Zealand's nature and poker.

Kill Phil is a basic primer for playing major poker tournaments. It not only covers strategies, but also ranking of starting hands, typical rules, making deals, preparation, and conditioning. The strategy it recommends is based on a major flaw in the way no-limit hold'em tournaments are structured. At some point in the tournament, the blinds and antes become so burdensome that you are forced to go all in with any playable hand. This replaces all of the "poker" skills, such as reading your opponent, clever play on the flop, and great laydowns on the river, with the more "mathematical" skill of knowing when to move all in and when to call someone else's all in. Late in the book, they recommend switching from no-limit to pot-limit as a way to put more skill back into tournaments.

I have never liked the idea that memorizing a relatively simplistic formula is enough to become a winning player. In most poker variations, no formula does very well against quality opposition. Unfortunately, a formulaic approach based on a lot of all ins works for the middle and late stages of most no-limit hold'em tournaments. Several years back, David Sklansky devised a very simple system for Bob Stupak's daughter to use in the World Series of Poker. It is described in his book on tournament strategy. Kill Phil introduces a more sophisticated version of this strategy, starting with a rookie and a basic strategy, moving through intermediate strategies, and ending with an advanced strategy. Following the basic strategy suggested by the book enables a beginner to start playing no-limit hold'em tournaments without giving too much away. This enables him to stay in action as his poker skills develop, and as he incorporates more advanced techniques from the book.

Having said how much I like the book, I must also admit that there are a few things I don't like. First, there are some mathematical errors in the appendices. For example, it makes the K Q a favorite over the Q J on a flop of J 4 3. Another appendix miscalculates the chance of someone having a pair equal to or greater than yours for any number of players. Second, I have gotten used to thinking of the total antes plus the blinds as the cost per round, or CPR. The book follows this convention. If you divide your stack size by the CPR, you get a number that shows how many rounds you can survive without playing a hand. I have gotten used to calling this number M in conversations with Gus Hansen and Paul "X22" Magriel. Dan Harrington's books refer to it as M. Here, they opt to call it the chip status indicator, or CSI, which I find a little forced and hard to adjust to. These flaws are minor. I certainly recommend it, especially for those who are relatively new to tournaments, since it not only provides an excellent quick-and-dirty strategy, but also prepares you for a number of situations involving rules, deals, stamina, and so on, which aren't really covered anywhere else. In my next column, I will discuss the second volume, Kill Everyone.

Steve "Zee" Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful games player. He currently devotes most of his time to poker. He can be found at many major tournaments and playing on Full Tilt, as one of its pros. When escaping from poker, he hangs out in his New York City bars near Houston on Avenue A - Nice Guy Eddie's, The Library, and Julep. Almost every Friday, he ends up at Doc Holliday's on Avenue A and 9th Street. He plans to be in New York City from late April to late May, when he'll head back to Vegas for the World Series of Poker. He has promised to buy a drink for any Card Player reader who tracks him down at one of his bars.