Winning Wisdom

At only 27 years old, Gavin Griffin already holds one of the most impressive collections of poker's most prestigious titles: World Series of Poker, European Poker Tour, and World Poker Tour championships.

Now, Card Player is giving its readers a chance to send questions directly to the poker prodigy. Poker fans can send Griffin their questions to [email protected]. The questions can be about anything from poker strategy to his opinions on certain aspects of poker or his life as a poker pro traveling the circuit. The best questions will be answered by Griffin and published in Card Player. If your question makes it into print, we'll send you a free Card Player T-shirt.

In my last column, I discussed some of my favorite books about gambling. In fact, since writing that column, I reread Playing Off the Rail, and it solidified itself as my favorite book about gambling. In this column, I'll write about my favorite strategy books, although one of them is a bit of a hybrid.

The first book I want to mention is sort of a life story and an instructional book. It's The Making of a Poker Player by Matt Matros. You follow along with Matt as he goes from learning the game of poker to his third-place finish in the 2004 WPT Championship, won by Martin DeKnijff. He discusses strategies for limit hold'em, no-limit hold'em, pot-limit hold 'em, Omaha, stud, game theory, heads-up poker, and online poker. In other words, there is a lot of information, covering many different games. I've known Matt for a while now, and I really like his style of play. He went deep in a few events at this year's World Series, and he's had a lot of success in tournament poker.

Because Matt is a writer (he has an MFA in writing from Sarah Lawrence College), the book is a very easy read. He does a good job of including some anecdotal advice on how to play poker. It's not a teaching manual, like so many books, so it's easy to blast through it in just a short amount of time and get some valuable insights while doing so. You don't really feel like you are learning when you are reading it, but you come away a better poker player. Matt takes sections of each chapter and dedicates them to more serious instruction. This is similar to Barry Greenstein's book, Ace on the River, or Doyle Brunson's According to Doyle, in that it is a life story meant to teach you about poker. Matt's writing style and storytelling ability push The Making of a Poker Player ahead of these two books, in my opinion, and he is very good at teaching the game, as well. Matt, along with being a good friend of mine, is an excellent player, and we have talked about the game quite often. I respect his opinion a lot and have learned from his approach to the game, as I hope he has learned from mine.

While I'm not good friends with Lee Nelson, I had a few poker conversations with him while we were in Monte Carlo for the EPT Grand Final this year. He's an intelligent and well-spoken man, and that comes through in his book, Kill Everyone. I didn't have the pleasure of reading his first book, co-authored with Blair Rodman, Kill Phil. The main emphasis in that book is on developing a strategy to counteract the skill difference between beginners and the best players in the world. The title stems from the fact that so many of the best players in the world are named Phil (Ivey, Hellmuth, Laak, and, more recently, Galfond). This time around, Nelson teams up with Tysen Streib and Kim Lee to produce a book that gives suggestions on early-round tournament play and a very good mathematical breakdown of endgame strategies. There is even a section on shorthanded online cash games written by Mark Vos.

The authors introduce a concept that I found interesting and helpful, called the equilibrium play, defined as such: "The mathematically best play that can be made against an opponent who plays optimally." Assuming that you are playing against a good, rational, thinking opponent, this is the best play to make against him in a given situtation. It's all backed up by the relevant math and explained quite well. They also talk about exploitive play, for use against less-accomplished opponents.

Later in the book, the authors break down a single-table tournament that was televised live on TV. The participants were a who's who of the poker world: Phil Ivey, John Juanda, David Ulliott, Chris Ferguson, Gus Hansen, Phil Hellmuth, and Mike Matusow. They start the breakdown of the tournament once it is four-handed and on the money bubble. From this point, they discuss every hand and how it relates to their mathematical calculations. It is an interesting exercise in the practical application of optimum play in a real-time situation. These players had not studied the material in the book, obviously, since the book was not out yet, but it is amazing to see how many times they make the correct play according to the book. These pros intuitively make the right mathematical plays quite often. When they don't make the optimum play, the book explains what they should have done differently and why.

The last few chapters of the book are spent on some other topics. In Chapter 10, the authors discuss recent changes in trends in the tournament world, such as the tendency of people to steal from the under-the-gun position, re-restealing, the light under-the-gun limp-reraise, and the check-raise semibluff on the turn. These are all concepts brought about by the younger Internet players, and Lee talks about their implementation and counterstrategies. Chapter 12 is dedicated to teaching you how to play against better players. Chapter 13 is about tells and reads, and Chapter 14 discusses tournament preparation methods. I really liked this last chapter, as it gives some very good advice about jet lag, sleeping, and diet, to help keep you focused at the poker table. When I can't stay focused for long periods of time, I'm the least effective in tournaments.

All of these points are the reason that I like Lee's book so much, and why it has become my favorite poker book as of late. Admittedly, I haven't read all of the recently released books on poker, but of the ones that I have read, I enjoyed Kill Everyone the most. Thanks for writing a great book, Lee.

Gavin Griffin is the newest member of Team PokerStars. Visit his website at www.gavingriffin.net.