The Poker Blueprint: Advanced Strategies for Crushing Micro & Small Stakes NL Paperback – February 15, 2010

When I went to buy this book, I hoped for the best but sort of expected a mediocre rehash of the same concepts bandied around at 2+2, Harrington, etc. I was very pleasantly surprised to finally see strategies explained that work for styles other than nittish 14/8, 9/7 etc. The post-flop play section was excellent and finally explained the reasoning behind the moves.My previous experience at micro stakes NL games is the "grinder" nit, where you basically fall asleep waiting for some 88+, AQ+, JTs+, ATs+ hands to come, then raise 3xBB, c-bet the flop, and if anyone is still in the hand post-flop you are probably behind unless you have a set or 2 pair, but you bet the turn with your single pair and either end up folding to a shove or else calling off the stack and wishing you folded.I was very exploitable post-flop and didnt realize it, but because I was still making 6-10BB/100, I didnt really think too much about it being a "problem". After reading this book, it is much more fun playing poker and there is really a good chance of running up a big stack during a session, rather than grinding out a few BBs over hours.After reading this book in a day (yes, it is THAT interesting) and playing a while trying out some of the new moves I learned about, I have experienced an awakening of sorts. Really a change of mindset.Basically, the idea is to maximize your expectation over time regardless of individual hands. In other words, instead of being a nit never risking any money except on premium hands and waiting for a near-lock situation to bet or raise, you have to mix it up enough to generate other opportunities. A pleasant side effect is getting paid off much more often on your premium hands because people think you 3-bet too much. I now welcome deep stack tables instead of avoiding them, and am improving enough to make decent money.

I bought his book for my son who is studying to be a professional poker player. Yes I did say studying. What separates the amateur from the professional is knowledge - and that goes for pretty much any profession. That said my son is an advanced poker player so I felt pretty comfortable about getting him this book since I knew he would grasp the concepts given how much he already knows and how often he plays - which is constantly.His opinion on the book echoes what others have already noted. He gave it 7 out of 10 so four stars here. The concepts in the book are advanced so for many it might not be very helpful depending on their stage of development. For him it has provided a lot of good concepts that he references regularly.He would recommend this book for anyone serious about learning poker as a possible career. He did say it could be helpful for a beginner as well, but there may be better books out there for someone just starting out.

I am extremely satisfied with my purchase of Tri Nguyen's book.First of all, it is a must read for any poker player who wants to win. The contents of this book set it apart from so many books that fail to emphasize the points that are layed out in this concise, informative, and outstanding manual on how to crush the tables.The concepts can be applied in both tournaments and cash games, and the framework for this work is both enlightening and impressive. As someone who has been playing no limit for over a decade I greatly appreciate this work on my shelf of Mr. Nguyen and will be looking for any future works from this author.Nguyen is the master and much can be learned from him from all players of all levels and skill expertise. I even think Phil Ivey would be impressed. Dan Harrington's socks would probably get blown off with his boston baseball cap.

This book offers some interesting and useful insights. Far more useful though I think is their follow up book Exploiting Regulars, which includes a bunch of poker 'problems' to work through.The layout of 'Blueprint' is a little odd (at least on the Kindle edition) and doesn't flow well, but hey, I always figure if I can learn one thing from a poker book that helps me win one hand, it paid for itself. This is better than most, and overall pretty good

The author is probably a great poker player, but no educator. The book is full of spelling mistakes, sentences only understood by the most seasoned players, and blanket statements with no explanation.For example, regarding is early poker career, the author writes "I ended up winning a little bit with "unorthodox" plays such as open-limping under-the-gun, limp-re-raising in the cutoff because the button kept raising pre-flop, and check-raising flops with bluff-catchers. I didn't know better."First, the author is throwing around a lot of industry terminology. Which means you'll need Google open as you read to look up the terms. Second, this sentence can be found in the first 10 pages of the book. I'm glad the author thinks enough of his readers to use this terminology, but I bought this book TO LEARN about this terminology. Third, the author never explains why these decisions are considered "unorthodox" play! You're writing a book on poker, if you make a statement, due your readers the courtesy of explaining why this is the case.Bottom line. Better books exist.

I am a struggling poker player win some/loose some. This book is packed full of knowledge from a professional and i believe my game will benefit from it. Problem is, like others have said, the layout is sometimes hard to follow, and it is poorly edited. Lots of typos and hard to understand situations. The concepts in the book could have been laid out more clearly; had more time been taken to proof read, if it actually was.I am putting the information to use in my play, but I am having to read and reread in order to implement the concepts in the book.

The book can be slightly confusing at times, but what makes it so useful is the examples, they are all relevant and reflect common situations you encounter in this type of game. There is a discussion of pre flop hand ranges (including 3-betting) and plenty of post flop examples showing the correct time to cbet,barrel,float and various other post flop tricks.It needs to be read through several times, and if you stick with it and use the examples as a frame of reference for your own decisions, you will be able to build a bankroll at the micro stakes.I recommend depositing small and starting small and only moving up when you have earned enough money for the next buy in and moving back down if you lose a few buy ins. That way you won't hemorrhage money keeping on redepositing at a level you are not good enough to beat. With the invention of rush/zoom poker it is possible to play many hands in a short period of time, which also means you can test the ideas out fairly quickly as well as build a roll much fasterPeople often seem to assume they are better than they really are, and attribute keeping on going broke as being down to bad luck, so they redeposit, and before they know it they have a bad gambling habit that is costing them money. The micro stakes games are typically much tougher these days in the recession, meaning your game will have to be much sharper to make a profit than times gone by.Do not expect to start crushing the games over night after reading this book, it will take some practice and study, however once you know the book inside out, you will be able to beat the microstakes games and you will have the foundations to move up to the tougher games

Reading this book has helped me re-emphasise important strategies to winning on cash game tables. Parts of the book, such as playing fast on streets and targeting fish, made a lot of sense, and you can see how some guys are making 100k profit from small stakes tables. This book has also encouraged me to keep discipline if getting bad beats or on a losing run.I would clearly recommend this book to the occasional cash game player, or someone who is flirting with the idea of using a bankroll to start playing regularly. After over 10 years of playing poker, I believe I have a better grasp of techniques used simply to make profit on cash game tables

Good but rather basic in places.

Apesar de conter muitas estratégias avançadas, as quais não me servem pois jogo $0.01-0.02, considero uma boa leitura. Certamente aqueles que jogam seriamente nos stakes mais altos se beneficiaram grandemente pela leitura desta obra. Recomendo.

Der Author hält sich nicht mit Grundlagen auf, die sollte man sich woanders anlesen.Obwohl auf Cash Games ausgelegt konnte ich auch für mein Turnierspiel wertvolle Anregungen entnehmen.Lag es evtl. an diesem Buch dass ich meine letzten beiden Turniere gewonnen habe, man wird sehen .. ?!Manche Aspekte werden öfters wiederholt, was allerdings mehrmaliges lesen unnötig macht ;-)