The Poker Blueprint Review

The Poker Blueprint Review

eBook Price: $37.  Buy It Now.

Who is this book for?  The Poker Blueprint is designed to teach NLHE players to advance from $0.10/$0.25 up to $1/$2 short-handed cash games.  It covers a plethora of strategy concepts such as range balancing and value betting, and in short, the Poker blueprint is one of the best books I have read in a long while.

The Poker Blueprint Review

Stuck at the NLHE micro-stakes?  Then this book is designed for you.  Written by high stakes online pro Tri Nguyen and Cardsrunners instructor Aaron Davis, the Poker Blueprint covers all of the poker fundamentals and advanced strategy that you’ll need to step up to the $1/$2 stakes.  Topics such as iso-raising, blind stealing and range balancing are covered in immense detail and users are privy to a number of hand scenarios from NL50 short-handed cash games.

The beginning of the 168 page eBook starts with the basics, such as table selection (getting relative position on the fish) and how to move up the stakes faster.  Interestingly, Nugyen and Cole push the idea of moving up the stakes faster and introduce an advanced bankroll management system to enable you to this.  Basic concepts such as expected value, pot equity and measuring your narrowing down your opponent’s holdings are introduced.  Topics such as bluffing or value betting the river with regards to equity in the hand and chip stacks is explained too, and this I think will help a lot of mediocre micro-stakes players, who don’t always extract enough value with premium hands on the turn and river.

Throughout chapter 5, pre-flop strategy is heavily discussed with particular emphasis on positional play.  I think most players will find this sort of stuff extremely useful as the majority of mistakes are made at this stage.  The authors teach you when to call raises “light”, 3bet opponents and how to “squeeze play” with specific hand ranges.  These concepts are discussed in length with good examples and hand history.  PokerStove calculations are also used to help you understand when it will be profitable to call or raise pots with regards to equity.  Overall, this chapter mainly teaches the basics of micro-stakes strategy, but it includes very useful starting-hand charts and graphs for you to use in your games.

The meat of the poker strategy ebook discusses successful post-flop play, and this is obviously the most important part of any successful poker strategy.  The right type of boards to continuation bet along with how to combat and change your style against different styles of opponents (LAGs, TAGs and Rocks), check-raising and range balancing (i.e. making sure you bluff more pots if your perceived range is very strong) are all highlighted with hand cases and analysis.  Nugyen explains the right way to play different types of flops (such as paired flops) and how to float/check-raise different types of players.  You are later taught the importance of float play and polaristion on your bluffs to ensure you win more pots.  The next chapter then deals withto 3betting and 4betting (which hands to 3bet, what to do with AQ against a 3bet) as well as the importance of polarisation.  In my opinion, 4betting isn’t all that important at NL25 however as you move up to NL50 and NL100 it does become more frequent and something you’ll have to cope with.

Future chapters deal with how to play multi-way pots, and how to interpret an opponent’s holdings through basic online tells such as  tank calling and insta-call etc..

In conclusion, the Poker Blueprint is definitely one of the best books out there for players stuck in the micro-stakes games looking to move up a few levels.  This book is frequently quoted in 2+2 forums, and something you should definitely be looking into if you want to improve your game.

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