Review of No Limit Hold'em - Beating the Micro Stakes

Title:

No Limit Hold'em - Beating the Micro Stakes

Author:

Thomas Mitchell

Publisher:

self

Date:

2010

ISBN:

1450533914

Pages:

167

Price:

$14.95

Reviewed by Nick Christenson, npc@jetcafe.org

September 23, 2011

Low stakes poker has been a part of the game since its inception, I'm sure. I can't speak for the new generation of players, but for many of us old timers, nickel/dime/quarter or something similar was our very first introduction to the game. Of course, as with everything else, online poker has put its own twist on low stakes poker, which is commonly referred to as "the micros". In No Limit Hold'em - Beating the Micro Stakes, Thomas Mitchell provides his advice on how to beat the lowest buy-in no-limit games online.

Mitchell defines micro stakes as online games at NL25 and lower, that is, those games with buy-ins at or below $25. While most of his examples concern the online world, he equates these games with $1-$2 live no-limit games. In my experience, these days the typical $1-$2 live game player is a little more thoughtful than the opponents the author depicts in this book, but I don't dispute that a straightforward approach can still be effective in beating those games.

The book begins by cataloging the opposition before moving on to hand selection and playing strategy. In short, the author advocates playing loose pre-flop and straightforward on successive streets. Mitchell assumes opponents will be straightforward and loose passive, and the strategies provided are easily exploitable and not at all balanced. However, there may well be enough players at these stakes who play as the book assumes to make its strategy a net winner. The book ends with a quiz on the material covered in the earlier sections.

Unfortunately, there's not much more to the book than what you read in the previous paragraph. Not including hand examples, the strategy section of the book weighs in at about 127 pages, many of the key points are repeated, and the text is typeset in a large font. So, there really isn't all that much material here. If someone completely new to poker were to read No Limit Hold'em - Beating the Micro Stakes and then sit down at those games, I expect they'd be the better for it. However, there are so many introductory books that do a better job catering to the beginner that I can't recommend this one.

Capsule:

No Limit Hold'em - Beating the Micro Stakes is a book aimed at helping the beginning poker player become a winner at online no-limit hold'em games at the NL25 and lower levels. While it provides some reasonable suggestions for absolute novices, there are many books that advice that is more comprehensive, less easily exploitable, and more adaptable to other buy-ins. Therefore, I can't come up with a really good reason why someone should buy this particular book.