Review of Championship Tournament Practice Hands

Title:

Championship Tournament Practice Hands

Author:

Tom McEvoy and T. J. Cloutier

Publisher:

Cardsmith Publishing

Date:

2003

ISBN:

1-884466-44-3

Pages:

224

Price:

$29.95

Reviewed by Nick Christenson, npc@lvrevealed.com

August 31, 2003

The remarkable popularity of televised and online poker has led to a tremendous surge in poker interest, especially tournament No-Limit Texas Hold'em. Two of the best known professionals on the tournament circuit, Tom McEvoy and T.J. Cloutier once again join forces to provide their insights on how to handle certain situations in Limit and No-Limit Texas Hold'em tournaments.

Championship Tournament Practice Hands is divided into three sections. The first, primarily written by Tom McEvoy, focuses on Limit Hold'em situations. The second, primarily written by T.J. Cloutier, deals primarily with No-Limit Hold'em tournament play, although some Pot-Limit examples are mixed in here. The third section examines the play of some key hands that have come up over the years in the World Series of Poker.

Each of the first two sections categorizes the situations they cover by starting hand. Both authors are known for playing in a tight, solid style, and this is reflected in the advice they give. While many other tournament players play a wild, hyper-aggressive game, McEvoy and Cloutier prefer to gamble less. They intend to play solid poker and wait for the right situation rather than continually forcing the issue. Both can be used to effect, as the authors readily admit, but only their method is given serious consideration in this book, which is only appropriate.

One place in which I was disappointed with the authors' discussions is the focus on starting hands. While it's important to understand the dangers of playing hands such as A-J out of position, I found the authors' analysis of play on later streets, when it is provided, to be more insightful than their commentary on starting hands. I believe this is because there is comparatively little information available early in the hand compared to later streets from which to assess the situation. In any case, I would have liked to have seen more later street examples. At the same time, in tournaments, especially during the late stages, someone is quite often all-in before the later streets occur, which is a major difference between tournaments and money games. So perhaps this is the reason the authors emphasize decisions made early in the hand.

Another complaint I have is that the authors seem to me to be a little bit inconsistent in their starting hand requirements. Consider one example from their discussion of two-gap suited hands (e.g., T-7 suited) in Limit Hold'em. They first say that this is a trap hand that one should avoid playing, even from the Big Blind in for a single raise. Just two pages later, they say that such a hand can and should be played under the same circumstances. Warning that such a hand can easily become a problem for a player is entirely appropriate, but I would like to see more effort made to ensure that there is a consistent message throughout the book.

One more thing that concerned me was the near fixation with holding fives and tens in a hand as a blocker to opponents' straights. While it is certainly true that one can't make a straight without using either a ten or a five, I believe this is a less useful concept than this book might indicate. For example, one makes (and blocks) as many straights by eliminating all nines from the deck as one does by eliminating either all the tens or all the fives. Further, jacks or fours are required for four possible straights (each), almost as many as the five that include tens or fives. Finally, we're talking about eight cards, of which only two can be in one's hand, meaning that six of these cards are still available, which is a high percentage. Perhaps this is concept might be more useful in Omaha, but I believe it's of marginal value at best in Hold'em. On the other hand, these two authors have racked up a lot more tournament poker wins that I have, so the reader should feel free to listen to them and ignore me.

The last section of the book contains analysis of some interesting and famous poker tournament confrontations, almost entirely from World Series of Poker tournaments. While many of the explanations provide some significant poker insight, a fair number of them feel to me that they have been chosen more for their bad-beat factor than because they contain valuable lessons. The section is entertaining, but I would have hoped that it would contain more hands worthy of deeper analysis than there actually were.

While Championship Tournament Practice Hands does contain quite a bit of good advice, and while the lessons the authors impart are well worth learning, I would have to say that overall I was a little disappointed with the book. I guess I was expecting some stronger insight, especially about situations that deserve deeper thought than most of what they discuss. I don't think this effort is a bad book, I was just hoping for a bit more.

Capsule:

In Championship Tournament Practice Hands, well-respected tournament professionals Tom McEvoy and T.J. Cloutier describe the play of various hands in Limit and No-Limit Texas Hold'em tournaments. While the book does contain some good and useful information, I found that it lacked a consistent message and didn't contain as many insightful explorations of really interesting hands as I would have hoped. They do give some good advice, but not much that hasn't been discussed already. Some players, especially those new to tournament Hold'em, will likely learn something of value from these pages, and the third section on famous hands from the World Series of Poker is entertaining, so there does exist a significant audience out there that will likely find this book worthwhile.