Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em Excerpt: How Far Should Bill Go To Unbalance His Line?

I hope the book will contain more interesting and clear material because this excerpt looks like a difficult way to say – mix it up your game.

boo@2p2 for locking the thread just because 1 idiot asked about the price

Normally I like your suggestions but this one is not that great. My advice to SSNL players would be:

- Don’t worry about balance until your opponents starts to think in terms of ranges.

- Don’t worry balance until they start exploting you.

- Don’t worry about balance until you play against the very best 200NL players and the best 400NL players.

But do worry about you opponent’s ranges and how you can exploit them.

Oliver,

I think this part appears in the “Beyond $1/$2″ section and thus may be more appropriate advice. I think it’s sexy stuff.

Ed,

I really like this blurb. This is something we constantly hear Leatherass talk about.. balancing lines. Not only does he talk about balancing lines, but also gives advice about studying the most common lines people take in given situations and exploiting them. I hope you cover these concepts in the book.

Personally, I never liked the ‘mix up your play’ mantra that’s often spouted. I think balancing particular lines based on player/table dynamics is far better advice. I mean, sure, I could mix it up constantly, be incredible difficult to read and at the same time leaving money on the table. You cover this quite a bit in your Stox videos, so I have to assume it’ll be in the book as well.

Oliver,

“- Don’t worry about balance until you play against the very best 200NL players and the best 400NL players.”

I can see this being true with fullring, but this has certainly not been my experience in 6 max. I find the 1/2 6 max games filled with decent players that tend to pay attention to common lines opponents take. A year ago, I would agree with you 100%, but I just see the competition getting much stronger at 1/2 and 2/4.

Awesome. I’m excited that this book is going to talk about line balancing. Looking forward to it!

Anymore teasers coming?

Ed, a while back you said you were going to look into making printed copies available. How is that coming along? Thanks.

Does this mean the e-book will not be printable?

hi!

i hope that it doesn’t mean this. i definitely won’t buy the book if i can’t print it out, although i am realy looking forward to.

i hope also neteller will be a purchase-option!

hope to hear more infos about that from you ed!

greetings!

another question (i forgot ask it in my posting before). how do you see your new book in comparism to bill vosti’s e-book?

thx for the info!

. . . just listening to my Chris Brown CD, reading the Malleus Maleficarum.

It’s like counting down to Christmas as a kid.

This book better is the nuts (in terms of books). I love your stuff, Ed, but 39.99 for an E-Book is on the very steep side.

Look at it that way: When you publish through a publising house, you get maybe 20 percent of the copy price if its a fantastic deal. The typical 2plus2-price is 29.99. So that leaves the author with 6 bucks. This book will leave you with 39.99. Good idea! For you.

But not for the readers, im afraid. Because they will not get the “service” the publishing house charges in part for, i.e. getting a printed copy distributed to their house (via amazon) or to a good bookshop.

And for that, they have to pay more? Why? Give me ANY good reason.

I love your books so far, but i seriously doubt ill buy that one. The funniest thing is that you sell it at a “reduced” rate and claim youll sell it for 100!!!!!! later on. Thats just ridiculous. 100 bucks, you get holdem manager for that. Its worth 10k times the price of any book (admitted: not a fair comparison).

Sorry to sound harsh, again, youre great and i love your stuff. But i feel this is a bad idea. For us, and for you. Cause people just wont buy into that deal. Maybe a few hundred. But nothing close to the numbers youd get publishing it properly. And rightfully so.

@str8 +1 (exactly!!!!)

additionally I think, that such a reduction is only to create a hype, so that people don’t think about the $40 bucks. and compared to other really good poker books this one is much more expensive like “standard” poker books.

I won’t be rude, but I really think those pricing ($100) is effrontery and far away from reality

Ed,

There is no doubt that your book will help some start a sucessful poker career and generate a great deal of cash. But others will read the book, try what you suggest and still lose money at poker.

How many people read your first book compared to the 50 that started careers?

My point is that you don’t price your product based on what is possible for a small percentage of the readers. The future value to them is high, but they won’t know it until after the sale. The

The price should be set at the point of the authors highest EV (price * # of copies sold).

To me, I will pay $40 if I happen to notice it comes on sale and pre-order. But I won’t pay $100. To me there are other good sources of poker information that are available at a lower price point.

These guys better not find out about Baluga’s new ebook–$300 for volume 1; $700 for vol 2!

These guys should go bag on baluga whale – his ebook is $300 for volume 1!

All poker books are underpriced if you look at their ‘worth’ to the studious buyer. That said, I’ll buy the book, but don’t like the trend as all the other books I’ve bought have been a steal. Yes, that includes Helmuth’s inaugural ridiculous book, and even Phil Busto’s little green book, and a Vorhaus book….

But, the bulk of the market for poker books, even advanced ones, is NOT winning players IMO. Hence the paradox, but I trust smarter guys than I like Ed to experiment with the market more than I trust my judgment.

I surely hope they are wrong for purely selfish reasons.

Also, if limon ever wrote a book, I’d pay $1000 easily for it sight unseen.

Ed, your reasoning is completely flawed. How much would have Einstein sold his Theory of Relativity based on your reasoning? A million dollars? MLG is right, how many go bust following your advices? You’ll never know but they are surely the majority. And who will be a winner in the long term, would have been a winner even without your book. There will never be a book that will change a loser in a winner in two or three hundred pages.

@Alessio Ferranti

Wrong sir, please consider the Theory of Poker or Hold Em for Advanced Players, or Small Stakes Hold Em or Getting Started in Hold Em. or Phil Helmuth’s (scratch PH part)

Writing as one of the idiots who paid 300 bucks for Baluga’s 39(!!!) pages of advice in volume one, I’m looking forward to buying this reasonably priced ebook.

I guess it’s a matter of perspective. As a live 2/5 (sometimes 5/10), I’d easily pay a couple hundred dollars for one or two good tips that would help my winrate.

I’m not knocking the guys that don’t feel $100 (or $40?!?!) is fair, simply giving a different point of view.

Personally, I wish you were charging Baluga’s prices. It’s true, training material does offer opponents the opportunity to misapply the information in context. However, you’re great at breaking down difficult concepts into easy to digest slices. My games are about to get a bit harder.

Oops accidentally trimmed this off:

Slowhabit/CTS released a book for $1800. It’s getting amazing reviews.

And let’s not forget Aejones’s audio product for $5,000. Personally, it’s all about opportunity cost to me. Ok.. sorry for all the short posts.

Honestly I am perplexed why anyone would pay hundreds for one of Baluga’s e-books. Sure he is a fantastic player and charges almost 1k/hour for coaching, but I have watched all his videos (free) and am perplexed as to what an e-book can really add beyond what was in those. If I played 10/20 NL I might have a different perspective (and fatter wallet).

Now if Ed wrote an e-book coherently detailing all Baluga’s video wisdom- that would be worth $100.

That’s kinda how I’m thinking about Ed’s new book here.

I have no experience with e-books so this can be a dumb question, but on the website of the book, it says that the advantage of the book is that it can easily be updated as the game evolves.

My question is will updates be free or not ?

cyberpigeon

“Sure he is a fantastic player and charges almost 1k/hour for coaching, but I have watched all his videos (free) and am perplexed as to what an e-book can really add beyond what was in those.”

Fantastic point. I think both items go hand and hand for any serious poker player. Once Ed releases his book, I plan to use those insights and revisit his videos on Stox. You gain a lot from videos, however, I believe a good book can go deeper into the concepts introduced in the videos.

By trade, I’m a CS college instructor. When I’m prepping for a course, here’s how I’ll usually tackle it:

1. I’ll start with any professional training videos (ex: Advanced algorithms using Java).

2. I’ll then read a book (or some type of professional publication) on the topic to gain a deeper understanding of concepts the videos just didn’t have time to go into.

3. I’ll then apply it real world.

When the class comes back around, I have a number of choices. If I need just a quick recap, I’ll opt for the videos. If there is a topic I’m still a bit shaky on, I’ll pick up the book for a deeper look at THAT specific topic (ex: spanning tree algorithms).

That’s just my approach to education.. I know everyone has their own flavor.

************ ED ***********

What are your thoughts on the comparison? Why should someone buy your book over just watching the videos you produced?

Well, I’m not Ed, but the new book contains Matt and Sunny’s insights, not just Edward’s, and as far as I know Matt and Sunny do not have videos available. Edward has been formatting the book all weekend, and it is roughly 300 pp give or take, so it’s a full-fledged book with a lot of material.

Pete

Here’s an idea. What if the authors made a series of videos illustrating concepts from the book? The e-book could turn into it’s own mini training site. A mundane e-book by itself really doesn’t utilize the power of the internet. Now, that would be worth $100…
*
Little Old Lady

Good point about Matt and Sunny.

To the guys complaining, you are entitled to your viewpoint, naturally. But I think you need to look at this book in a different way. It’s not a Danielle Steele romance novel, it’s a technical book to help someone in a profession.

For one thing, even though I think this book will be immensely popular ( I’m one of the ones Ed is talking about with SS , messaged not emailed) it’s not going to sell a zillion copies like a general interest book might. So for the smaller target audience i think your work has to be priced accordingly.

As an instruction book in a profession you are going to further your career along and make LOTS more money. Again, reflected in the price. Do I want to drop a $100, well, that’s hypothetical because Ed and the Boyz are offering an awesome pre-order price ( thank you Ed ). I took organic chemistry many years ago and my book cost a decent amount more than Ed’s full price.

So, do I think it’s overpriced, no. Back in the days of 03 I started playing online. I was reluctant to drop more cash on pokertracker starting out and I’m sure many were happy as I moved up stakes quickly and then got my ass handed to me. And, on that topic, if I could have Ed’s book available when I started playing I would have, in retrospect, been lucky and glad to get it for $100.

In closing, free speech means you have the rigt to bitch about the price. But, free enterprise means you can set the value on your work and knowledge. Then people can buy it or not.

@ED AGAIN:

sorry but you didn’t answer two very important questions for me:

1.) will i be able to print out the book, as i hate nothing more than to read books on the monitor

2.) will neteller (would be the prefered option) or site-transfer @stars or @ftp be possible as i have no creditcard?

thx for your answers!

Zam, Edward is traveling, so I will answer your first question. Yes, the book will be able to be printed. It is formatted with the correct margins for binding too. As for the second question, I know that a number of payment options have been set up to accommodate an international poker-playing target audience, but I don’t the specifics.

@ Little Old Lady: THX!

Hey Ed,

Are you still on target for a June release?