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Kill Phil: The Fast Track to Success in Nolimit Hold 'em Poker Tournaments
Divulges the real strategies used by professional poker players to consistently win major (and minor) no-limit hold 'em tournaments. With poker tournaments televised on more than a dozen television networks and internet poker sweeping the nation, the popularity of the game is at an all-time high. Everyone thinks they have a shot, as evidenced by the 5,600+ player field in the $10,000 main event at the 2005 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. If these weekend warriors hope to win, they'd better know the same strategies that the pros use. Authors Blair Rodman and Lee Nelson, both poker professionals, spill the beans about the strategies they (and most of the big-name poker players) use to keep scooping the pots.
- GenresSportsNonfictionGames
275 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2005
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76 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 16, 2020
Don’t read this book. It will make you a better Holden player if you’re a beginner and improve your short-term results but at the cost of delaying the development of your post flop and positional skills.
August 3, 2021
Interesting take on a poker book for beginners. The silly thing is that it tells beginners to gamble more preflop since they won't be comfortable playing postflop. I don't think anyone needs to be told this, as it's a natural and usually maladaptive strategy to take as a beginner. The big strategy in this book is to go all-in with up to 35.44% of hands. Obviously, this would allow the better players to play perfectly against you.
Zooming out, this would be a high variance strategy, and I can only wonder whether anyone would ever play enough live MTT hands in a lifetime to see whether this worked out for them. They claim one of their testers played "hundreds of online matches" but honestly with Spin and Go games you have to play thousands of games to know whether your graph is going anywhere and there's considerably more nuance to the play.
Throw in some weird sexism that I don't even think would fly in 2005 plus an objectively awful limping strategy and this book becomes even less appealing. From their use of "cost per round" and "chip status index" instead of simply categorizing stacks in multiples of the big blind it seems clear that they don't intend the reader to continue their poker studies beyond this book. And there's the rub here. That's their reader.
If you have literally hours before your first poker game that you're playing for charity or whatever and you never plan to play another hand of poker afterwards, this just might be your book. There's enough in here for the utter newbie to hopefully luckbox their way to the money.
Zooming out, this would be a high variance strategy, and I can only wonder whether anyone would ever play enough live MTT hands in a lifetime to see whether this worked out for them. They claim one of their testers played "hundreds of online matches" but honestly with Spin and Go games you have to play thousands of games to know whether your graph is going anywhere and there's considerably more nuance to the play.
Throw in some weird sexism that I don't even think would fly in 2005 plus an objectively awful limping strategy and this book becomes even less appealing. From their use of "cost per round" and "chip status index" instead of simply categorizing stacks in multiples of the big blind it seems clear that they don't intend the reader to continue their poker studies beyond this book. And there's the rub here. That's their reader.
If you have literally hours before your first poker game that you're playing for charity or whatever and you never plan to play another hand of poker afterwards, this just might be your book. There's enough in here for the utter newbie to hopefully luckbox their way to the money.
May 11, 2022
Super basic, but helpful in getting back into tournament poker. Did a good job at getting hand ranges burned back into my brain.
August 8, 2015
In my never ending quest to improve my poker playing ability I read various poker books. One of my latest reads was Kill Phil. I was under the impression that Phil Hellmuth had written this book. I certainly respect Mr. Hellmuth accomplishment in poker. So I thought I would see what he had to say. I picked up the book without checking contents and later found that he wrote a forward for the book, but not the book.
.One of my earlier reads was a book by David Sklansky on advance strategies for tournament play. In this book Sklansky described how he developed a formula for play that would allow a complete novice to hold there own in a major poker tournament. The Strategy boiled down to shoving all in with certain hole cards and not playing any other hands. The hand that were to be played were AA, KK QQ JJ 10/10 There may have been included any cards that would make black jack, but I can't remember specifically. The Novice player lasted a considerable time in the tournament until she ran into pocket Aces with a lower pair.
This strategy is the basis for this book and has been expanded upon some what. The book explains that for the most part the average player is no match for a seasoned tournament player. This strategy negates their advantage in post flop play. The problem is that an all in strategy works every time except the last. So modifications needed to be made.
The book defines status in the tournament by the relationship of your chip stack to the cost per round. In the beginning of play you have your buy in amount and and the blinds are small. Say 25 & 50. So the cost per round if you do not get involved in any hand is 75 chips. With a stack of 10,000 you can afford to sit and wait. You have a huge stack as compared to the cost per round. Based upon this relationship you only play certain hands. AA and KK and you shove all in.
As the tournament progresses the cost per round increases. The blinds go up and the antes increase. Your actions are always dictated by the size of your stack verses the cost per round. If the cost per round is 1000 chips and your stack is 3000, you must play a wider range of cards. The book spells all of this out.
In my poker travels I have only encountered one person who played Kill Phil. I admit it was hard playing against her. She knocked me out of the tournament. With the addition of the modifications to the formula presented in the book, I can see how it would be an effective style of play. I believe that you have to be very selective in your use of the strategy in that a lot of the tournaments I play in include players who will call an all in shove with marginal hands.
All that being said, I recommend this book, if for nothing else, because you will likely run into a player who uses the strategy and understanding the range of cards played based on stack size would be helpful.
.One of my earlier reads was a book by David Sklansky on advance strategies for tournament play. In this book Sklansky described how he developed a formula for play that would allow a complete novice to hold there own in a major poker tournament. The Strategy boiled down to shoving all in with certain hole cards and not playing any other hands. The hand that were to be played were AA, KK QQ JJ 10/10 There may have been included any cards that would make black jack, but I can't remember specifically. The Novice player lasted a considerable time in the tournament until she ran into pocket Aces with a lower pair.
This strategy is the basis for this book and has been expanded upon some what. The book explains that for the most part the average player is no match for a seasoned tournament player. This strategy negates their advantage in post flop play. The problem is that an all in strategy works every time except the last. So modifications needed to be made.
The book defines status in the tournament by the relationship of your chip stack to the cost per round. In the beginning of play you have your buy in amount and and the blinds are small. Say 25 & 50. So the cost per round if you do not get involved in any hand is 75 chips. With a stack of 10,000 you can afford to sit and wait. You have a huge stack as compared to the cost per round. Based upon this relationship you only play certain hands. AA and KK and you shove all in.
As the tournament progresses the cost per round increases. The blinds go up and the antes increase. Your actions are always dictated by the size of your stack verses the cost per round. If the cost per round is 1000 chips and your stack is 3000, you must play a wider range of cards. The book spells all of this out.
In my poker travels I have only encountered one person who played Kill Phil. I admit it was hard playing against her. She knocked me out of the tournament. With the addition of the modifications to the formula presented in the book, I can see how it would be an effective style of play. I believe that you have to be very selective in your use of the strategy in that a lot of the tournaments I play in include players who will call an all in shove with marginal hands.
All that being said, I recommend this book, if for nothing else, because you will likely run into a player who uses the strategy and understanding the range of cards played based on stack size would be helpful.
July 4, 2012
Good book, has its pros and cons. I didn't like the overall format for the hand categories and having to refer back and forth. Overall, the book portrays its lessons well. Focused too much on Pre-flop for my game style, but I have to agree that this is an excellent book for new players starting up in the world and game of poker. I would still recommend it to anyone though.
July 23, 2011
This might work in an ultra-turbo tournament, but for the most part this is a way to get a large chip stack early and distribute it to patient players just before the bubble.
October 14, 2012
I need to read this again, I bought it when I was a novice and didn't understand some of the more in depth strategy.
April 26, 2013
Great book for poker tips and strategies. I keep it handy for reference. Amusing and very useful.
March 12, 2021
Malmuth rates this one about an 10
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews