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Poker's Postflop Course Part 1: The River
"Owen Gaines has produced a truly unique and innovative poker course. He combines tons of in-depth, easy-to-digest examples with attractive charts and graphs that hammer the most critical concepts home. For my students, Poker's Postflop Course is now required reading." - Ed Miller Best-selling poker author and founder of notedpokerauthority.com
"This book introduces a systematic analysis of explotive postflop no-limit hold'em. It guides the reader in a logical fashion, beginning with the simplest spots while introducing the theoretical framework, before building up to cover even the most intricate of situations. I eagerly await the continuation of this series!" - Philip Newall - Author of The Intelligent Poker Player
Part 1 thoroughly dissects every conceivable action on the river. Become an expert in river play using my methods and shortcuts. To sharpen your newfound skills, I include:
• 90 Test Your Comprehension questions and answers
• 39 Exercises involving 116 questions and answers
• 30 Example Hands
• 36 Your Turn situations with the author's explanations
"This book introduces a systematic analysis of explotive postflop no-limit hold'em. It guides the reader in a logical fashion, beginning with the simplest spots while introducing the theoretical framework, before building up to cover even the most intricate of situations. I eagerly await the continuation of this series!" - Philip Newall - Author of The Intelligent Poker Player
Part 1 thoroughly dissects every conceivable action on the river. Become an expert in river play using my methods and shortcuts. To sharpen your newfound skills, I include:
• 90 Test Your Comprehension questions and answers
• 39 Exercises involving 116 questions and answers
• 30 Example Hands
• 36 Your Turn situations with the author's explanations
269 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
4 people are currently reading
10 people want to read
About the author
Owen Gaines
7 books5 followersI was always fascinated with poker. I read a small book or two about poker long before I got a chance to play the game. Then, in 2004, a friend told me I could play poker online. I decided to investigate.
I knew little about poker at that point. I bought a stack of books on Limit Hold'em, joined a poker forum, and began to learn the game. I worked hard. I deposited $300, which I lost rather quickly in $.50/$1 Limit Hold’em games. I decided to try one more $300 poker experiment. That one bore fruit. The hard work began to pay off, and I built a nice bankroll for the Limit Hold'em games. Since my hourly rate playing poker was double that of my entry-level, nine-to-five job, playing poker professionally seemed the best option for me. I became a professional poker player in the summer of 2005. From there, I played nearly a million hands of Limit Hold’em and experienced good results.
In early 2007, after a short break from the tables, I set aside $300 to explore No-Limit Hold’em. Never interested in no-limit, I heard good things about that form of poker. Fortunately, my limit experience helped me transition easily to no-limit. I started grinding no-limit games and worked my way up the stakes. I found I really enjoyed no-limit. In five months, I turned the $300 into $30,000. Since then, I have been playing No-Limit Hold’em as my main game.
As I write, I have played approximately eight million hands of poker. Playing professionally for over seven years, I provide the sole income for a family of five.
In early 2009, I started offering personal poker coaching and producing poker-training videos for dragthebar.com. I enjoy helping others develop poker skills. I write books in the sincere hope players improve their game. I bet they will.
I knew little about poker at that point. I bought a stack of books on Limit Hold'em, joined a poker forum, and began to learn the game. I worked hard. I deposited $300, which I lost rather quickly in $.50/$1 Limit Hold’em games. I decided to try one more $300 poker experiment. That one bore fruit. The hard work began to pay off, and I built a nice bankroll for the Limit Hold'em games. Since my hourly rate playing poker was double that of my entry-level, nine-to-five job, playing poker professionally seemed the best option for me. I became a professional poker player in the summer of 2005. From there, I played nearly a million hands of Limit Hold’em and experienced good results.
In early 2007, after a short break from the tables, I set aside $300 to explore No-Limit Hold’em. Never interested in no-limit, I heard good things about that form of poker. Fortunately, my limit experience helped me transition easily to no-limit. I started grinding no-limit games and worked my way up the stakes. I found I really enjoyed no-limit. In five months, I turned the $300 into $30,000. Since then, I have been playing No-Limit Hold’em as my main game.
As I write, I have played approximately eight million hands of poker. Playing professionally for over seven years, I provide the sole income for a family of five.
In early 2009, I started offering personal poker coaching and producing poker-training videos for dragthebar.com. I enjoy helping others develop poker skills. I write books in the sincere hope players improve their game. I bet they will.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 14, 2013
When I saw the title of the book, I understood immediately the reason behind it. I noticed that some others on the forums were confused by it or thought it didn’t make much sense. But if you’ve read Mathematics of Poker or similar analyses, you have to have some idea of what position you will end up in when you make earlier decisions. If you don’t, you could end up playing your hand face-up on the River. And since the pot is the largest on the River, you are giving away a huge amount of equity if your opponent knows this. Getting this street right will make it easier for you to plan your hand from the Flop on.
I have played limit hold’em far more than no-limit, so I’m looking for ways to understand the transition, what to think about, what things to think about differently, and so on. This book is a great way for me to put those pieces together and be able to apply those principles on real hands.
One of those important differences is that it’s not just understanding your opponent’s range but how your bet sizing will affect the way your opponent splits his range into fold, call, and raise. In limit, you have one bet size to choose from, and you have far less reason to bet-fold. But here, you have to figure out where you’re getting optimal value by adjusting from min-bet to all-in.
The author points out early on that because there are so many small variables that go into a situation, you can play around with those variables to produce 20 variations on any particular hand example. So, let’s say you have the same betting sequence and board cards, but instead of assuming the opponent is loose-passive, we assume weak-tight. How does that change what range they show up with? How does that change our optimal play? It can be wildly different, from betting large to just checking it down because we have no value bet any longer. Or just change the River card to any of the other 45 possibilities. Or assume the Turn was a bet-call instead of checked through.
As someone who has read a lot of poker books, there’s always a bit of drudgery in the beginning of each one where the author feels obliged to go over the fundamentals again: what is EV, how do you calculate pot odds, what is a semi-bluff, etc. There’s none of that here, and it’s really refreshing. Even some of the more advanced stuff like different range shapes is covered in previous books, and you don’t get wasted pages going over those terms again. If you don’t know those concepts yet, you shouldn’t be starting this book anyway. And I’m glad the author stuck to that position.
The book is organized very logically. The first section is Bet or Check, from both in position and out of position, and the second section is Fold, Call, or Raise, again from both IP and OoP. There are lots of hand examples, quizzes, and so on. The text layout is very easy to read as different sections are highlighted, certain important nuggets are set off in bold, and it is overall visually engaging. I can understand why the large hardcover size was chosen, and it would be a very different reading experience to try to condense it into a paperback format. I usually prefer everything on pdf, but it's like having a poker textbook to study out of, and that makes for a very different reading experience, too. If they taught poker at a graduate level, this is what the textbooks would look like.
There is no index or glossary, but it has a compilation of the various Nuggets throughout the text in the very back, along with page references if you want to go back and re-read that section again. Given the logic of the layout, it shouldn’t be hard to find any particular topic anyway.
I’m looking forward to the follow-up volumes now.
I have played limit hold’em far more than no-limit, so I’m looking for ways to understand the transition, what to think about, what things to think about differently, and so on. This book is a great way for me to put those pieces together and be able to apply those principles on real hands.
One of those important differences is that it’s not just understanding your opponent’s range but how your bet sizing will affect the way your opponent splits his range into fold, call, and raise. In limit, you have one bet size to choose from, and you have far less reason to bet-fold. But here, you have to figure out where you’re getting optimal value by adjusting from min-bet to all-in.
The author points out early on that because there are so many small variables that go into a situation, you can play around with those variables to produce 20 variations on any particular hand example. So, let’s say you have the same betting sequence and board cards, but instead of assuming the opponent is loose-passive, we assume weak-tight. How does that change what range they show up with? How does that change our optimal play? It can be wildly different, from betting large to just checking it down because we have no value bet any longer. Or just change the River card to any of the other 45 possibilities. Or assume the Turn was a bet-call instead of checked through.
As someone who has read a lot of poker books, there’s always a bit of drudgery in the beginning of each one where the author feels obliged to go over the fundamentals again: what is EV, how do you calculate pot odds, what is a semi-bluff, etc. There’s none of that here, and it’s really refreshing. Even some of the more advanced stuff like different range shapes is covered in previous books, and you don’t get wasted pages going over those terms again. If you don’t know those concepts yet, you shouldn’t be starting this book anyway. And I’m glad the author stuck to that position.
The book is organized very logically. The first section is Bet or Check, from both in position and out of position, and the second section is Fold, Call, or Raise, again from both IP and OoP. There are lots of hand examples, quizzes, and so on. The text layout is very easy to read as different sections are highlighted, certain important nuggets are set off in bold, and it is overall visually engaging. I can understand why the large hardcover size was chosen, and it would be a very different reading experience to try to condense it into a paperback format. I usually prefer everything on pdf, but it's like having a poker textbook to study out of, and that makes for a very different reading experience, too. If they taught poker at a graduate level, this is what the textbooks would look like.
There is no index or glossary, but it has a compilation of the various Nuggets throughout the text in the very back, along with page references if you want to go back and re-read that section again. Given the logic of the layout, it shouldn’t be hard to find any particular topic anyway.
I’m looking forward to the follow-up volumes now.
Displaying 1 of 1 review