A stragegic approach to no-limit hold'em

A little over a year ago I was pretty far along on a no-limit hold'em book when my laptop was stolen. The book was, of course, on the laptop. I got disgusted and depressed. I got sufficiently depressed that I went back to the VA and got back on some anti-depressants (I have a history of some pretty bad depression).

My work habits are such that I frequently print out paper copies of things and sit in a coffee shop someplace and do re-writes. So, I did have paper backups of most of the work. But, I was in the process of moving into a new house and the stack of paper got stuffed away someplace. The house was in bad shape when a bought it and I got involved with the work of making it livable and I got involved with a woman in Pittsburgh (I live in Oklahoma) and was just busy the last year working on the house and going back and forth to Pittsburgh.

Also I'd been dissatisfied with my relationship with my agent and was dreading the conversation with her about that which was going to have to happen if I got another book ready to go. So I expect I was unconsciously putting that off by not finishing the book. I recently went ahead and had that conversation (it was prompted by some problems with foreign rights).

The house is livable now, the agent situation has resolved itself, and the woman has decided she's not interested any longer, plus I'm not depressed at the moment, so I've got time to get back on that book.

About this book

Most poker how-to poker books are algorithmic recipe books. I try to avoid doing that. Since poker is very situational, and those situations can be very fluid and both tricky to define and to recognize, I don’t find such a recipe approach helpful at all. Some people do find that helpful, but I don’t. So, what I try to do is just give you some things to think about. If you’re thinking about the right things you don’t need anyone to tell you what action to take, doing the right thing will just tend to come naturally.

I’m a little different from a lot of poker players in that, to me, thinking about poker is as much fun as actually playing poker. The topics in this book, and the way I approach those topics, reflects that.

The material in the book will be kept current by an enclosed CD which will point to this website and other's such as www.garycarson.com.

Some strategic considerations other than actual card playing that I’ll be covering in the next few chapters includes players, game selection, seat selection, and stack sizes The idea of strategic thinking is so important to no-limit hold’em that I devote a chapter to just talking about what strategic thinking is. But, first I’ll bust some generally believed myths about no-limit hold’em.