Book Report

So I'm done reading Gus Hansen's 'Every Hand Revealed' book. It's a very quick read. Here are my thoughts (if anyone cares):

1) I already mentioned it earlier, but there is no major shake-up or some sort of earth shattering strategy here. He plays loose early with a big stack and once he gets a big stack going he is very aggressive. I guess it would have been more interesting to see how he handles the opposite situation of playing with a short stack at some point.

2) This is very much ABC poker. There is no in depth discussion and level 8 thinking. He talks a bit about the gap concept, a little about "M", a little about how much to raise against a short stack and a little about the ladder concept. I was a little surprised by this, but I think it makes sense once you think about it. It's a big field, he knows very few of the people he is playing with and they all think they know him. So he has his image of being "a madman" on his side and can exploit weaker players who don't give him credit or try to bluff him.

3) He gets lucky. No real big revelation here either. You have to get lucky to win a big tournament. But it's astonishing to see how many times his junk hands end up with trips.

4) Nobody really puts him to the test. In his tournament summary he states that he won 55 hands uncontested and another 15 pre-flop when he re-raised an initial raiser. His c-bet percentage is almost 80%, which is in line with his aggressive style. Also, a lot of players made awful mistakes to gift him their stacks.

5) He doesn't slow play and he rarely bluffs. But he is a calling station and will defend his blinds with almost any two cards.

6) He makes a lot of mistakes and confesses them all in his post play analysis.

7) The book is written like a diary or maybe even a blog. I guess that's the style in which it was meant to be presented, since he recorded all his comment on a little recorder after each hand. That's why it makes for such a quick and easy read.

Overall, I enjoyed the book but was still a little disappointed that there wasn't more meat in it. You would think that a top pro, with so much success would have more to say. But maybe that's the point. Maybe this should be my biggest take-away: Poker is not as complex as some people might think. If you break it down to simple goals, don't get too fancy and don't overthink situations, you can succeed.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to see what it's like being in the head of a loose aggressive player sitting on a big stack in a major tournament. Then again, you can just go to lucko's blog and read his tourney recaps and get the same value.

Anyone in the neighborhood interested in borrowing it, let me know.