Is "The Course" still definitive, or no longer all that relevant?

I remember hearing a quote somewhere regarding poker books, something along the line of if you buy a poker book for $20 and in all its pages you only manage to get two useful ideas out of it that you can apply to your game, then it was extremely beneficial and easily worth the 7bb you spent on it.

ETA: Inb4 I realized it was $50, yikes, it that what books go for nowadays? Still, I think same reasoning applies.

GhaveyettoreadTheCourse,buthavenodoubtthere'slikelyatleasttwousefulideasinitG

I think the book costs $50 because that's what the author and publishers think it should sell for. For comparison, Negreanu's "Power HE Strat" goes for about $7 online. I have a copy, and haven't bothered to look at it for a couple years, partly because I think it is somewhat dated info, partly because 2/3 of it isn't applicable to the games I play.

Not included in my OP - I strongly suspect that part of the reason I want to read The Course is that it will reinforce my own opinions about how the game should be played, at least based on what I've read so far in the thread I linked to in my OP, which I think was started by the author.

I didn't join this forum to have others echo back to me what I already believed to be true. There's value in having people push back, forcing us to logically defend our position. As much as you and I may disagree, I see value in having you here to disagree with me, even if the end result is just me being even more sure about what I'm doing (or, as may be the case, less sure, and thereby open to ideas which may help me improve).

Even if the book reinforces what I'm already doing, I'm sure I might learn something new and improve in some way, but that's not as good as having someone blow my mind with something that makes me completely re-think my approach to the game.

i know its not what you asked exactly, but id think in terms of bang for buck you'd be better off joining video training site (not crushlivepoker lol) like rio or pokercode

I think Ed Miller is the best writer in Poker hands down. I've got all his books, and without exception they're all good. The bit on bayesian inference in "Playing the Player" is probably the single best chapter I've read in any poker book.

The Course is the most basic, but even though folks here say low stakes have changed, I don't find it, and I find it hard to believe that if you follow the rules, you won't be a winning player at low stakes.

The only thing that would give me pause for thought Docvail is you've been around a while and so you probably might find it too obvious. For instance maniacally folding to big turn and river bets against typical players.

Also his opening range is very biased towards suitedness and PPs. For instance 22 in his EP opening range, but AJo is not.

It's not what I asked, but that doesn't make it bad advice. Eventually, I may invest in video training, solvers, etc. For now, I'm looking for something that's more analog. My reading retention is probably higher than my video retention, thanks to my ADHD.

I've been around a while, but I only started playing very regularly about three years ago, when the lockdowns ended. For the decade prior, I was mostly focused on running my business, and only got to play about 3-4 times per year, with swingy results.

I do suspect that a lot of what Miller advocates is already built into my game, but I think there could be value in having someone explain the logic behind if, if I'm otherwise just doing something intuitively. I know why I'm over-folding to big bets on later streets. I can't coherently explain a lot of other stuff I do, that seems to work, even if it doesn't seem like it should.

As for 22 and AJo - those two hand examples run counter to theory (I think), but I'd like to understand why he's doing the opposite of GTO. I don't mind admitting that I'll open both (at least sometimes), so it can't hurt me to understand the logical support for opening one but not the other.

Something that's occurred to me a lot since I joined this forum and before that, since I started devouring online poker content, is that my personal experience playing 1/3 does diverge from so much of what is taught as being "correct" in theory. But most of what I'm doing is experience-based, or intuition-based. I like having something to point to as logical support.

do upswing poker lab for a month... wayyy better value than a book and you can get it for 50$

The book was written quite a long time before GTO, but his basic premise is we want to have our opening range focus on hands that can become nutted.

Ironically his 1% Poker book leans heavily on MDF way before it become popularized, even though he doesn't call it MDF.

It's 2024. Play and study like it's 2024. Idk what Ed miller has done to prove he's a strong player competing at a high level in this decade or the last one for that matter? As far as I know, nothing, and the only people I see reading and recommending his book are bad players stuck at live low stakes, never any actual remotely good players. I think that speaks for itself.

Most people would prefer to play against bad players.

I think Miller openly admits it wasn't his goal to move up in stakes or otherwise attempt to become known as one of the best players in the world. I think his goal was simply to crush low stakes live games, which is also my main goal.

I don't think there's anything wrong with being happy as a winning low stakes player. I'm perfectly content to continue playing 1/3 and 2/5 so long as I'm not burning cash doing it.

FWIW, I began reading a free version of The Course that I stumbled upon on-line last night. I'm only a chapter or two in so I shouldn't jump to conclusions yet, but so far he's advocating that every hand you play should be raised preflop. Lol, I can only assume ~everyone I play with is using this strategy which is why my LRR strategy works so well in my game.

His preflop range seems wack to me regarding position, as it seems way too wide in EP (not respecting the drawbacks of being OOP, but then again I think this of all preflop charts I've seen for fullring) and then way too tight in position (underestimating the benefits of having the Button against bad players). Plus hasn't mentioned a single thing about stack sizes yet. Plus so far seems to be hung up on having the opponent make that calling mistake on early streets (which is for the least amount of money and when they have decent IO for the stacks behind, so not nearly as big a mistake as they'll possibly make on later streets for big money when ~drawing dead).

*But*, as I say, I'm only a chapter or two in and I'm expecting all of these will be addressed later.

Gbutsofar,atleastintheveryearlygoing,meh,imoG

Your strategy is built around two chapters of a book Ed Miller wrote in 2007. If the strategy from his 2015 book is not printing against a player who gets involved in pots only if and to the extent that you are able to match the SPR to the strength of your hand, they are doing it very wrong. How many books do you think you would have been able to read in the time it has taken you to type "I'd limp here" tens of thousands of times?

"The Course" has been my go to recommendation for players that already have a basic understanding on NLHE. It emphasizes raising pf with almost anything you're going to play. This ends up being a high variance approach because the premise was that a raise was going to clear out most of the field. Against 1 or 2 villains, cbetting with air a decent % of the time will win the hand. I've found that that raises just don't clear out the field as much at low stakes and against 3 or more villain like today's game, you end up having to play fit or fold. What is forgotten is that Miller recommends a huge bankroll to handle the variance. Without that bankroll, the risk of ruin for a lot of players is too high to follow it.

As Sklansky and Malmuth point out, the goal of low stakes is to play exploitive, not GTO. Therefore, solvers have minimal value at low stakes to maximize your winnings. Therefore, I think it has some value at low stakes still. However, if you feel your going to play where some people are playing GTO, you need something else.

I appreciate getting your take, as someone who's actually read the book.

After spending about six months at 2/5, I recently dropped back down to 1/3, to re-build my bankroll after some run-bad, and re-realized how much softer the games at 1/3 generally are. Other than one or two losing sessions, I've mostly been destroying the games without breaking much of a sweat.

I have to laugh when I see someone I think is a "GTO-head" at a 1/3 table, with the sunglasses, hoody, ear-buds, looking at his phone whenever he's not in a hand, playing pretty nitty. The vast majority of the 1/3 player pool are terrible rec-fish, so, yeah, I'm playing exploitatively, not GTO, and generally doing all I can to make the game entertaining for the fish.

It's a little different at 2/5. A few more GTO-heads, but who actually seem to know what they're doing, and some more semi-decent regs, about half as many total fish, maybe even fewer than that. The game requires a bit more concentration.

I think some of the recent discussions on here, like the one GG references, are what got me thinking about reading something published more recently, and presumably more relevant than all the stuff on my bookshelf, most of which is pushing 20 years old, and a good chunk of it is even older.

Everything I've read about the book so far leads me to believe it will most likely reinforce and hopefully improve what I'm already doing, by helping me understand the logic or math behind what I seem to mostly be doing intuitively.

I am more of a raise/fold guy, but your many "I limp" comments have forced me to question if my basic approach to the game isn't somehow flawed, given the many opinions of others about your record of crushing low stakes.

Given how many limpers I see in the low stakes games I play, I figured I might benefit from examining the strategy, and how to counter it, in the event I cross paths with someone playing a similar strat, as opposed to just another fish limping all the time with any two but raising with thick value.

FWIW, not paying people off is becoming less obvious because I am seeing more and more crazy river bluffs on the river. Not the norm necessarily, but stuff I didn't expect to see at all at 1/3.

Bart Hanson quotes Marc Goone as saying that river bluffing is the new value betting.

I've made a few correct hero calls recently, with bottom pair, and even ace-high. I'm sure there were others that weren't quite as heroic, since I don't recall them as well, just marginal / thin.

A lot of it is read-based. Had a rock check-massively-over-bet-jam river on a back-door flush run-out. Easy fold with my 9-high flush. Had a rec-fish try to rep a made hand with a busted draw, and obviously trying not to look nervous after he bet. Easy call with 2nd pair, top kicker.

It requires good logic and hand-reading skills. Generally I'm not paying people off when they go check-call-check-call-donk, or check-raise river, or if they bet huge when I check to them on a bad run-out for my hand.

Most low-stakes players just don't understand how to credibly bluff on most run-outs.

The Course is in my top four in poker, with Doyle Super System, Slansky Theory, Harrington Cash. Of the four, it’s the best written. Before the Course, Miller wrote or ghostwrote seven books and beloved articles in Card player. The Course represents his collective wisdom. The concise analyses and reasoning is fresh air to the too-many-words we write on 2+2. His preflop charts are LAG territory to me. Overlimping has no part in it. GG won’t learn anything here. But I agree with Miller that, except for showing your hole cards, the single biggest tell in poker is forked bets. Miller aims to get to the flop with hero’s range uncapped, then barrel each street of value, v bets, hero folds, v checks, hero bets. I have saved my family thousands of dollars taking Millers advice to fold against large raises on the turn or river. People do bluff the river more now than before, but the average loose passive always has it when he raises big on the late streets.

Definitely read The Course. It will help virtually anyone's game in live NLHE at stakes less than 5-10, unless they are already a crusher.

I have some quibbles with it, such as with the preflop ranges it presents; but those are merely quibbles. Reading The Course and implementing what you read will improve your game.

I think the course is probably still a good book for people that are fairly new to the game, or maybe new to 2/5.

I think for the OP it would probably be too basic. Back in 2015 I read the book and subscribed to Red Chip Poker to watch Ed Miller videos and watch his videos about the topics he covers in his book. Back in 2015, I thought the videos were great.

I rewatched those videos around 2-3 years ago and found them pretty boring and basic. I feel the same way about most of his old Cardplayer articles.

And of course there is plenty of more advanced material to study today.

I think I remember reading a Cardplayer article with Miller admitting he was more open to the idea of open limping in a few certain spots. But yeah his PF strategy is much different from what I’m reading in the Sklansky/Malmuth low stakes book where they recommend a lot more limping than I expected.

I think one reason Miller said he recommended not limping is beginning players limp way too much and he wanted to eliminate that leak from their game.

Took a look at my copy of the book and maybe the second half of the book might have some value. I always thought the first half was for beginners.

I did like the book a lot when I read it around 9 years ago.

Still not sure I would recommend it for the OP but if you want to read it, the worst thing that happens is you will read a good book and mostly see material you already know.

I read it, and i did not feel that it substantially changed my game. It was a very easy read but a bit on the simpler side.

I mean, to be honest, the cost of a book is inconsequential. The only limiting factor should be time, so if the book interests you, id go for it. I think any new boon is a better use of time than rereading books youve already read generally.

Picked up a copy. Started reading it on Saturday. About halfway through. Reserving judgment until I finish. So far, my big takeaway is that I'm too loose pre, which isn't surprising. Not sure what implications there are for me post-flop, other than betting until someone raises, which echoes advice I've heard from other players.