Stewart Reuben – How Good Is Your Pot-Limit Hold’em?

Players’ choice: a must for every poker player to read. This book, written by Reuben in 2004, gives us readers a glimpse into some fascinating hands played by the author in the London Victoria Casino, the Birmingham Rainbow Casino and Las Vegas. I personally would like to commend the book’s layout and the knowledge it has given me. The main concept within this book is that the author collected his most memorable and heavily disputed hands with a detailed analysis on each.

Reading this book it’s easy to put yourself beside Reuben and experience each of his hands and decision as if you were there. You can simultaneously interact with the author, as for when making his next step Reuben always poses the question:
- ’What would you do in this situation?’
- ’What do you think the right move would be?’

The structure of a hand is as follows:
1.    The author presents the circumstances (where and at what stakes he played the hand, what his position was and what he knows about his opponent)
2.    The author describes preflop action, presents the cards he received and poses the question ’What would you do in this situation?’
3.    Each situation Reuben gives an answer and shares his theory behind his decision. (In my opinion, this is the point where we could absorb a lot from this book)
4.    The same structure is consistent throughout the analysis of the floop, turn and river cards.

Besides analyzing the actual gameplay, a lot of hypothetical questions are raised, such as: ’What would you have done if the turn would not have consisted of a King of Hearts, but an Ace of Diamonds instead?’

The language and the wording of the book are both easy to understand and makes it a joy to read. In total, the book contains 57 hands, also highlighting the author’s mistakes and rates all individual hands based on final decisions.

I would heavily recommend this book to those who already have a basic knowledge of the game and seek to improve their gameplay. If you happen to be a limit hold’em or omaha player, you have not been forgotten, both ’How good is your limit hold-em?’ and ’How good is your pot-limit omaha?’ are also available.