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A Review of "Howard Lederer 'TELLS' all"
A friend of mine was in Walmart recently and noticed a copy of the Howard Lederer CD in the bargain basket. Knowing of my interest in Hold'Em, he bought it for $5 and sent it to me. In case you live in a cave and don't know Howard, he's known as the "Professor of Poker" due to his analytical, calculating manner of play. The CD cover advertises "Winning Secrets for NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM POKER!"
Now, I'm sure you understand that the following are just my opinions. I don't claim to be anywhere near the caliber of Lederer in my Hold'Em play, although I'd guess I'm somewhere near his equal in the number of online hands played. At any rate, I hope you're reading this just for interest and not assuming that I'm going to try to outguess or evaluate Howard.
In general, the presentation is extremely clear, easy to follow, slow enough for most novices, but also probably of interest to seasoned players. When he's going through the explanation of how Hold'Em is played, I was tempted to fast-forward, but watched it in case I picked up any points along the way. I found it all interesting and learned a couple of things out of each section of the presentation.
One of those that received my Hold'Em book suggested that I was a little too conservative on what hands I play. Compared to Howard, I'm super-loose! He provides a sheet grouping the hands as A, B, C, D, or E, then tells which group should play in various positions around the table. As we all probably know, you can play hands in late position (button and two right of button) that you don't play in earlier positions. I don't want to give away Howard's strategies, since they're copyrighted, but group A is AA, KK, or AKsuited. If you're one of the blinds, you only call a raise from an early position if you've got a group A hand. I don't know about you, but there are many more hands that I'd call from the blind than just those.
I get the feeling that the strategies proposed by Howard really relate more to big money games and no-limit games, rather than the rinky-dink $.50-$1, etc. games that I primarily play online. Even playing in no-limit tournaments, I'd guess that following his strategy would leave you folding 19 out of 20 hands -- that's too much for me.
If you've played much online, you know that most players simply call pre-flop. If someone shows up who insists on continually raising before the flop, most players just fold and let him have the measly little blinds - or they simply move on to another table, where people play normally. Eventually, even the habitual raisers stop raising if they want to get any reasonable amount in the pot - or they continue picking up the blinds on those rare occasions where they have a high enough hand to play. Following Howard's system, you almost never call, always raise if you decide to join pre-flop.
Another problem that I have with Howard's system is the complexity of it. There's a 4"x8" card entitled Pre-Flop Strategy that shows the A-E groups and which ones are required to open, call, or reraise from anywhere on the table. There's another sheet (which was omitted from the set that I received) that tells how many outs you have for specific hands and what the % odds are for you at the flop, turn, and river. I've got a Bachelor's degree in Math and Statistics, and a Master's in Computer Science, and I find these sheets to be more complicated than what I'm able to follow while I'm playing -- even online, where I don't have to worry about the "tells." I'm sure there are players out there, including Howard, that calculate all these things in their head as they play, but I'm not one of them. Maybe that makes me not a serious enough player, but at some point it begins to look more like work than playing a game for enjoyment.
All in all, I enjoyed the CD, learned a little more about tells, pre-flop strategy, and what to do in some specific situations later in the game. I didn't learn enough, however, that I'd be willing to pay $20 or whatever the list price is. I've tried several times to play the strategy and have found that I just don't have the patience. If I've got a pair of any size and I can get in the hand with a call, I'm most probably going to stay for the flop and look for a set. I have a really difficult time folding an AK off-suit, even if someone in front of me has put in one of those dreaded pre-flop raises. I guess I'd rather just keep playing the way I do, maybe not winning as consistently, but occasionally enjoying myself. I do plan to try this conservative style again at some point in the future, probably if I find myself in a higher stakes game or in a casino, where I'll feel like I'm a novice. I might not be able to precisely follow all the groups, etc., but I can get close enough.
In defense of Howard's system, somewhere in the discussion he points out that he's showing a more conservative approach under the assumption that the viewer is a novice. That implies that he'd expect you to play a bit looser as you gain experience. I also think he's presenting a more conservative approach due to the fact that most novice players are notorious for playing too many hands. His approach may simply be an attempt to reign in those over-loose novices.
WebBook #16
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