In the highly fluid and fast-changing tournament-poker universe, the dominant trend is toward looser and more aggressive (LAG) play, in which players move chips around at dizzying speeds. The Raiser's Edge shows you how to adapt to the current state of all stages of tournament play, analyzing how and why the LAG and hyper-LAG styles work, and instructing on how to apply--and defend against--them.
The Raiser's Edge closely examines the many techniques used by the world's most successful players, including 3- and 4-betting, floating and squeezing, smooth-calling and min-raising, thin value betting, and the evolution of the metagame, along with equilibrium strategies based on starting hands and heads-up play. Even the ages and nationalities of your opponents are considered. There's also an extensive bonus chapter on reading tells, contributed by body-language expert Steve Van Aperen.
Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, one of the hottest tournament-poker players in the world, has teamed up with Lee Nelson and Tysen Streib, authors of the acclaimed advanced tournament strategy book Kill Everyone, and poker star Tony Dunst to pen this groundbreaking title.
With tournament poker evolving at a furious pace, serious players need to be ahead of the curve. The Raiser's Edge conveys the powerful state-of-the-art tactics that will get you there fast.
Author Biography:
Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier is a 30-year-old French tournament-poker phenomenon. Starting out as one of the world's top-ranked pro StarCraft gamers, he switched to poker and has been climbing the money ladder ever since. ElkY was the first player ever to reach ever to reach "Supernova" and "Supernova Elite" status on PokerStars. In 2008, he won the European Poker Tour's Caribbean Poker Adventure and the World Poker Tour's Festa al Lago Tournament at Bellagio. In 2009, he won the 2009 Caribbean Poker Adventure's $25,000-buy-in High Roller side event and was named World Poker Tour Player of the Year. Recently, at the European Poker Tour Grand Final in Madrid in May 2011, ElkY won both the $10,000-buy-in High Roller Turbo, $25,000-buy-in High-Roller event, and $25,000-buy-in Scoop Heads-Up tournament, cashing more than a US$1 million. As of that date, his total live tournament winnings exceeded $7,500,000. Lee Nelson's style is opponent-dependent and varies according to table composition, psychological factors, and the meta-game. Lee, a retired doctor, is skilled at picking up tells and exploiting them. Lee is also a prolific poker-book writer, having co-written Kill Phil, Kill Everyone, and The Raiser's Edge. Tysen Streib is a superb poker-math modeler and an expert in applying this math to specific situations that you will encounter, especially when you get short-stacked. Tysen co-authored with Lee Nelson the best-selling tournament poker books Kill Everyone and The Raiser's Edge. Tony Dunst, a WPT television moderator, is a new-school adept who is up to date with current trends, as he monitors thousands of hands for the WPT and is a great player himself. Tony made a major contribution to The Raiser's Edge, which he co-authored with Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Lee, and Tysen.
