Review of Heads-Up No-Limit Hold ‘em by Colin Moshman

Justin Howell : February 6th, 2009

Colin Moshman is quickly becoming the tournament version of Ed Miller – a solid, accessible author with quality credentials who cranks out somewhat basic, albeit very useful, material for the folks over at 2+2 Publishing. Moshman’s first effort focused on general SNG play (read that review here); with his new book he narrows the focus a bit to tackle the unique beast that is heads up no limit play.

Book Structure
If you’ve seen other 2+2 strategy books, you won’t find any surprises here. Sections are focused on explaining and then illustrating individual concepts with a mix of real-world and hypothetical examples. Individual sections generally build toward larger concepts, although a few sections of the book are standalone.

Pros
Moshman writes well, and the book fills a lack in the current market. Heads up play is a critical component of many popular forms of poker, and while other books may address the concept in part, this is the first one to put heads-up play front and center.

The book does a good job of introducing and explaining the math behinds several aspects of heads up play without dragging down the typical reader.

Moshman also does a good job of balancing the book in terms of theory versus application. You’ll find a healthy mix of practical moves you can integrate into your very next session and general principles that will require additional time to fully work into your game.

Cons
When all is said and done, this is really a book about heads up sit and go play. While it addresses cash games and MTT play, the focus of the book and the majority of illustrations draw from heads up matches specifically. This isn’t really a fault, per se’, but it does make the title a bit misleading.

A good deal of the book is taken up by examples. That’s fine, except that a good amount of the examples are taken from live play in the Heads Up Championship Event and feel at points like filler material, either illustrating a point already covered by another example or taking a page or two to illustrate what a paragraph would have accomplished just fine.

The book also suffers from a noticeable lack of coverage regarding the psychology of heads up play. While that’s a tricky topic to cover, it’s still such a fundamental part of heads up play that it’s really disappointing to see it get the short shrift. Any discussion of heads up play that doesn’t at least attempt to dissect some common game flow scenarios has, in our opinion, stopped a bit short of the minimum needed for an excellent heads up text.

Conclusion
A solid primer on HU play for newer players.

Focus: 7/10
Not on par with other 2+2 texts. The examples are windy and some sections feel tacked on.

Quality of advice: 8/10
Solid, but workmanlike. There’s nothing wrong in here, but it lacks the insight of Moshman’s other effort.

Examples: 7/10
Would be better off with far less HUPC examples.

Readability: 7/10
Typical 2+2. it’s not a page turner, but few poker books are.

Overall (not an average): 7/10
Nothing great, but not bad either.

VERDICT: If you subscribe to the theory that books can pay for themselves with just a pot or two won that might have been lost otherwise, pick this up. If you’re on a budget and are looking for a game-changing text, your money might be better spent on a subscription to Cardrunners, etc.