Nathan “BlackRain79” Williams is back with a follow-up to his very talked-about debut strategy book Crushing the Microstakes, this time moving up in stakes to present readers advice about Modern Small Stakes: Advanced Strategies for Dominating Today’s No-Limit Hold’em Cash Games. As along with his previous book, Williams’s new title offers readers comprehensive, well-considered advice about how best to approach lower-stakes no-limit hold’em.
Originally from Canada, Williams started off a decade ago playing the play money games online, eventually starting a small bankroll after managing to sell some play money chips. From there Williams spent several years playing microstakes where he became one of the vital biggest winners at those limits, earning enough to quit his full-time job and at last earn a name because the unofficial king of the micros.
In late 2011 Williams compiled what he’d learned from the millions of hands he’d played at those lowest of limits in his book Crushing the Microstakes. The work represented a novel contribution to poker strategy insofar because it focused solely at the lowest stakes no-limit hold’em games online (NL2, NL4, and NL5), with quite a lot of concrete advice concerning the varieties of players and styles one encounters at those limits.
While it could seem as if the sort of book would address just a narrow range of players, in truth nearly everyone who plays online starts with the “micros,” and lots of who keep on with game are content to stay there. Thus it wasn’t surprising to peer Crushing the Microstakes be so well received given the wealth of smartly-presented and useful strategic teaching it delivers.
In the introduction to Modern Small Stakes, Williams characterizes his first book as “basically a collection of coaching wheels for beginners and those struggling on the lowest limits.” Meanwhile, with MSS Williams is “taking the educational wheels off” to transport beyond fundamentals had to achieve handsome win rates on the micros to speak about more advanced strategies needed in today’s NL10, NL25, NL50, and NL100 online games.
The key difference — person who guides all the advice in MSS — is that the highly exploitative and essentially unbalanced strategies Williams recommends to these trying to win at microstakes aren’t as effective when moving up in limits and facing a better percentage of thinking, savvy players. Thus numerous Williams’s focus concerns learning the way to balance one’s play with the intention to succeed against opponents who're more consciously focused upon and reacting to the meaning behind others’ actions.
In other words, while Crushing the Microstakes offers a large number of practical tips spelling out effective approaches to commonly-faced situations, Modern Small Stakes focuses more on how you can take into consideration why some lines work better than others, in addition to the necessity to adapt and respond when decisions become more complex. As Williams puts it, there are fewer “‘if A, then do B’ type explanations” and more attention given to trying “to understand the reasons behind the plays that you're making.”
The book is lengthy (exactly 500 pages), but well organized with the primary third dedicated to discussing useful concepts and the remaining covering strategies for handling dozens of various hold’em decisions with greater than 100 sample hands used let's say the recommendation given.
Along with some general pointers about win rates, volume, bankroll management, putting in place a HUD (Heads-Up Display), and game and table selection, numerous that first third of the book makes a speciality of profiling and categorizing opponents one is probably going to come across within the NL10, NL25, NL50, and NL100 games. Such an emphasis early on helps underscore a key distinction between the micros and small stakes games, since (as Williams showed in CMS) there's less variety some of the players at NL2, NL4, and NL5.
Williams explains different player types that populate the small stakes games, dividing them first into regulars and recreational players, then further breaking down those categories into “bad regs” (the “nits” and “super nits,” and “TAGfish” players), “good regs” (all aggressive, with varying degrees of tightness and looseness), and the “whales,” “maniacs,” and “semi-loose passive” players who stand out as desirable opponents to search out at these limits.
These discussions are helpful in numerous ways, and in reality do include some concrete “how to”-type pointers for attacking specific player types when they has been identified (e.g., attempt to isolate the “semi-loose passive” recreational player; value bet them more and bluff them less; etc.). Additionally they might help readers identify their very own tendencies and the way they may be categorized by thinking opponents.
From there Williams moves into discussing starting hand selection and ranges for open-raising from all positions (both full ring and 6-max.), in addition to hand selection and ranges for proceeding in pots which have been raised already (covering folding, flatting, and three-betting, again in either full-ring or 6-max. games). PokerStove screenshots help illustrate at a look the ranges Williams recommends, with further commentary helping explain the reasoning behind his suggestions.
The hand examples begin at this point, all of that have been taken from actual hands Williams has played online. Each is accompanied by HUD stats on Wiliams’s opponent, and thus dually function tips for a way to approach particular situations (position, hand strength, board texture, etc.) in addition to the way to read and apply knowledge gleaned from the HUD with selection of hands played, VPIP (Voluntarily Put Money In Pot %), PFR (Preflop Raise %), and AF (aggression factor) foregrounded.
Hand examples are presented under various categories, showing lines considered in keeping with quite a few circumstances including how preflop action affects thinking on all the postflop street. For instance, under the section “Strategy at the River because the Preflop Raiser,” Williams presents five different hands (both short-handed and whole ring), with each example presenting increasingly complex scenarios to consider.
The first finds an early position player limping, the hero raising at the button with 
But in a later example Williams carries us right into a harder hand through which the hero holds 
Here’s a summary of most (not the entire) categories into which Williams’s hand examples fall, each of which he breaks down further into subcategories in line with various situational specifics (e.g., three-bet pots, getting donk-bet into, having one’s c-bet raised, single vs. multiple opponents, and more):
- Example Hands When Facing a Raise
- Strategy When Facing a Three-Bet
- Strategy When Facing a Four-Bet
- Example Hands (History with Opponent)
- Example Hands at the Flop because the Preflop Raiser
- Strategy at the Flop because the Preflop Raiser (Three-Bet Pots)
- Strategy at the Flop because the Preflop Raiser (Donked Into)
- Strategy at the Flop because the Preflop Raiser (C-Bet Raised)
- Strategy at the Flop because the Preflop Caller
- Strategy at the Flop because the Preflop Caller (Three-Bet Pots)
- Strategy at the Flop vs. Multiple Opponents
- Strategy at the Flop vs. Multiple Opponents (Three-Bet Pots)
- Strategy at the Turn because the Preflop Raiser
- Strategy at the Turn because the Preflop Raiser (Three-Bet Pots)
- Strategy at the Turn because the Preflop Raiser (Donked Into)
- Strategy at the Turn because the Preflop Raiser (C-Bet Raised)
- Strategy at the Turn because the Preflop Caller
- Strategy at the Turn because the Preflop Caller (Three-Bet Pots)
- Strategy at the Turn because the Preflop Caller vs. Multiple Opponents
- Strategy at the River because the Preflop Raiser
- Strategy at the River because the Preflop Raiser (Three-Bet Pots)
- Strategy at the River because the Preflop Raiser (Donked Into)
- Strategy at the River because the Preflop Raiser (C-Bet Raised)
- Strategy at the River because the Preflop Caller
- Strategy at the River because the vs. Multiple Opponents
As I say, this isn’t even a whole summary of Williams’s categories, this means that for any situation or hand-type for which the reader may well be on the lookout for guidance, there’s likely an example.
In fact, a technique of using the book might be to bring it out as a part of a player’s post-session review. Having identified certain hands that presented special problems — say, a pair wherein a three-bet pot had reached the river where a difficult decision needed to be made — the reader could then consult Williams’s discussion of that very situation and view how his recommendations would apply.
Speaking of studying the game, Williams ends the book with some tips on conduct such session reviews, in addition to further pointers about managing one’s own tilt and benefiting from opponents’ tilt.
As demonstrated before in Crushing the Microstakes, Williams writes in an accessible style that employs jargon where necessary but is usually readable and simple to follow. His advice is obviously delivered as well, with the authority behind every recommendation strengthened by his attention to detail. Also refreshing is the realistically modest approach Williams adopts, beginning along with his introductory disclaimer that small stakes games may be very challenging — especially in comparison to the micros — with players’ win rates often dropping and the variance frequently increasing, too.
In all, Modern Small Stakes represents a valuable addition to fascinated by no-limit hold’em strategy, and will be of particular value both to recreational players in search of help coping with tougher opponents and to more seasoned grinders who've made the move as much as NL10 and above but need assistance broadening their strategic knowledge.
To pick up an electronic copy of the book, visit blackrain79.com or contact Williams at blackrain79@dragthebar.com.
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