For two decades, Jonathan Little has answered the same question from poker players: "How should I have played this hand?"
His most recent book from D&B Poker, The Complete Poker Workout, turns those lessons into real tournament hands that help players think through every decision before they face it at the tables.
Little’s first tournament cash came 20 years ago at a WSOP Circuit event. A short two years later, he would take home the 2008 World Poker Tour Player of the Year award. It was an auspicious beginning for one of the most respected players/coaches/authors in today’s game.
Breaking down 100 tournament hands
Jonathan has written more than 18 best-selling poker strategy books, and the most recent addition to his extensive catalog is The Complete Poker Workout.
The book articulates the strategy behind 100 tournament hands Little has played, with close to 400 targeted questions aimed to help students understand how to wield various stack sizes and which parts of their game need improvement.
“People send me hand history questions all the time,” shares Little. “They want to know what they could have done differently in a certain spot, right? Did their opponents mess up the hand? Was it played correctly? And for a while, I wrote a lot of articles, with me reviewing my own hands.”
Little decided to sift through a plethora of saved hands and put together a strategy book that illustrated numerous common tournament scenarios players face.
“It's a way for people to be able to sit and read a book and study, even if they have only five minutes or so,” says Little. "Each hand is only a few pages long. The book is designed to teach players step-by-step how to go about building a strong, robust strategy.”
But as most players realistically come to realize, knowing strategy intellectually is all well and good, but what really matters is whether you can apply lessons learned in-game.
“A player has to figure out in the real world how to actually go about implementing a good, strong poker strategy. The Complete Poker Workout helps players figure out what matters most in every hand.
"That’s the main thing that sways your decisions one way or the other. The readers will then be able to better implement their strategy in-game and hopefully win more money from poker.”
For the cash game aficionados
A lot of players don’t have the stomach for the rollercoaster variance that goes hand-in-hand with playing tournaments, which is why cash games appeal to so many.
You can only imagine that Little gets a ton of requests begging for more cash game secrets. Little delivered the goods with the new PokerCoaching course drop, Everything You Need to Know to Beat Small Stakes Cash Games.
Little breaks down 100+ vlog-style hands with a practical, exploitative approach aimed at the small-stakes live games that most players actually grind, for which almost nobody teaches targeted strategy.
“My students said I needed to share more live cash game content from games that they all play. I made a point to go play $1/3 at the Wynn Casino. I played 20.8 hours across 5 sessions and won $2,499.
"That's $120/hr., where I take every substantial hand and break it down in language all grinders can implement and understand for their next cash game session.”
One profitable tip: betting marginal hands
To close our conversation, we asked Jonathan to share a profitable tip from the small-stakes cash game course.
“You're going to have way better equity realization in small stakes games just in general with your marginal hands than you will in the high stakes games, because you don't face turn and river aggression nearly as often. I would turn over top pair and marginal kicker, and it'd be good for a hundred dollars at times. $100 at $1/3 is 33 big blinds.”
Little emphasizes that this is not a strategy used very often at the higher stakes levels.
“In these small stakes games, you can just be more willing to call bets and bet yourself with marginal hands as compared to higher stakes games where you have to protect your more passive ranges.”
One of the most unique aspects of the Everything You Need to Know to Beat Small Stakes Cash Games course is that Little will continue to add more and more vlog hands to the course as he plays them.
Once again, a Little bit of help can have a big impact on your game.
Read extracts from The Complete Poker Workout here and here. Jonathan Little’s Everything You Need to Know to Beat Small Stakes Cash Games video course is available now on PokerCoaching.com.
D+B Poker Publishing is poker’s leading book publisher working with some of the game’s biggest names, including Phil Hellmuth, Jonathan Little, Michael Acevedo, Chris Moorman, Alexander Fitzgerald, Dylan Linde, and many more.
Every D+B book is available as an ebook, with many also offered in audiobook format, giving players more ways to learn from some of poker’s sharpest minds. Check out their full range at dandbpoker.com.
