Kill Phil: The Fast Track to Success in No-Limit Hold 'em Poker Tournaments

I bought Kill Phil after Mason Malmuth of Two Plus Two publishing and noted poker authority rated it a 10 out of 10, which is a very rare event. The premise of the book is to teach beginner and advanced tournament players long-ball or big pot strategies. These strategies have several advantages. One it helps negate the skills of better players. These players, the "phils" named for some of the big names in tournament pokers won't want to get involved in big pots even if they are a favorite. They will fear you because you will be willing to play aggressively in these marginal situations. Two, it is an excellent medium to small stack strategy. Many players are too cautious at this stage. KP teaches you to use your stack as a weapon, whereas most players allow themselves to get eroded away. Finally, it is an excellent strategy for late in tournaments as the blinds get very high and you are forced to gamble. KP will teach you when and how to gamble. The book begins with KP Basic which is a full strategy of poker much like basic strategy with blackjack. It requires no decision making only calculating you stack relative to the blinds and antes. It requires you mostly making all-in moves stealing the other bets and doubling up. I have experimented with basic strategy in 200 low limit Sit n Go's with great success. A return on investmet of 35% and almost 50% in the money. I think my success has been party because I chose a site with a very fast tournament structure. The book adds to KP basic extensively describing KP basic plus and KP Expert. Both teach you to apply KP strategies and adapt them to the circumstances as your experience increases. For the beginning player you will learn KP basic and it will be very beneficial. You can gain lots of experience and still be a winning player. For the intermediate player, KP will give you another gear and help you tremendously in end game, where many intermediate players are too tight and timid. For the advanced player, it will teach you long ball. A strategy that you can combine with your small ball post flop skills to be very dangerous. A good example would be to use small ball as a big stack and then switch to KP as a medium stack. Although the best players will mix it up throughout the tournament. I highly recommend the book and think it will help everyone's game. As a limit player, my no-limit post-flop skill were pretty weak. KP allowed me to build on these skills while staying a winning player.

This book is going to change the way you approach tournament no limit holdem. It will be an essential book to round out your no limit tournaments library. The subtle beauty is that this approach can allow inexperienced or moderately experienced players to negate some of the skill edge veteran and expert players hold. This book is a detailed and expanded version of "The System" described in David Sklansky's "Tournament Poker for Advanced Players", which Sklansky designed to allow a complete novice to be competetive in a big buy in tournament. Before "Kill Phil" was published many of the young, aggressive players were already using this type of approach with good success against the veteran tournament pros. It is an interesting strategy which if you don't know and understand will leave you behind against the rest of the players who do know it. I will go out on the proverbial limb here and predict that this book will become an instant classic and "must own" book in any players no limit tournament library. It is that good. It is not the "Holy Grail" for no limit tournaments, but because it is so powerful, you must understand how to use it and when it is being used against you. It does have drawbacks certainly, but used as described will minimize some of the skill gap for lesser experienced players where they may be put to tough decisions too often. The core of the system is a combination of math and psychology; the system has you making some hyper aggressive plays with hands that don't seem to warrant it, but the psychology of the all in bet coupled with the possibility of elimination if you call- and either guess wrong or are outdrawn -make it a devastingly effective strategy in the right situations. If someone asked you at the beginning of a $10,000 buy in tournament to flip a coin for your entire buy in, would you do it if you knew ahead of time you would probably lose your $10,000 about one time in three? Post Script Jan 21st: Lee Nelson(co author with Blair Rodman) took first in the 2006 Aussie Millions on Jan 19, 2006 and won $972,000 for first place. If you weren't a believer before, you should be now. Posr scriptApril 4, 2006: There seems to be a fair amount of hostility coming in toward this book and I am not sure exactly why. An astute player and reader should realize that this type of strategic approach is just a small part of a well developed approach to no limit tournaments. The one huge thing it did for my no limit game was to decrease the fear of moving my stack in more often both because it was mathematically correct to do so and in defense of the "table bullies" who constantly apply pressure to you. So to the extremely negative reviews I wonder ...what were you hoping to gain from buying this book? and why could you not find some value in this strategic approach to add to your game?

Kill Phil is an outstanding contribution to tournament poker literature. This is not, contrary to what you might suppose, merely a naive all-in approach. The basic Kill Phil approach involves (i) minimizing tough decisions after the flop (but not eliminating them-- both the basic Kill Phil approach and, to a greater extent, the more advanced variations invlove play after the flop) and (ii) adjusting your aggressiveness and the risks you are taking based on blind levels, stack size and number of players. The hand rankings that form the basis of the system are exceptionally useful and are very different from the hand rankings that you may be familiar with from Sklansky or similar sources. These hand rankings are intended to reflect playability in an all-in situation against hands that may call you or hands that may have raise or called in front of you--domination for example results in some hands ranking lower than you might expect, and the likelihood of two live cards results in some hands ranking higher than you might expect (e.g., middle suited connecters). The authors make the point that the Kill Phil approach does not have to displace your regular game, but can be incorporated into a style that involves a small ball approach as well. In any case, about half way through a sit and go tournament, and in the later stages of other tournaments, all-in skills are crucial. I have incorporated the Kill Phil approach into my regular game and am very happy with the results. I think the book can operate either as a complete method of tournament play or as a supplement to more traditional tournament play. Highly recommended!

These guys have fleshed out David Sklansky's all-in or fold "system" from Tournament Poker for Advanced Players. And they have done it using concepts similar to those Dan Harrington wrote about in Harrington on Holdem 2 - (i.e., M, Q and zones) combined with position. If you are new to NLHE tourneys, this is a good way to learn to play. If you aren't new but having trouble, this book will help get you back on the right track. As for the book itself, there is quite a bit of filler material in the beginning that would only be of interest to complete beginners. But after that, the book is outstanding. Kill Phil joins the Harrington books, David Sklansky's Tournament Poker for Advanced Players, Barry Greenstein's Ace on the River, Phil Gordon's Little Green Book and Howard Lederer's More Secrets of NLHE DVD as the best resources available on NLHE tourneys.

While the book's claim to fame is the use (and misuse!) of allins in no limit Texas Hold'em poker tourneys, it really covers many aspects of staying on course in tourneys: handling tough opponents, stealing the blinds, playing the final table, even making deals to split the top prizes. Some of the information in this book is revealed nowhere else that I know. Other material that can be found elsewhere is presented here in a concise way, giving as much certainty as possible to the often murky world of poker probabilities. The detailed at-the-table examples using this strategy in play are excellent. I won't tip the best advice in the book, but overall, it is a terrific book on tourney play. (You feel in reading some books by big-name players on NL tourneys that they have all the expert knowledge, but they aren't about to tell you for $24.95.) This book gives you a real insiders' view of the game. Edit: The secret to success using the KP method is Fold Equity. If you ain't got a large fold equity, you will not like what happens. To shove your stack with "better than average" hands is a poor play unless there's a good chance your opponent will fold. Don't try it at all in the early levels of online tournaments as you get numerous any-two-card callers. The genesis of the original allin/fold concept is David Sklansky's teaching a beginner how to play in the WSOP in 1 day! (Imagine a pro's reaction to frequent allins in the main event on day one!)