Book Review: Crushing The Microstakes by Nathan Williams

Crushing The Microstakes by Nathan Williams

ISBN: 978-0-9878836-0-5

251 Pages

$19.95 Sale Price (29.95 RRP)

This is a poker strategy book particularly directed at players who play NL2 and NL5 although the concepts learnt can be used at higher levels.


Nathan Williams aka "BlackRain79" is a poker player from Canada who had been playing for around 5 years at this time.

He claims to be the biggest winner at NL2 and NL5 full ring and by looking at his graph (see below) and stats I can confirm that I have never seen anyone with better results at these 2 levels before.

Why he doesn't move up is something I can't understand as he used to play higher. Maybe he is just happy playing at this level.

If you want to find out more about him and his book you can go to his website, located at:
http://www.blackrain79.com

I have just read the book and will give some of my thoughts on the product.

I have talked via email on occasion to Nathan but I have never met him and don't know him personally so I will give a completely unbiased opinion.

The book starts out with a little background about the author along with some notes on why we play poker and the short term / long term results variance.

Nathan makes a few distinctions between NL2 and NL5 before moving on to topics like bankroll, table layouts and tracking software. He also introduces you to pokerstove.

I was particularly impressed with his knowledge on player types, detailed ranges by position and general pre and post flop play. There was quality commentary on bet sizing and playing when IP and OOP.

Something that I don't use too much in my game is the Aggression Factor Stat. In this book I learnt more about this and have just today added it to my already overloaded HUD   : )

There is a lot of good quality information in this book and I don't want to give too much away in this post but if you stick to the concepts you will simply win money at these tables over the long run.

So my conclusion is that this book delivers an excellent guidance on how to beat the micros and is great value at the sale price of $19.95. If you play the micros then get this book..!!