Howard Lederer's Secrets of No Limit Hold 'Em

From a marketing standpoint, let’s look at two aspects of the DVD’s title to help me explain why I was disappointed with this DVD. First, “Howard Lederer”, one of today’s premier poker players and one of my personal favorites. Lederer is not going to be as well-known to the beginner as he will be to the regular player. Sure, you just have to turn on the TV to see Lederer but I imagine he is most recognized by players in the know. To that effect, if I’m buying Lederer’s DVD, wouldn’t you expect that I’m not a beginner?

Second aspect of the DVD’s title is the use of the word “secrets”. You are 25 minutes into this 90-minute DVD before Lederer even begins discussing strategy. For those first 25 minutes, Lederer spends time explaining how to run a home poker tournament, how to shuffle and deal cards, and the sequence of the betting round. Beginner stuff? Absolutely. Secrets? Absolutely not. I have a hard time understanding what person that needs this information would have bought this DVD in order to learn it.

Running a Home Poker Tournament

Lederer opens with advice on how to run a home poker tournament. I felt this introduction to the DVD was unnecessary. If I’m delving into “secrets”, hopefully I already know how to host a tournament. In fact, save yourself $25 by clicking here to learn everything you’ll need to know to host a tournament.

Lederer offers some unique perspective, some of it good. For instance, he recommends far less chips for each player than I would recommend. Also, he recommends doubling blinds quicker than I would recommend. If he is explaining these things, the assumption would be that the viewer is a beginner. However, the format of tournament proposed by Lederer does not allow much room for error and a beginner might find himself eliminated early if given so few chips and such frequent blind-doubling.

As an aside, Lederer explains the importance of having a cut card. I agree with this, but didn’t need to spend the 10 seconds watching how to make a makeshift cut card out of two Jokers. That’s right, we get to watch world-class poker player Howard Lederer unrolling four small pieces of tape so that we can understand without question how to tape two Jokers together.


The Basics of Texas Hold 'Em

Another unnecessary time filler, in my humble opinion. Nobody should have to pay to buy a DVD in order to learn how to host a game or play Texas Hold ‘Em.


Pre-Flop Strategy

This is where I would say that the “secrets” begin, 25 minutes into the DVD. In the spirit of David Sklansky’s seminal work on the game, Hold ‘Em Poker, Lederer presents us with a ‘starting hand chart’ to use to determine how to play your two cards before the flop. Lederer proposes a style of play that is even tighter than that put forward by Sklansky. However, Lederer does take the time to go through a number of ‘dummy hands’ so that you understand how the chart has been organized.

I also applaud Lederer for his discussion of position in a short-handed game. Lederer for his discussion of position in a short-handed game. Lederer defines “position” not simply as your place in the betting round, but rather as the number of people who are to act after you. In other words, at a 10-player table, you should consider yourself in ‘late position’ if you have three or less players to act after you. That would mean in a four-player game, that theoretically, nobody is in early or middle position. Rather, even if first to act in a four-player game, you should consider yourself to be in late position and play your starting hands accordingly. This is a great illustration of how players should loosen up their starting hand requirements as the table becomes short-handed; by eliminating the labels of early position and eventually middle position, and simply playing more hands.


Odds and Outs

Here, Lederer has also provided some literature with the DVD for you to use to study. The mathematics of Hold ‘Em presented here are basic, but must-know. In fact, if you are not a numbers person but appreciate that you need some math understanding in poker, then the chart is quite useful in teaching you the must-know.


Turn and River Strategy

While these discussions leave the realm of beginner poker and venture into strategy, the strategies discussed are not new. I would direct you to sources like Lou Krieger’s Hold ‘Em Excellence or Lee Jones’ Winning Low-Limit Hold ‘Em for far more extensive discussions on post-flop strategy. It isn’t that Lederer’s discussion is not relevant, only that it isn’t original. I couldn’t identify a point made by Lederer that I haven’t already read in a book before.


Spotting Tells

Finally, we arrive at Lederer’s discussion of looking for tells in other players. The emphasis here is that when watching other players, remember that “weak means strong” and “strong means weak”. For instance, a player who makes a bet in a physically aggressive way is overcompensating for what is a bluff or semi-bluff. A player who makes a bet but appears uninterested in the hand is disguising a monster hand. Does all of this sound familiar? If it does, that might be because you already read it in Mike Caro’s Book of Poker Tells. As is the case with post-flop strategy, Lederer doesn’t say things that aren’t true. He just isn’t delivering anything new...or certainly anything I would call a “secret”.


And In Conclusion…

…what more do I need to say? I don’t recommend that you buy this DVD. But, for far more extensive discussions of the topics covered on this DVD, I certainly do suggest that you check out the books that I’ve cited in this article. Howard Lederer remains one of my favorite poker players to watch and learn from. That is, when he’s sitting at the table and not hosting a DVD. I don’t believe I’ll be buying his follow-up “More Secrets of No-Limit Hold ‘Em”.