Kill Phil Book Review
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Title: Kill Phil
Author: Blair Rodman and Lee Nelson
Publisher: Huntington Press
Length: 275 pages
Date: October 2005
Rating: 
Intended audience: Beginners and intermediate players alike.
Available at: Amazon.com ($15.72 w/Free Shipping available)
TightPoker Promotion: Free $50 Amazon Gift Certificate
Reviewed by: AJ
Dated Reviewed: 5/25/2006
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So, the name was provocative enough to make me pick up the book. Then, there was that picture
on the cover of our favorite Phil, Mr. Hellmuth, and the fact that he had written the forward for
this new book on tournament play by Blair Rodman and Lee Nelson. Who hasn't, at least at one time or
another, wanted to Kill Phil?
Early on, the authors explain that the "Phil" in the title isn't Hellmuth, or Gordon, or Ivy, or
Laak (the Unabomber). Their Phil is a fictitious compilation of all of these well known and accomplished
pros that we love to watch play in the seemingly never ending televised poker tournaments. In fact,
for the purposes of this book, "Phil" is any player that you come across in a tournament that is
simply more experienced and better than you. Rodman and Nelson (working with a math whiz they are
kind enough to credit) claim to have worked out a system to take away a large part of the edge
that the experience and skill the Phils have worked so hard to get.
Who Are These Guys?
I'll admit that I was unfamiliar with Blair Rodman and Lee Nelson before reading their short, self
written bios.
Mr. Rodman has been a professional gambler for more than 20 years. He is an expert blackjack
player and was a part of Stanly Wong's famous gambling tournament team in the 1980s. He claims
to have advanced knowledge in many other areas of casino advantage play, but that his first
love has always been poker. He played in his first WSOP in 1982 but stepped away from poker
to pursue other gambling interests until fairly recently. In the 2004 WSOP, Rodman had 6
cashes and 3 final tables. He finished 54th in the main event that year. In 2005 he had two
final tables on the WSOP circuit finishing 2nd in the WPT Reno event and 2nd at the Ultimate
Poker Challenge.
Mr. Nelson is an M.D. specializing in nutrition and prostate cancer. He is a published author on
these topics. For "fun" he plays poker. Over the past 5 years he has reached so many final tables
that he now is known as "Final Table" Nelson. He won the 2005 Party Poker World Open, the 2005
pot-limit Omaha Championship at the Irish Open and the No-Limit Championship at the 2004 St.
Maarten Open. He is a consistent winner at both live and online play.
Fair enough, these guys have credentials as players, but what do they have to say that should be of
interest to you and me? That depends on several questions you should ask yourself before buying this
book.
- Are you a cash game or tournament player?
- Do you play mostly online or at brick and mortar casinos?
- Do you like to "mix it up" in a lot of pots and try to outplay your opponent after the flop?
- Can you exhibit a great deal of discipline and pass a very high percentage of your starting hands in favor of moments of total aggression?
- Can you do basic math in your head while playing?
The answers to all of these questions are key to knowing if you want to, and have the ability to
implement the strategy that the authors propose.
How Did They Come Up With This Strategy?
The authors correctly point out that the basis of their strategy is not new. In fact, Sklansky
(and others) have explored and written about similar strategies in the past. In Tournament Poker
for Advanced Players, Sklansky writes about a system that he devised for a complete novice who
wanted to participate in the WSOP. The system was based on a rigid list of starting hands and the
"requirement" to push all in when these hands came up. He later offered some refinements to the
system when it was clear that there were flaws in the original design. Rodman and Nelson acknowledge
Sklansky's work and claim to have developed an important extension of it.
The first important point they write about is the distinction they make between "small ball" and
"long ball". They point out that the great old school tournament players are small ball experts.
They know they are more skillful than all but a small percentage of the field. They are content
in using that skill to extract relatively small amounts of chips from multiple pots over time by
outplaying their less skilled opponents. They further site that these small ball experts will
typically avoid a large confrontation unless they have a high degree of confidence that they
have much the best of it. In the forward to this book, Phil Hellmuth makes this exact point
in the following quote.
"Personally, I will go to great lengths to avoid putting all of my chips at risk in any hand,
because when I'm all-in, then it's possible for me to be eliminated. In 2004, I was even
exploring the theory of folding hands where I was a 4 ½ to 1 favorite (pair over pair).
For example, I folded pocket Queens in the main even of the WSOP even though I thought my
opponent had a smaller pair. In that particular case, I was right. My opponent had pocket
sevens giving me a 17% chance of being eliminated. If I'm going that far to avoid being
all-in, then it's correct for you to move all-in on me almost every hand. Even when I gave
up the tactic of folding a 4 ½ to 1 favorite, (I have to put my chips in sometime!), I was
still going to great lengths to avoid moving all-in."
Phil Hellmuth is known to be one of the tighter players of the well known pros in this regard,
so his comments represent somewhat of an extreme. However, there is a real kernel of truth in
what he says. Most experienced good players are just not going to risk their tournament life
preflop to call an all-in if they have less than Aces or Kings.
The authors do not go as far as to suggest that Phil's comment about moving in almost every
hand is practical. However, they do present a fairly rigorous argument for using your chips
like a sledge hammer in a well defined set of circumstances and (this is important) avoiding
all other confrontations.
After a brief and somewhat predictable introduction to the history of tournament poker,
understanding the basics of holdem, the benefits of big pot poker and the winning
characteristics of winning players, the authors move onto the meat of their strategy.
The Kill Phil (KP) Strategy
The authors offer four levels of KP strategy:
- KP Rookie
- KP Basic
- KP Basic +
- KP Expert
Each advance in level introduces refinements to the core strategy and is designed to be implemented
as the user progresses in skill and experience. The beauty of the core strategy (so say the authors)
is that anyone, even a totally inexperienced tournament player can apply it after some very brief
instruction.
At the center of all levels of the strategy is a table of starting hands. It is divided into 10 groups,
and as you might imagine, they get weaker as you move from Group 1 to Group 10.
KP Rookie advocates (much as Sklansky originally did) pushing all-in preflop with only the very
strongest hands and passing everything else. They do address post flop play, but only for those
occasions that you are in an unraised big blind and see a flop for free. The authors admit that
this most basic of systems is not really practical in today's environment due to the influx of
unskilled and overly aggressive Internet players.
KP Basic introduces their concepts of CPR (chips per round), CSI (chip status index) and the
four levels of stack size. CPR is simply the amount of chips a player would have to contribute
to the pot from blinds and antes in one full table revolution. For example, at the 300/600 blind
level with a 25 chip ante at a 9 handed table, the CPR is 1125 (300+600+ (9*25).
CSI is defined as your stack size divided by the CSR. Readers of Harrington on Holdem will recognize
this as the critical element that Harrington calls "M".
The four stack levels that Rodman and Nelson say are important are:
- CSI < 30
- CSI between 30-10
- CSI between 10-4
- CSI < 4
Again, with some variation in the absolute numbers, these are analogous to the inflection points
that Harrington talks about.
From these three key elements, the authors devise a very rigorous set of rules that dictates which h
ands to push, at what position, versus the button, always dependant on a player's CSI at any given
point in the tournament. Also taken into consideration is the critical factor of whether the pot is
un-opened, raised or there are limpers when the decision gets to the player. KP basic also further
refines the rules for final table play, 4-6 handed play, 3-5 handed play and heads up play.
KP Basic+ explores further refinements related to potentially calling short stack all-ins with
hands "outside the rules" and a few other minor variations to KP Basic. Finally KP Expert describes
"outside the box" plays that can be integrated into the strategy once a player is fully competent
using the previous levels.
That's Nice - Does "Kill Phil" Work?
As you might expect, that's tough to say. I do, however, think the core elements of this strategy
have merit. Most of us are not professional poker players. We are amateurs, sometimes avid, who
both enjoy the competitive nature of the game and want to be successful (aka, winners). Applied
correctly, KP Basic has a strong probability to improve your game and get you deeper into multi-table
tournaments. It both preserves chips and offers opportunity to make sudden and important jumps up
the leader board.
It is not perfect, nor do the authors imply that it is. They make it perfectly clear that this
strategy has no value to the cash game player. They also go out of their way to point out that
this strategy is more suited to live play than internet play due to the inherent higher variance
on the internet. They do offer a modified strategy in the book for internet play.
In Summary of the Book
There seems to be a new poker book on the shelf every time I walk through my local bookstore.
Most of them are re-writes in some way or another of Doyle Brunson's great Super System. What
makes Kill Phil different, excuse me for saying it this way, is that it is different. Rodman
and Nelson have taken a well known concept and applied solid mathematical concepts, giving it
new and meaningful life. A further pleasant surprise was that the book was easy to read and can
be understood and applied by players of all levels. Now, go back and look at the questions I
posed earlier. Answer them honestly in light of what you have read here. There are a lot of worse
ways to spend $24.95 on a poker book. I know, I've done it more than once. This one is a keeper.
Post Script - A Personal Note
I didn't think this review would hold water unless I tried to apply what I learned and reported the
results. Well, here they are, unfiltered and honest. Three trials do not make a statistically
significant sample, but for me, there is enough here to stand behind my earlier words. In each
case I applied KP Basic+ with almost no variation. Please note that these are results from the
internet - a less than perfect environment for KP strategy according to the authors. Don't be mislead
by the low denomination buy-ins. I think the results would be similar at any buy-in since the strategy
does not factor in how much money is in play. In fact, intuitively, I believe the higher the buy-in,
the more the strategy has the chance to succeed.
First Trial
$10+1 Buy in on Party Poker
210 players
Finish 43rd when my AK was out raced by a bigger stack who called my push with TT. It should be
noted that I had slightly more than average chips when this happened. Doubling up here would have
moved me way up the leader board.
Second Trial
10+1 Buy in on Full TILT Poker
109 Players
Finish 1st (yes, 1st)
There were 264 hands dealt during the entire tournament. Prior to final heads up play, I put money
in the pot voluntarily 20 times - 15 of these were all in pre-flop pushes, Needless to say, I folded
a lot. I entered heads up a 2 to 1 chip underdog. I'll admit that I did not strictly apply the
strategy during heads up play. Most of my poker experience is from SNGs. I feel like I am already
a decent heads up player and wanted to take advantage of that. It worked - I hope Rodman and
Nelson would approve.
Third Trial
10+1 Buy in Party Poker
1750 players
Finish 1621
My KK ran into AA. Stuff happens.
TightPoker.com thanks AJ for providing this review of Kill Phil. If you'd like a
free copy of Kill Phil, sign up at our partner site PSO for a free
$50 Amazon Gift Certificate.
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