The author of this book, Phil Shaw, is an expert in high stakes online sit and go tournaments, and is a regular contributor to well-known poker magazines and training sites. In this book, he introduces the format and covers the important aspects of winning at them consistently.

“Secrets of sit’n’gos” is very well written and well structured, after a brief initial introduction to the format, the first section covers some things that many other books and guides miss, namely pre-game preparation .

This section discusses game selection, blind levels, opponents, formats, multi-tabling, and more. The next section contains a brief introduction to some of the concepts that come up throughout the book, including EV and ICM.

Although these first two sections aren’t that long, it’s nice to see these topics mentioned before the author dives into the games!

The next 6 sections are divided between the different stages of sit and go play, with a section for early, mid and late game, bubble, in the money and heads up.

Sectioning it this way helps the reader understand the difference between these stages and how differently they should be played.

All scenarios are covered at each stage, from deep stack to short stack, and the structure of these sections reads very well, with important considerations on ICM and other concepts thrown in for good measure.

The ‘in the money’ and heads up sections are particularly good, and most players will realize how tight they play compared to what the author believes to be optimal, with the push/call/fold tables. for hand-to-hand play that are particularly interesting.

A couple of short sections follow, on non-standard sit and go’s, and assorted other topics, and then by far the largest section, taking up about 2/5 of the book, is the quiz section. These questions range from the first hand of a chant to the last, are well thought out and clearly presented, and will be invaluable in terms of learning the concepts throughout the book.

In general, the book covers all aspects of sit and go, explaining things simply enough for beginners, but going deep enough that almost every player will gain something from reading this book. Recommended.