2 questions....

[shady610]

1. is it more important to learn an all around game or to focus and mastering your game? for example, im a conservative player but often feel i should be more agggressive. when i do i feel like im not play as well since im not in my area of expertise.

2. Is the Ace on the River book by greenstein any good?

[Ekim]

question 1

I cant field your second question because I am not familiar with the book.

As far as your first question goes... Poker is game where you generally make your money exploiting the errors of the other players in the game. This means playing optimal poker (optimal in the game theory sense of the word) is rarely necessary and often less then ideal. So if the tables you play at are overly loose you will do very well with a tight style. If the game were very tight you would do better playing loose. The advantage of mastering other styles is it allows you to constantly change gears to exploit your opponents as the tempo shifts at your table.

Do you play online? If so post some hand histories and I (and hopefully some of the other good players here) will give you some constructive feedback.

[Poker_Beast]

You will have to get more aggressive to master the game.

I have not read the book but Doyle's Super Systems are great.

Good luck!

[rugbybdyb]

Agressive or tight will work pending the play of the other players, if you play tight other players with exploit this and vise versa...The biggest thing to me is that if you go to a table you cant be scared to risk all your cash....my oppinion is scared money is my money......Just get with some of your friends and play tourney style where each pays like 20 dollars in and you have a bunch of chips to start with, this will allow you to switch up the play based on other player, and experiment with out loosing a ton of cash and try new styles.....The books are great but nothing better than real live play.

[rugbybdyb]

Also learn how to read the board etc, no matter what your style is if you dont know what can beat you, you will loose a lot of money....the worst players I play with cant read the board and that is when I win most of my money.......