I read Greenstein's book, and here's what I got out of it. This is stuff I've heard millions of times, and most of you probably have also, and alot of you will think this is obvious, so bear with me for being behind. I don't think I ever really got it until I read this book.

Anyway, it seems to me that this 2 step process is the secret to winning poker:

1 - Win large sums of money from players who are MUCH worse than you. This can be either because they are a) just not good and playing above their level or b) good but playing poorly because they're tired/on tilt/drunk/etc.

2 - Avoid losing large sums of money to players who are MUCH better than you. This can also be a) because they're just much better than you, or b) because YOU are tired/on tilt/drunk/etc.

Barry Greenstein doesn't play 5 handed with Chip Reese, Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey and Chau Giang and make millions playing poker. You won't make much money playing poker either, if you play with people who are equally as good/slightly worse than you. That's just not how it works.

Your profitability on the poker table isn't going to swing way up or way down depending on whether your continuation bets are 3/4 the pot or 2/3 the pot, or whether you limp, raise or fold suited connectors in MP. It's also not going to depend, as Barry says in his book, on the fact that you are .01% better than the guy to your left.

So what does this mean to your poker game? Well, I'm still trying to piece that together for myself. Oviously it means that game selection is essential, probably the single most important skill in being a profitable poker player. Again, this is something I've heard a million times, but blew it off.

On the flip side, it means that TILT is pretty much the worst thing you can do. You become the fish and lose large chunks of money. That's not what you want.

More importantly, at least to me, it means this - you don't have to be some kind of godly psychic poker player to be able to make it. I think we all have this idea that at some point on our climb up the poker ladder we're going to run into a place where 100% of the players play great all the time, and to be winners we're going to have to perfect some super secret advanced techniques and maneuvers that we've never seen before.
There will be players that are better than you, always. But their advantage over you, if you've worked your way up and understand how to play the game, will be so miniscule that your winnings off of the players that are MUCH worse than will more than make up for it.

That's all I got. I hope this makes sense to someone.