Or also known as my birthday! Yeah okay, so it's nothing to jump up and down about. In fact, my birthday just gives me an excuse to reflect back on all the things that I've been meaning to do, but haven't yet accomplished. Unfortunately, that list seems to be growing longer every year. My New Year's resolutions are still on the list for this year and hopefully I will fulfill those sometime soon.
As far as book review postings go, I should have a few more up here soon. Writing these reviews gives me a chance to refresh my memory on some of the books I haven't picked up in a while. A review of Phil Hellmuth's book is up next as well as Holdem for Advanced Players.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Friday, January 27, 2006
Review of Mark Blade's Book, Professional Poker
I was going to go in sequence with my reviews, but I had just bought this one and would like to write a review of it while everything is still fresh in my head.
The information presented in Mark Blade's book is quite comprehensive and well laid out. In fact, Mr. Blade gives clear and concise examples for every main idea throughout the book as well as several references to other sources of information such as various books by 2+2 Publishing . Overall the book is mostly useful to people just starting to get into poker and want to learn more about the finer aspects of the game. For people who have been playing poker for a few years and have read all the standard books, mainly from 2+2 publishing, one will find that most of the information in Professional Poker come from all those standards and the book will basically re-affirm all the main ideas they have read from those other books. The chapter that stands out as very helpful and informative would be his chapter on odds. The author really takes the time to explain probably the most complex part of poker and applies it to game situations.
The only thing I didn't like about Professional Poker is that the author plugged his other two books way too much and they haven't even been released yet. If you are the type of person that is well versed in poker literature, I would recomend Barry Greenstein's book, Ace on the River, over Blade's work.
Overall Rating (1-10): 6
The information presented in Mark Blade's book is quite comprehensive and well laid out. In fact, Mr. Blade gives clear and concise examples for every main idea throughout the book as well as several references to other sources of information such as various books by 2+2 Publishing . Overall the book is mostly useful to people just starting to get into poker and want to learn more about the finer aspects of the game. For people who have been playing poker for a few years and have read all the standard books, mainly from 2+2 publishing, one will find that most of the information in Professional Poker come from all those standards and the book will basically re-affirm all the main ideas they have read from those other books. The chapter that stands out as very helpful and informative would be his chapter on odds. The author really takes the time to explain probably the most complex part of poker and applies it to game situations.
The only thing I didn't like about Professional Poker is that the author plugged his other two books way too much and they haven't even been released yet. If you are the type of person that is well versed in poker literature, I would recomend Barry Greenstein's book, Ace on the River, over Blade's work.
Overall Rating (1-10): 6
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Ken Warren's Book a Mixed Bag
Winner's Guide to Texas Hold'em Poker by Ken Warren was the first book on poker I ever purchased. At the time, there was really not a whole lot of variety when it came to finding books on poker at such places like Borders or Barnes & Noble. This book looked as good as anything else they had on the shelf, which was pretty slim. At first reading, most of the philosophy in the book about how to approach poker seemed pretty much like common sense to me. The only thing I didn't know were the rules and the setup of the game as well as hand selection.
This book, although once useful in getting me started in poker, has quite a bit of conflicting if not just plain wrong information. Ken Warren states that he is not a world class poker player, but only a winning low limit player. Reading through his book again, I now can understand why. First of all he lists playable hands in each position, then later in his book he lists a different selection of hands for each position. His bits on preflop play are flawed as well where he favors seeing the flop as cheaply as possible with big pairs. A big turnoff in his book is the fact that in his Strategy and Tactics chapter, the first section is Calling Before the Flop. Now if you want to be a winning aggressive player, calling before the flop will most definatly not give you this image. On his Science of Tells section, I would like him to give credit to Mike Caro for most of the information he has in it. In fact a lot of the content in his book are summaries from other sources such as Mike Caro and Sklansky/Malmuth.
The parts I like about Warren's book is the way he explains pot odds and drawing odds as well as his great layout of odds and percentages throughout the book and the chapter dedicated to it. That's about the only thing worthwhile in his book. Everything else you should study from their primary sources such as Mike Caro's Book of Poker Tells and Hold'em for Advanced Players by Sklansky/Malmuth. Warren's short four page section on 7 stud strategy is a waste of space. I don't understand why he threw that in there. If you're going to write about 7 stud strategy, make it a complete and separate book, not a four page summary.
Overall Rating(1-10): 3 - Only worth it for the odds and percentages section of his book. Everything else you should get from other more reliable sources.
This book, although once useful in getting me started in poker, has quite a bit of conflicting if not just plain wrong information. Ken Warren states that he is not a world class poker player, but only a winning low limit player. Reading through his book again, I now can understand why. First of all he lists playable hands in each position, then later in his book he lists a different selection of hands for each position. His bits on preflop play are flawed as well where he favors seeing the flop as cheaply as possible with big pairs. A big turnoff in his book is the fact that in his Strategy and Tactics chapter, the first section is Calling Before the Flop. Now if you want to be a winning aggressive player, calling before the flop will most definatly not give you this image. On his Science of Tells section, I would like him to give credit to Mike Caro for most of the information he has in it. In fact a lot of the content in his book are summaries from other sources such as Mike Caro and Sklansky/Malmuth.
The parts I like about Warren's book is the way he explains pot odds and drawing odds as well as his great layout of odds and percentages throughout the book and the chapter dedicated to it. That's about the only thing worthwhile in his book. Everything else you should study from their primary sources such as Mike Caro's Book of Poker Tells and Hold'em for Advanced Players by Sklansky/Malmuth. Warren's short four page section on 7 stud strategy is a waste of space. I don't understand why he threw that in there. If you're going to write about 7 stud strategy, make it a complete and separate book, not a four page summary.
Overall Rating(1-10): 3 - Only worth it for the odds and percentages section of his book. Everything else you should get from other more reliable sources.
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