CardSharp

Author: Bob Ciaffone & Jim Brier

Publisher: Self Published

I’ve been playing more limit holdem recently, and I suspect it will be the next “project” on CardSharp once I get more or less finished with NL holdem.  In preparation for that I’ve been going back over all the books I own on the limit version of the game as a means of organizing my thoughts.  When I first read Ciaffone’s book a couple of years ago, I thought it was the stone cold nuts as far as limit holdem goes.  On a second read, with many thousands of hands of mid and high limit holdem under my belt, I still think it’s the best book on the game, but not quite as good as I once believed. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Joe Navarro and Marvin Karlins

“Presented by”: Phil Hellmuth

Publisher: (Harper) Collins

I will admit I was somewhat apprehensive about buying this book, and if Amazon hasn’t offered it to me dirt cheap I probably would have passed.  The reason for the apprehension is that Phil Hellmuth’s last effort, Play Poker Like the Pros, is somewhat of a running joke.  It’s just plain horrible and goes a long ways towards explaining why Phil can’t win at cash games.  Given all this I wasn’t exactly thrilled to see that Phil had taken another plunge into the world of instructional poker books.

The good news is that this book isn’t written by Hellmuth.  It’s written by a career FBI agent turned poker consultant.  And this is a pretty solid book. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Doyle Brunson + numerous collaborators

Publisher: Cardoza

Part update to the original Supersystem and part add-on, Super System 2 follows the same structure as the previous book.  Doyle recruited a groups of fellow high-stakes pros to write about various games while he tackled NL holdem.  The games covered are NL holdem, limit holdem, Omaha 8, pot limit Omaha, Stud 8, and lowball triple draw. In addition, there is some general material provided by Mike Caro & others that replaces the general poker section of Super System 1.  I didn’t find this additional material particularly valuable, but most of it wasn’t bad.  The exception is the internet poker material, which is out of date and essentially a sales pitch for Doyle’s site.  Annoying to say the least, but easily avoided.  The real important stuff is the game-specific chapters Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Barry Greenstein

Publisher: Last Knight

There’s a lot of debate on the internet as to the value of this book. The Amazon reviews, for example, are less positive than for most poker books. However, I feel this book is more valuable than it initially appears for the audience that it targets, as I’ll explain shortly. Ace On The River contains an odd mix of material – a short memoir of Barry Greenstein’s playing career, discussion of a large number of poker topics outside the play of actual hands, and some example hands from a variety of games with commentary from Barry about why he played them the way he did. There is also substantial filler material – full color glossy pictures of various Vegas landmarks (without captions) and some tables in the back that appear correct, but not necessarily that useful. The book, if published in a more conventional format and with only the main text, would be about 150 pages long instead of 300+. The price of the book is also somewhat inflated by the expensive printing. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Stewart Ruben & Bob Ciaffone

Publisher: self published

This is an interesting book. For a long time it was the second most recommended NL book after Supersystem. Of late, it’s fallen into obscurity somewhat, but I believe it’s still worth talking about. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Mark Blade

Publisher: Brownfield Publishing

This is the best starting point in the poker literature for the aspiring poker pro. I don’t mean amateur. I mean aspiring pro. It lays out, in very direct fashion, how to go about getting a long lasting, stable poker career. This book could be considered a much-needed compilation and reorganization of the career related information from various 2+2 and Caro books plus additional insights from the author’s career. While much of the information could be found elsewhere, you would have to pay 10x the cover price to get it in pieces. So this book provides a very reasonable service. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Doyle Brunson

Publisher: Cardoza

This book is a collection of Doyle’s writings about life on the road playing poker, written over a quarter century ago. They have an autobiographical bent, but this is not a memoir. The stories are entertaining and well written (not in the bizarre style of Super System, I smell ghost writer…) and I got some entertainment value out of them solely as stories. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Mike Caro

Publisher: Cardoza

This book has been the definitive work on poker tells (physical and vocal mannerisms that indicate the strength of a player’s hand) since in came out. It catalogs numerous tells, provides pictures of players exhibiting the tell, and discusses strategies to exploit a given tell when it appears. In addition, Caro develops a more general theory of tells, explaining why players exhibit tells and classifying them into categories. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Doyle Brunson + numerous collaborators

Publisher: Cardoza

Doyle Brunson and a group of fellow high limit pros wrote “Super/System” in the late 70’s after Doyle won his second world series of poker main event title. The book contains general poker advice from Doyle followed by specific strategies for all the games commonly played a the time. It was a complete revelation when it came out – far and away the best poker book ever published up to that point on each of those games. For years it retained its status as the “bible” for casino poker play. Read the rest of this entry »