worst. poker. book. ever.
which is the worst poker book you ever read?...mine would have to be Ken Warren teaches poker, and I also did not find TJ's book very helpful, Brunson's book although dated, I found to be very helpful in my game
Comments
That was the worst Holdem book, but the other games are pretty good.. O8 being the more interesting..
I think my least favourite book was the TJ/McEvoy NL tournament book. I read it in 15 minutes and got nothing out of it. It was like 40 bucks or something too.. real expensive.
i can't believe what makes it to the shelves these days ;-)
I just bought the book by Phil Hellmuth, why is it the worst?
A non-strategy poker book that I didn't find all that great was "Read 'em and Weep: A Bedside Poker Companion". This collection of poker short stories and excerpts didn't really grab my interest. The organization of the collection was basically random (alphabetical by author?), and few of the individual stories/excerpts were very memorable.
ScottyZ
It should have been entitled, "What beats what. That's all we know."
You can't beat Sklansky and Jones, well....I'm sure they lose their share of hands...but their books are damn good!
And he's only going to be even harder to live with now that he won the heads-up championship. I so wanted
Antonio or Jesus to knock him off his pedestal.
i htink it's great. and i also think his play is great too.
thanks,
johnny
Some sketchy advice to be sure, but I didn't hate it as much as most.
has a whole lot of suck attached to it
im also not a big fan of mcevoy's limit book
I don't think the advice is wrong or even bad, honestly when I started playing I stuck to Hellmuth's top 10 hands, it allowed me to start to learn the game and not lose a lot of money. I think it was helpfull from that stand point, I thought the little chapter on tourney play was helpfull as well. That said, I don't think it really does more then gloss over the game, it is very superficial. Sklansky and Jones are much more in depth and informative. I think if you really want to improve your low-limit ring game you really should study Jones and then Sklansky.
Ain't that the truth. I don't even consider this a poker book. I gave it to my dog to play with.
THis is good advice.
And, you are right, Hellmuth's advice will keep you from losing a lot of money. I doubt, however, you will make much if any playing his top ten under all circumstances which is, as I recall, what he suggests.
For holdem: He tells you to start out by playing tight and being aggressive - nothing at all wrong with that. His hand selection for doing so might get new players in a bit of trouble (his list is good for tight games, but most new players get their start in loose games where middle pocket pairs aren't nearly so strong), but overall his advice is on the right track. People tend to focus on the top ten hands, without taking into account the fact that those are for new players to not get killed - his intermediate and advanced play chapters open up the hand selection quite a bit, and advocate a more read-focused selective-aggressive game, not unlike most other pro books.
For other games: he seems to cover the basics pretty well, I don't remember seeing anything particularly outrageous, but I'm a noob at them myself so can't really comment beyond that.
Pretty much the only really valid criticism of his book, IMHO, is the name - it's more of a beginner-to-intermediate guide than something that's going to help you crush the 50/100 tables.
you are so right Dave, I think it is perhaps a good starting point for new players to the game, it certainly helped me when I started...but that is about it. There is so much more to the game and I think Jones and Sklansky do a terrific job of post flop play...and dammit all, one day I will actually understand it and be a good player lol!!!
But this thread was supposed to be about the worst poker book ...... in that case I'd also have to vote for Vorhaus. There's also another one, geared towards female players in a man's world ..... called "Playing Poker with the Big Boys" or something equally as stupid. Totally lame ....... chapters devoted to how to play baby games and what to serve for snacks. If I didn't get it as a gift I would have quickly asked for my money back. Girls, stay away from this one.