Play Poker Like the Pros

Rating:
Summary: Yeech
Review: When I bought this book, I was a mediocre player.

And now, after reading this book, I'm still a mediocre player. Thank you, Phil Hellmuth!

This book covers hold'em in limit, no-limit and tournaments. However, it only devotes one chapter to no limit hold'em, which is what everyone playes. Instead of that, we instead get chapters on omaha and omaha-8, stud and stud-8, and razz. Razz! Who on earth plays razz? Who knows what razz is? I sure didn't.

Let me be frank. Low-stakes hold'em players are awful. It's as if they hate money. With a little practice and knowledge they are easy to beat. Instead of giving us the techincal details required to beat such players, Hellmuth gives us such wonderful advice as "you shouldn't fold hand X at stage Y ever, unless, of course, the other guy has hand Z, the only hand that beats hand X." So we shouldn't fold hand X, unless we should. Thanks for that gem of wisdom.

Hellmuth then describes how he has only folded hand X twice, and both times, he was right. Thanks, Hellmuth, we needed to know that. No, you idiot, we didn't buy a book called "Play Poker like the Pros" to read about you! We bought it to read about how to play poker!

He does this all the frickin' time. Half the book is spent on these stupid stories and anecdotes, which often completely contradict the advice he gave earlier (which is usually wrong anyway). We don't want to read about Phil Hellmuth and his pro poker friends, we want to read about how to win poker. Right?

Hellmuth jumps from subject to subject. He'll interrupt a discussion of limit hold'em to tell us a story about a no-limit holdem tournament. NL tournament holdem is Limit's evil twin. The cards are the same, but the strategy is completely different. The two games should not even be mentioned together in a beginning players' book. What little advice remains is incoherent and often wrong for a small-stakes player. It may be right for a tournament pro, but not for small-stakes, where you get fools who will play any two cards they're dealt and are too oblivious to be tricked.

Holdem is not a game with which you can play according to a detailed system, but Lee Jones' book "Winning Low Limit Holdem" gives the closest thing available to such a system. His advice is clear and insightful yet idiot-proof. Buy his book. Don't buy Hellmuth's waste of trees.

Rating:
Summary: Insightful, But Don't Bet Your House on it
Review: Phil Hellmuth Jr. was voted by his WSOP peers as the Greatest Poker Player Alive. That's praise from Caesar. After seeing Poker as sport for the 1 millionth time on ESPN, I decided to learn the game. On a flight to California (knowing I was going to the casinos), I picked up "Play Poker Like the Pros." It is fairly high-level reading, but makes more and more sense as you gain experience. I pride myself as being a very astute Blackjack player, I quickly learned Texas Hold'em is not a game of "If I have this, I do that," like BJ. Hellmuth illustrates this "in spades" as he'll state pocket Jacks is a great hand for raising and re-raising, but not always. Now that I have played at casinos and on-line, I can't say I agree with every piece of strategy Phil proposes (In fact, at the casinos, it seemed like I got killed everytime I got one of his Top-10 Hands). But I found his anecdotes and thought processes thoroughly enjoyable reading. You can feel the palpable tension as Phil describes casually pushing hundreds of thousands in chips into the middle of the table, hoping for a flush on the river. As one card shark said, "Playing poker is a hard way to make an easy living." I loved his description of Poker Players as Animals (e.g., mouse, jackal, elephant, etc.) Of course, they didn't have my animal type, The Fish. I play a pretty fair Texas Hold'em now. I have to thank Phil Hellmuth for his enjoyable treatise and approach to a most fascinating game.

Rating:
Summary: Too generalized
Review: When I bought this book, I was a intermediate player. I bought the book in hopes of getting advice on how to play the game better - not reinforcing what i already knew. Phil's "top ten" hands are too generalized, his betting strategies are too linear, and I severely doubt this is how the "great" hellmuth really plays. To get down to the point - the reason phil is one of the top players in poker, is because of his superior ability to read opponents (NOT because "i only play phil's top ten hands, etc")

The information in this book, although good for a complete beginner, is not good if you even remotely know the game. The strategies are too basic, simplistic, and it seems like hellmuth just wants to "lure" new blood and easy targets (Phil's Pheasants) into tournament poker.

For a much better information book on poker, i would suggest the following (in order of importance):

Caro's Book of Poker Tells by Mike Caro - learn from the madman
Doyle Brunson's Super System by Doyle Brunson - the godfather
Dolye Brunson's Super System 2 by Doyle Brunson - the godfather 2




Rating:
Summary: Great Book For Beginners
Review: I would recommend this book to anyone looking to improve their game IF you are a "kitchen table" player. If you want to be able to learn how to play the "Top Ten" hands and then move on to tougher/more advanced strategies, this book is for you. Phil even outlines how to categorize people into "animal" types to better know how your opponents play and how to play against them (for more on this see 'The Psychology of Poker' by Dr. Alan N. Schoonmaker). I think Phil himself would play better if he would read this book. ;-)

Rating:
Summary: A great start
Review: There's no denying that Phil Hellmuth is full of himself, however... he is also a good poker player with a wealth of knowledge.

This was a good book. I had read many others before, so the section on Holdem was difficult to sit through. I did learn a lot about Omaha Hi/Lo, Razz, 7-Card Stud, and Stud Hi/Lo. Those sections were a great start. The first time ever playing those games online... I was sitting there with the book open, reading it, needless to say, I made some money.

Rating:
Summary: love/hate
Review: A book that is more about self promotion than about teaching, it is poorly written in many parts and has no continuity. There are many other MUCH more intelligent and informative books available. Skip this one as it can't possibly teach you what makes Phil Helmuth a great poker player, his ability to read his opponents.

Clearly fold this one preflop.

Rating:
Summary: Buy Another Book...
Review: I am looking for a new one. I was slightly better than my poker group of friends and nothings changed since I have read this book. I hope I find something a little better next time I buy a poker book.