Play Poker Like the Pros

Rating:
Summary: Better books out there
Review: Just not that good a book. Jones or Sklansky have better books.

Rating:
Summary: POKER STATEGY OR EGO TRIP
Review: Poorly written book. I'm an intermediate player. Have read a few books on low-limit / mid-limit holdem. Save your money and buy Winning Low Limit by Lee Jones.

Phil's book, when he isn't plugging ultimate bet, he is plugging himself. Plus, his writing style is unorganized. Most chapters are filled examples of him versus the world, etc (of course, every example he won). Should be called Phil Helmuth's Home Movies

Rating:
Summary: Very good
Review: This book will mostly help out your Limit game, I would heavily suggest reading Super System's first, and then let this fine tune some of your loose ends of hold'em. Use your imagination when reading this and don't do what he says all the time, you need to do what you feel comfortable doing.

Rating:
Summary: Good book for beginners, works well on Party Poker
Review: I'm a beginner who's been playing online at PartyPoker, and Phil's book helped me considerably there. I was losing like crazy and now I'm playing much tighter, making my bluffs works in the late stages. Thanks Phil! There are 99 jackals to every 1 lion online.

If you want the best bonus code for PartyPoker.com ($25-100 free), email me at [e-mail] .... GOOD LUCK!

Rating:
Summary: This book will revolutionize a beginner's game.
Review: I considered myself an average poker player, until I read this book. Since reading "Play Poker Like the Pros" and "Super System", I realize that only NOW am I an average player and have so much more to learn and have an insatiable desire to do so.
Just reading the first couple chapters changed my game overnight. Phil breaks different players into animal types. Jackal (agressive unpredictable) Elephant (enters too many pots) mouse (enters too few, but to be respected when he does) Lion (best at table) and eagle (one of best in world). My first impression was to skip this chapter thinking how ridiculous it was to sterotype players into such a narrow mold. However the next home game however I was amazed to see players falling almost precisely into the animal types Phil talked about. I could almost immediately peg 4 jackals, 3 elephants and a mouse. Phil hit the nail on the head. After all as Matt Damon says at the beginning of "Rounders". "Here's the thing, if you can't spot the sucker at the table in the first 30 min. then YOU ARE the sucker." Phil's first chapter will help you spot the suckers and then when you have a hand you can take their chips.
The next chapter talks about what hand you can play with confidence. He calls it his "top 10 hands" they are as follows....AA,KK,QQ,AK,JJ,1010,99,AQ,88,77. If you have one of these hands you can play with confidence. (He later talks about other hands to enter with and strategies to play them after the flop). I realized after reading this chapter that I was indeed an "elephant" I played in entirely too many hands, and over time was losing money due to entering with weak hands.
Once I began applying Phil's strategy that not only is tight, right; but TIGHTER is right. If you enter pots with the hands Phil recommends, you will be folding a lot. However the hands you do enter, the final result will often be a lot of chip coming your way. This is even more pronounced when there are a couple "jackals" at the table who are willing to call your raises or may even try to re-raise you. (In low stakes play there usually are more than one jackal at the table too)
For any poker player(esp. limit/no limit hold 'em) I recommend this book, for any beginner I HIGHLY reccomend this book. (for intermediate players I reccomend Doyle Brunson's "Super System") Phil's text flows in a way that is both easy to read and understand. I haven't lost money in a home game since reading this book. Thank you Phil!
For this price this is the best poker book I am familiar with. BUY THIS BOOK FIRST!

Rating:
Summary: Pretty good to get you started
Review: This is a pretty good book to pick up. I enjoyed it and it was my first book to deal with poker strategy. For me, it was helpful in outlining some of the factors that can affect your success at the table (your hole cards and the types of players you are up against). For me, I was aware of these factors, but not to the extent that each figured into your odds of winning the pot. As a beginner at looking at poker theory, I thought it was a good starting off point, but by no means the end of the journey. I have since looked at books by Sklansky and others which go into more detail with these concepts. But, I feel that the Hellmuth book did help me to have a background mindset in place for handling these more in depth books. I think that Phil had beginners in mind as the target audience as much of the material would be a rehash for people who had already spent more time reading about poker theory and concepts than I had when I bought this book. So for you advanced and intermediate players, I can understand the frustration or let down feeling. I would've felt the same way if I had read this after some of the other books, but I think it is a good place to start to increase your thirst for knowledge about a complex and great game. My rating would be five stars if this was the first book you had read about poker, but probably lower if I had thought this was an advanced strategy guide. Plus I can't bag on the book too much, I met Phil at a book signing and mine is autographed!!!!

Rating:
Summary: He draws the outline of a masterpeice for you...
Review: I've read several other people who have read this book and complained about how Phil doesn't teach anything, and I beg to differ. For most of the people they don't understand that reading a book isn't gonna make you play suddenly better, you need to play poker as Phil constantly points out in his book. He also states at the beginning that you can not read this book in a day and expect to absorb it all. You need to read a section, maybe a chapter at most and play and play until you have adapted his consepts to fit you game, after all each of us plays different. Lots of play will improve you ability to read you opponents, play Phil's guess the opponents hole cards game. This book also does not focus on one type of poker it explains Texas Hold'em Limit/No Limit, Omaha Limit/Pot Limit, Omaha 8's or better, Razz, Stud, Stud 8's or better and Internet Poker. Althought Phil does not dive into the mathmatics (I'm an engineer and sometimes the fourth street mathmatics can be quite complex) the basic ideas of pot odds and pot value are constantly taken in to account. Finally this book is about Phil and he will talk about big hands that he has won and lost.

Rating:
Summary: Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?
Review: Even first time players would be disappointed here. Summary of first part of book: AA, KK, AK are really good hands LOL.

Summary of last part: Get a 'read' on your opponents if you can. A lot of that is just 'sense' and 'feel.' more LOL.

Almost a complete bust... there was one really cool story about a hand he won ... and another really good one about a hand he lost.

Phil simply ain't gonna give away his livelihood like some say super/system did to some extent for Brunson's 'easy' money.
I agree with others here: at least teach us how to figure outs correctly for the price of the book. Jeeesh.

"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"

Rating:
Summary: Useful for the Beginner
Review: This book is useful for the beginner but overall I wasn't really impressed. I learned a few things (I'm a beginner but am just about at the intermediate stage) but it really seemed like it was just that--a FEW things. You can learn a whole lot more for just as much money by buying a book like Super System or the basic one by Sklanskey & Malmuth.

If you're not a 100% beginner there's no reason to buy this book though unless you're trying to either get into the head of Phil maybe, but I'm sure he was careful not to reveal much, if anything. The NL section was fun to read but really not that helpful. It basically boiled down to "You need to use your judgement because anything goes in NL" and "You need to be able to read people" but he doesn't teach us that at all. Mike Caro teaches you that and experience in a face-to-face environment teaches you that.

Overall I didn't love this book but I didn't hate it either--probably because I'm a beginner. If you're a poker nut who reads EVERY poker book then you'll want to read this. If you're a 100% beginner, then this might be a place to start. Otherwise forget about it.

Rating:
Summary: Don`t waste your money
Review: This book is a waste of time and money. There are many other books, even for the absolute begginer, that are better. Hellmute is a great player but lousey author and teacher.