Rating: 
Summary: Don't buy it unless you already know you like it.
Review: I haven't really read that much of the book. I bought it at the same time I bought Phil Hellmuth's "Play Poker Like the Pros" and I haven't had much reason to refer to the Dummies book after I started readinng Hellmuth's. The book sets itself out to be like a general encyclopedia of poker. While it certainly purports to cover many different games and many aspects of the game, I found that it did not go into much detail at all about how to actually play the games. For example, in the Texas Holdem chapter I was expecting the author to compare many different ways of playing the game and the approaches of different professionals and the pros and cons of different strategies. Instead he lists the table of opening hands he says you should play in different positions and makes pretty much no comment on why you should do this except to say that the standards are somewhat loose. Then he writes 1.5 pages about how to play on the flop, turn, and river. Wow, after a lesson like that I'm ready for vegas. The title is "For Dummies" and I have no clue about even the first step in a poker game, I didn't even know hand rankings, and I found it hard to follow. The author will often use slang that I don't understand in an attempt to explain a key concept. The home poker chapter was especially bad. He listed about 7 games you can play on one page. I'll leave it to you to infer what depth of coverage you can expect on those games. He made no mention whatsoever of what hands you should expect to win on in baseball, excpet that really good hands are quite common. Gee, thanks. I've played baseball before buying the book and I know there's no way you're going to understand how to play it at home after just reading the 5-sentence paragraph he wrote about it. The author is a poor writer too. Sometimes it's hard to tell what he's talking about. I'm not good at poker, so maybe this book has some wisdom to impart to a more skilled player, but I doubt it since it has very shallow coverage. Like I said before, I didn't read the whole thing so I didn't give it a fair chance, but I had seen such good reviews on the internet that I thought I'd go ahead and buy it. That should tell you not to trust net reviews- the author of the book is probably writing them. Hellmuth's book costs the same and it was much easier to follow and had more in-depth information. Plus Hellmuth won the world series 7 times so it's just cooler to own a book written by him. I've never read any other poker books, so there could very well be better books than Hellmuth's, but I don't see much reason to buy Poker for Dummies. The only part I've used so far are the chapters where he tells you what books and software you can buy to learn. I'd suggest that you pick this thing up in the book store, find those chapters and buy one of those other books instead.
Rating:
Summary: Don't buy it unless you already know you like it.
Review: I haven't really read that much of the book. I bought it at the same time I bought Phil Hellmuth's "Play Poker Like the Pros" and I haven't had much reason to refer to the Dummies book after I started readinng Hellmuth's. The book sets itself out to be like a general encyclopedia of poker. While it certainly purports to cover many different games and many aspects of the game, I found that it did not go into much detail at all about how to actually play the games. For example, in the Texas Holdem chapter I was expecting the author to compare many different ways of playing the game and the approaches of different professionals and the pros and cons of different strategies. Instead he lists the table of opening hands he says you should play in different positions and makes pretty much no comment on why you should do this except to say that the standards are somewhat loose. Then he writes 1.5 pages about how to play on the flop, turn, and river. Wow, after a lesson like that I'm ready for vegas. The title is "For Dummies" and I have no clue about even the first step in a poker game, I didn't even know hand rankings, and I found it hard to follow. The author will often use slang that I don't understand in an attempt to explain a key concept. The home poker chapter was especially bad. He listed about 7 games you can play on one page. I'll leave it to you to infer what depth of coverage you can expect on those games. He made no mention whatsoever of what hands you should expect to win on in baseball, excpet that really good hands are quite common. Gee, thanks. I've played baseball before buying the book and I know there's no way you're going to understand how to play it at home after just reading the 5-sentence paragraph he wrote about it. The author is a poor writer too. Sometimes it's hard to tell what he's talking about. I'm not good at poker, so maybe this book has some wisdom to impart to a more skilled player, but I doubt it since it has very shallow coverage. Like I said before, I didn't read the whole thing so I didn't give it a fair chance, but I had seen such good reviews on the internet that I thought I'd go ahead and buy it. That should tell you not to trust net reviews- the author of the book is probably writing them. Hellmuth's book costs the same and it was much easier to follow and had more in-depth information. Plus Hellmuth won the world series 7 times so it's just cooler to own a book written by him. I've never read any other poker books, so there could very well be better books than Hellmuth's, but I don't see much reason to buy Poker for Dummies. The only part I've used so far are the chapters where he tells you what books and software you can buy to learn. I'd suggest that you pick this thing up in the book store, find those chapters and buy one of those other books instead.
Rating: 
Summary: This is a fantastic book for beginners.
Review: If you are a beginner or an experienced player, there is something in this book for you. Really great book!
Rating: 
Summary: Poker For Dummies
Review: Like most of the books in the "Dummies" series, I can guarantee that there is at least one thing in this book that you can use the very next time you sit down in your local card room, or around the dining room table with Aunt Minnie and the cousins for a "nickel-dime-quarter" game, no matter what your "poker I.Q." is before you read it. Easy to follow, fun, informative. A must-read before you read any of the "other" classics. Is "Poker for Dummies" a "classic"? Well, I don't know if I'd go that far....but it should be on your shelf along side Sklansky and Vorhaus, that's for sure!!
Rating:
Summary: Poker For Dummies
Review: Like most of the books in the "Dummies" series, I can guarantee that there is at least one thing in this book that you can use the very next time you sit down in your local card room, or around the dining room table with Aunt Minnie and the cousins for a "nickel-dime-quarter" game, no matter what your "poker I.Q." is before you read it. Easy to follow, fun, informative. A must-read before you read any of the "other" classics. Is "Poker for Dummies" a "classic"? Well, I don't know if I'd go that far....but it should be on your shelf along side Sklansky and Vorhaus, that's for sure!!
Rating: 
Summary: Very poorly written
Review: Poker for Dummies is very poorly written, because it's very hard to follow. There's also a lot of waste material (commonly known as "BS") that doesn't help your poker game at all, but is there to make the book thick. The core on better poke games is difficult to understand. I regret having bought this book.
Rating:
Summary: Very poorly written
Review: Poker for Dummies is very poorly written, because it's very hard to follow. There's also a lot of waste material (commonly known as "BS") that doesn't help your poker game at all, but is there to make the book thick. The core on better poke games is difficult to understand. I regret having bought this book.
Rating:
Summary: A Problem With Focus
Review: The problem with this book is that it lacks a focus. A "Dummies" book
should instruct beginners on a specific subject. But here the subject
is too broad.
This book tries to address *all* of the following: casino poker, home
poker, online poker, strategy, tells, bluffing, money management, world
series of poker, poker personalities, tournaments, video poker, and more.
And being a reasonably short book, it doesn't cover any of these topic
satisfactorily.
There are some good bits in the book. However my advice is to determine
your objectives for reading a poker book and find one focused to that
objective.
Rating:
Summary: Not really for dummies
Review: This book failed to meet the criteria it was written for. In other words the whole point of the "for Dummies" collection is that a complete layman can pick up a book on any subject he/she is not familiar with and get a good idea about the whole thing. This is not the case with this book. Although it cover the basics it does not cover all the basics before going on to the next subject. A person with no idea about Poker and Poker variations would get confused - the book would leave too many open questions for an intelligent reader who knows nothing or very little about Poker. I can not recommend it for beginners - which is who this book should be for.
Rating: 
Summary: good info, but not good teaching
Review: This book has its strengths, and I'm not sorry I bought it, but a few days later I had to buy another, more straightforward one to clear up some basic questions. That is not a strong selling point for a "Dummies" book. I have two main criticisms (aside from the fact that it barely mentions draw poker at all): First, a complete and easy to find glossary is a must in a book for beginners, and the one in this book is neither (you'll need it for chapter 2, where you are unexectedly thrown into the deep end of the jargon pool). Second, the examples were few and somewhat hard for me to follow. I need to be led by the hand for a few games, so I can apply that slowly but thoroughly acquired knowledge at my own pace. I don't feel that "Poker For Dummies" offers me that opportunity. A very useful thing I did get from this book was their recommendation of wilsonsw.com, whose software (with free demos) allows you to participate in thousands of hands of certain variants of the game in a pretty realistic manner...not tutorial exactly, but very helpful.
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