Poker Wisdom of a Champion

Rating:
Summary: Nice Read
Review: A very interesting, quick read. Mostly a collection of articles Doyle has written over the years for various publications. The book delivers advice, but is not really a strategy guide. Some interesting stories from one of the all-time greats.

Rating:
Summary: Insights, advice, and anecdotes on and about poker
Review: Doyle "Texas Dolly" Brunson is a living legend of the poker world. Televised poker tournaments are wildly popular and owe their increasing popularity to such legendary players as Brunson and the invention of the micro-camera that shows individual player's cards in that "Cadillac of poker" known as No-Limit Texas Hold'em, which is known to "take a minute to learn and a life time to master". But no matter what kind of poker you play, Doyle Brunson's Poker Wisdom Of A Champion is considered "must reading" as an informed and informative compendium of insights, advice, and anecdotes on and about poker and those who play it whether it be for small stakes or veritable fortunes. Poker Wisdom Of A Champion is particularly recommended for those legions of armchair poker fans who follow any of the televised poker competitions such as the World Poker Tour, Late Night Poker, or the annual World Series of Poker Championship (which Brunson won back-to-back in 1976 and 1977) held in Las Vegas. If you only have time for reading one poker book this year, make it Doyle Brunson's Poker Wisdom Of A Champion!


Rating:
Summary: Poker Wisdom of a Champion
Review: For those looking for a "how to" poker book showing you what hands to play pre-flop, odds, strategic plays, etc., will be disappointed in this book. Poker Wisdom is a fairly accurate title: this book contains poker stories from Brunson's past each with a "moral" as applied to poker. Some of the titles for the chapters are "Pride and Poker", "Honor in Gambling", "Gambling with Girls". Each essay is about 2-5 pages long. Some of the stories are fun to hear, sort of like listening to a poker campfire tale and others are entirely forgetable. Overall an enteraining read for poker players, but if you're looking for serious poker instruction this is not the book to buy.

Rating:
Summary: Simply the Best
Review: I've read at least a half dozen of the top poker theory books, and I learned more from this one book than from all of the others. The wisdom Brunson espouses in this book is simple, yet it is so profound that it will change the way you view yourself and your opponents at the poker table.

The book is mainly a collection of articles Brunson has written over the years for various poker magazines. However, each one contains nuggest of poker genius (mostly related to No Limit Texas Hold 'Em)in plain simple English that authors like Sklansky and Malmuth have complicated with mathematical theories. Brunson is a simple man and he tells simple stories. The bottom line: poker is a game of people and if you understand the people you play with, then your decision making process is simplifed. The cards are secondary (although he does admit that with the influx of new players in the last few years, even he has to have good hands to make a move!). Even if you don't appreciate his wisdom, the stories he tells about the Texas roadgames of yesteryear are worth the purchase price. Somebody needs to make a movie of this guy's life!

Rating:
Summary: thoroughly entertaining
Review: Previously released as "According to Doyle," this book collects a number of Brunsons columns for some now-defunct gambling magazines.

This is certainly not the book to teach anyone the basics of poker strategy, nor to introduce anyone to modern poker culture. It's not supposed to be. But Brunson's stories are a perfect introduction to the culture and ethos of poker as it was when Brunson was a young Texas road gambler. The columns are entertaining, basically popcorn reading (I suspect some or all of them were told rather than written). They aren't engineered for self-promotion, and although some could be taken as mildly moralizing, they're not designed to change anyone's life. They're just the stories that Doyle Brunson has to tell. I thought they were a lot of fun when I was starting out in poker, and I still pull the book off my shelf now and then. I'm very happy to see this new edition in print, because I would recommend it to new players as a useful book in shaping their attitudes towards the game.

The only thing I found disappointing about this new edition is that it doesn't appear to contain any new material. I don't know that I can fault anyone for that, but it would have been nice to have either some truly new material or at least some newly recovered vintage Brunson to add. Maybe I've just gotten too used to DVD extras.

Rating:
Summary: thoroughly entertaining
Review: Previously released as "According to Doyle," this book collects a number of Brunson's columns for some now-defunct gambling magazines.

This is certainly not the book to teach anyone the basics of poker strategy, nor to introduce anyone to modern poker culture. It's not supposed to be. But Brunson's stories are a perfect introduction to the culture and ethos of poker as it was when Brunson was a young Texas road gambler. The columns are entertaining, basically popcorn reading (I suspect some or all of them were told rather than written). They aren't engineered for self-promotion, and although some could be taken as mildly moralizing, they're not designed to change anyone's life. They're just the stories that Doyle Brunson has to tell. I thought they were a lot of fun when I was starting out in poker, and I still pull the book off my shelf now and then. I'm very happy to see this new edition in print, because I would recommend it to new players as a useful book in shaping their attitudes towards the game.

The only thing I found disappointing about this new edition is that it doesn't appear to contain any new material. I don't know that I can fault anyone for that, but it would have been nice to have either some truly new material or at least some newly recovered vintage Brunson to add. Maybe I've just gotten too used to DVD extras.