Killer Poker Hold'em Handbook: A Workbook for Winners

Rating:
Summary: Useful guide to achieving a higher level of poker thought
Review: Poker player and author John Vorhaus takes the reader through a series of discussions and exercises designed to jump-start their approach (or improvement) of the game of limit holdem, the most popular card game in the world today.
One of my good friends in college once told me that the purpose of undergraduate studies in any discipline is to get the student to learn how to think. By this measure, Vorhaus gives us a very good undergraduate education in poker. While he doesn't ignore the specific nuts and bolts strategy that we would expect, of much greater value are the lessons that he gives us throughout. They could be summed up briefly as "keep your head in the game", and "always think about what the other guy is thinking about;" of course, they run much deeper than that. To call this a workbook may be overstating the case; however, Vorhaus frequently invites us to take a break and generate our own ideas on the topic that he is currently instructing us on, with the goal of teaching us critical thinking skills that will translate into dollars at the poker table.
By the end of the book, we've been exposed to some amusing anecdotes, some common situations in poker, and a look into the minds of some of the opponents that we will face, with lots of admonitions against becoming one of the less desirable stereotypes of poker players.
The Good and the Bad:
The writing in this book is very strong; while it may not win any awards for literature, it is miles ahead of the pack of poker books in terms of reader accessibility. Despite a frequent return to a couple of major themes (Don't tilt! Don't tilt! Don't tilt!), the book manages to move through most topics with a fair amount of clarity and entertainment. Vorhaus is not afraid to present himself as the horse's ass in his anecdotes, as long as it is in the service of showing us how to play. The approach of teaching critical thinking skills is also very much appreciated.
On the down side, I wish that Vorhaus had spent a little more time on presenting situations that the player is likely to find him or herself in, and I would have liked a mention of how an online poker player might apply some of the lessons that he is teaching differently.
Another criticism has to do with the exercises. If Vorhaus expects us to do the exercises in the various sections, he should have put a little more into them (rather than just saying "when do you go on tilt"?). Also, the "diaries" of some of the players we're likely to meet (a clever approach to getting us inside the head of our opponents) are a little long; the space could have been better spent by giving us more practical advice on how to beat the player-types presented, or by giving us more player-types.


Rating:
Summary: Great for beginner to immediate player!
Review: This is a great book for the beginner and intermediate player looking to inspect their game. Rather than just give the usual strategy recommendations, this book takes an introspective approach teaching the player how to ask the RIGHT questions to improve his/her game. This is more a mini-lesson in poker improvement than it is a strategy guide. If you've put in a few hundred hours of poker and are ready to look at your game in a more serious and structured fashion, buy this book!


Rating:
Summary: Good Novices' Book
Review: This was a good book if it's the first book you read on improving your poker game. There is no instruction on computing pot odds, implied odds, or any math for that matter, it doesn't dig deep into theory, and it doesn't really give any tips on what to do in certain situations, because, as the author puts it, "it depends," and he's right. Since this was the first book I've read on poker; I'm not sure what I was expecting, maybe more of "when you have this and this and the flop comes that, this is what you do." After reading this book, I discovered, that's impossible to tell, due to the infanite amount of factors that need to be considered (alot of which are discussed.) Rather, it focuses on playing valuable hands, and playing them aggressively. The "Killer" way. He stresses to "pay attention what's going on, not only while your in the hand, but even when you fold before the flop" (keep watching your opponents to see what they do/how they react to certain situations that arise.) The "workbook" aspect of this book is kind of lame; the author will tell you a story or a situation in which this or that happend, and then asks you to write in the space provided 5 times (or however many) this sort of situation happened to you and your reaction to them (what did you do). I didn't do any of the "workbook" questions that pop up in the process of reading the book, and I don't think I lost anything by not doing them...I felt them to be a distraction. In my opinion, I don't think it would hurt to skip the "workbook" part of the book, and keep reading the meaty part, where you get most (all) the information.
I am planning on reading the first book in the series next (I didn't know there was a first book till after I bought this one). As far as a helpful tool to online play, I'm not sure. This book focuses on and is written for live limit hold-em play, so I'm not sure how much info you can get out of it that would help you with the internet game...though I imagine that it couldn't hurt. Hope this was somewhat helpful. It's a quick and easy read too, not boring at all, and held my attention throughout, which I must say, is tough to do...