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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fun my-life-in-poker story, November 6, 2005
This review is from: Annie Duke: How I Raised, Folded, Bluffed, Flirted, Cursed, and Won Millions at the World Series of Poker (Hardcover)
This book intercuts between the play at a huge WSOP Omaha Hi-Low Split poker tourney and Ms. Duke's life story.
The method works, but depending on the reader, you'll be rooting for one -- the game -- or the other -- the life story -- to come back.
She's from a studious but dysfunctional family: heck they're probably all geniuses, but Mom's drinking and playing solitaire, and Dad's grading papers and trying to break out of his genteel poverty teaching at a prestigious prep school.
Fortunately, things get better: her older brother, poker champ Howard Lederer, learns to beat the odds in card games and sports betting. Mom works for him. And Dad writes a series of entertaining, immensely popular, pun-filled books on the English language. (No, I'm not making this up.)
Therefore, the book is filled with a harrowing life story, a report on what it feels like to be the final table of a big poker tourney, and poker tips. The poker tips are scattered about the text in little boxes, but they are the real goods from a professional player.
Unlike other poker memoirs I've read, this book has a whiz-bang happy ending, and it reads as fast as folding to an allin bet from Ms. Duke.
Or, for another point of view on Annie's family, read Poker Face by Katy Lederer, her younger sister. (I told you they're all geniuses.) It's a touching memoir of growing up Lederer, but you won't learn any poker from it.
P.S. I wanted a bigger book with more poker strategy. When you learn how well Annie's done at the tables, you know she knows a lot more than she reveals about the game.
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You gotta love her!, October 23, 2005
This review is from: Annie Duke: How I Raised, Folded, Bluffed, Flirted, Cursed, and Won Millions at the World Series of Poker (Hardcover)
I have been playing poker for several years, and when they started broadcasting the World Series of Poker on ESPN I was hooked from the start. And as happens to most people I immediately took a liking for some players and started hating others. Annie Duke was among my favorites from the start, together with Daniel Negreanu, Chris Ferguson and Gus Hansen. So 2004 was a great year for "my players", since Negreanu was player of the year, battling it out with Ferguson, Hansen dominated the WPT, and Annie won the Tournament of Champions.
That is why when this book came out I undoubtedly wanted to check it out; and the result was as good as expected. Not only did I get to relive in Annie's own narration some of the tournaments she had played, but I also got to know more about what led her to that place in life. On top of that, she uses a very interesting style in her writing, intertwining the chapters about poker with those dealing with her marriage, studies and kids. While I was reading this book I got the same sense I get from when I see her playing on TV: that she is a very entertaining person, and one that would be fun to have in my poker table (of course, unless my goal is to win some money).
Annie also includes text boxes throughout the book that contain poker advice, mostly for newbies, but I found a couple of pointers that helped me become a better player. At the end there is a more thorough explanation about the different types of poker (focused on Texas Hold 'Em and Omaha Hi-Lo) and a brief description of the most prominent poker players that dominate the spotlight nowadays.
The book is great, but I cannot help but point out a couple of things that surprised me as being wrong. The first one has to do with the fact that Annie makes reference to another poker pro that carried out a vicious internet campaign against her, but she never mentions him by name. I don't really understand the reason behind this mystery. The second has to do with a mistake she makes when describing an Omaha hand. She mentions having a nut straight, which is accurate, but then she goes on to say that the straight was A-K-Q-J-10 when for this she is using three of her hole cards (A,Q,J), which you cannot do in Omaha. She did have the nut straight, because there was a 9 on the board, and the straight was K-Q-J-10-9. Anyway, this is not a huge deal, but it really surprised me that such an accomplished poker player would make that mistake. Bottom line: she still gets five stars in my book!
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Buy the ticket, take the ride, September 23, 2005
This review is from: Annie Duke: How I Raised, Folded, Bluffed, Flirted, Cursed, and Won Millions at the World Series of Poker (Hardcover)
The two best reasons for reading ANNIE DUKE are for its point of view on big-time tournament poker and its honest self-examination of the life a controversial poker pro.
Duke and co-author David Diamond succeed in revealing a view from the table at high-pressure poker tournaments. The book goes through Duke's win at the World Series of Poker in 2004, then at the Tournament of Champions later that year. The vivid details and notes on the hands (the book isn't overly technical and contains explanations of the terms and rules of play, but part of the book's draw is that it takes you "inside," and that includes playing some poker hands) help understand the swirl of emotions and details that can fill a player's head when they get into this unusual environment.
The second reason for recommending the book is Duke's willingness to reveal how she became a professional poker player and celebrity through the circuitous route of a competitive family, academia, marriage, and motherhood. Plenty has been written about Annie Duke's story (including her sister Katy Lederer's POKER FACE, which also tells the story of their unusual and remarkable family). Her own version has some new details, but its best feature is its honesty. Duke thinks highly of her poker abilities and says so, but she also shares stories of her losses, insecurities, and bad decisions. She does a great job explaining the decisions that brought her into poker as well as those that led to her backing away from the biggest cash games.
Duke and Diamond also structured the book in a very readable fashion, shifting chapter-to-chapter between the action in her two big poker wins and her life story.
As a matter of disclosure, I wrote a book about professional poker players this year, but never spoke with Duke in connection with it. One of my sources on that book was Annie Duke's brother, Howard Lederer. But many other sources were players who did not like Duke and whose attacks on her are mentioned (though she doesn't give out their names) in her book.
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