Customer Reviews

Bad Beats and Lucky Draws: Poker Strategies, Winning Hands, and Stories from the Professional Poker Tour

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

In a year highlighted by a close presidential election that emphasized how divided the United States is, I present to you Phil Hellmuth Jr., arguably the most divisive man in professional poker. Anyone even vaguely familiar with professional poker is aware of Hellmuth. The spectacle he can make with his immense poker talent is matched only by the monumental spectacle he makes when he loses. He yells, he swears, he collapses to the ground, he cries, he whines, and he commits various other overtly dramatic acts in the name of defeat. It's quite a show.
Any player with his level of talent in pretty much any field of will attract some fans. Perhaps because of the attention he brings to himself with his dramatic flailings, or perhaps because he is not modest about how good he is, the people that hate Phil Hellmuth are far more vocal than his fans. On message boards all across the internet, right now as you're reading this, people are arguing about Phil Hellmuth. Some are merely calling him a cry baby, some are suggesting he has always just been lucky, and many, many people are calling him an idiot. The loyal legions of Hellmuth fans are busy at work refuting all of it. (He is tied with Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan for the most WSOP bracelets ever, of course. They mention that a lot.)
In any case, it is into this mess of controversy that Hellmuth has unleashed his second book, Bad Beats and Lucky Draws. The subtitle of the book is: Poker Strategies, Winning Hands, and Stories from the Professional Poker Tour. This is not a very accurate description of the content of this book, as the entire text of the book, every page, is dedicated to telling the story of real hands from big poker tournaments, most of them being important hands from Hellmuth's career.
So to be clear: there is no poker strategy in this book.
The book is a quick read at about 220 pages, and it should certainly be considered light reading. Not a lot of deep thinking will be done over what Hellmuth has offered us in this one, and in fact, a few times in the early going I found myself asking, "Why am I reading this?" The book is ultimately an entertaining read, though, and if you're grinding your way through something more technical and boring like David Sklansky, this is an excellent counterpart to turn to, to take a break from the math and implied odds theory.
There are some awkward moments in this one, due to Hellmuth's aforementioned ego, that will surely provide fodder for the anti-Hellmuth crowd. A few times through out the book, Hellmuth directly addresses the famous poker player he is talking about. For example, if it were a chapter about a hand Daniel Negreanu played, it would end like, "Great job, Daniel! I'm proud of you!" I could imagine this crazy combination of silly and shmoozy would turn some readers off. I found most of the stuff like this to be kind of funny, but that's just me.
On the whole, as I got through the book, I realized that I found Hellmuth to be an oddly entertaining writer. At first, his writing style seemed very strange and almost immature. He doesn't seem to take himself too seriously on the page, though, and once I got used to it, I really flew through the book. He used an insane amount of exclamation points, which have never seemed funnier. His personality really came through, and if you've seen a Hellmuth interview on TV, it was basically just how you'd imagine it'd be to have Phil Hellmuth tell you a bunch of poker stories.
The best portion of the book is the Cheesehead Poker chapter at the end, which tells a bunch of stories from Phil's early poker days back in Wisconsin. He really sets the scene well, and you can feel a bit of the nostalgia he must feel to be telling these stories from years ago. The thing that separated this section from the rest, I guess, was that the stories from big poker tournaments were stories that only a poker fanatic would want to hear, but the Wisconsin stories went into greater detail about the characters and lives of the other people involved, described places around Madison that Phil played poker, and you really just got more of a sense of how the things in these poker games affected the real lives of the people and places involved. They seemed like stories real enough that your uncle would tell you about them one night when he was feeling nostalgic, whereas the major tournament stories are a bit lifeless in that respect.
And I suppose with that, Hellmuth has set the stage to release his autobiography to be titled Poker Brat. On the strength of the Wisconsin chapter, I am really looking forward to it.

As far as I can see, this is just a collection of previously published articles, mostly from the pages of Card Player (TR) Magazine. If you must have them handy or have never seen most of his articles, then by all means get the book; but do not expect to learn much that is new.

It is very fun to read this book when you are a fan of Phil's. I believe in what he says and I take him for real. The book has many short stories of hands that Phil has witnessed in the past. I recommend this book to those who really apreciate Phil as a player and as a person.

[ ] Familiar with moderate to advanced poker strategy
[ ] Relatively fluent in poker lingo
[ ] Find verbal/written descriptions of poker hands entertaining
[ ] Understand, can tolerate, or find entertaining a big ego of a succesful, talented, bragging poker star like Phil
[ ] Looking mostly for moderately interesting poker stories, and only a little bit of strategy
[ ] Want to hear from the mouths of poker stars what they were thinking/feeling when they made that nearly super-human read on someone
[ ] Aren't disgusted by people referring to $10000 bets as "small"
[ ] Care about stars in the world of tournament poker

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If you can honestly check all of those boxes, you'll love this book. If you can check most of them, you'll like it okay maybe. Otherwise, stay away.

I read it, enjoyed it, but didn't love it by any stretch. Phil has one heck of an ego, which he more or less admits to. But he's actually good at describing and analyzing the way hands play, though near the end it gets to be kind of technical. What some of the other reviewers have failed to recognize is that Phil's ego is part of the reason some of the stories are entertaining, if you have any sense of appreciation for that kind of stuff.

BOTTOM LINE:
Can certainly be an entertaining read, as long as you know what you're getting yourself into, or have an open mind.

The subtitle of this book says "Poker Strategies, Winning Hands, and Stories..."

The order of those three should be reversed, because this is largely a collectoin of stories. True, you can learn from these stories if you pay attention (if you ever play Phil, I suppose this could help), but most of his analysis seems self-explanatory, or merely justification of a wierd play that he made himself.

The most annoying thing about this book is the amazing sense of deja vu you get while reading it. Many of these stories have already been printed in CardPlayer Magazine, which I found annoying, since I am a reader.

These things said, the book is entertaining if you like bad beat stories and stories about big hands. If that is what you are looking for, definitely get it. It is a quick read for your bedside or bathroom, and should be viewed mainly as entertainment.

This book is a fun read making for a good bedside reader... or in the "library" if you know what I mean!

Phil Hellmuth is a person you either LOVE or HATE. Many people on online forums chastise his seeming crazy antics and dumb play at the WSOP, but results speak for themselves and Phill is the winningest tournament player.

Phil's first book Play Poker Like The Pros sold like crazy yet every above average holdem player laughs at the content... then again, maybe it's GOOD for poker that so many new players are learning from Phil!

Regardless of your opinion of Phil, this book is a fun read. The various "fish stories" are great entertainment. If you LOVE Phil then you'll love this book. If you HATE Phil then the stories in this book (about superstition, ESP, profiling players, etc.) will just reinforce everything you already feel for Phil.

This book won't change your mind about Phil, but it is worth a read through once. And maybe only once. :)

While I am NOT one who makes it a point to write reviews about books I've read, whether good or bad, I felt it my duty as a "Poker Playing Book Reader" to advise everyone to PLEASE, save their money. If you feel you must read this book, OR worse, if you LOST A BET and therefore MUST read it, BORROW IT from someone or get it from a library. That way you can take it back when you are finished.

This text MIGHT have worked, though poorly, as Phil Hellmuth's Poker Blog; but even then it would have had to have been delivered in tiny, barely tolerable "chunklets."

Everything about this book bothered me. As a small example: How much EXTRA space in a book does it REALLY take to spell out the suits of cards as you are explaining what occurred in a particular hand? It is sooo much easier to 'paint a mental picture' to say "the flop revealed a Queen of Hearts, Two of Clubs and 8 of Diamonds" than to say "the flop revealed a Qh, 2c, 8d." Seriously, try it.

On the first 3 or 4 pages alone you learn quickly how the entire Poker Playing Universe owes their soul to Phil Hellmuth; and because of this, anyone who has ever won a dime since "The Phils" arrival onto the Poker circuit owes not only a debt of gratitude, but also a % of their winnings!

I could keep going, but I feel reading about my displeasure with this book is probably as horrid as reading the book. Lot of good Poker books to select from, DO NOT waste a minute OR a dime on this one.

Enjoy Reading, Enjoy Learning, Enjoy Life.

This book is an interesting read of stories written by Phil and assorted other players. If you have some time to spend, enjoy poker and are not looking to develop your game this is a good read. Unfortunately, for any of you who subscribe to Card Player, or read articles, every one of these stories will be immediately recognizable to you as they are simply Phil's Card Player articles, published all together in a book. If you enjoy Phil's articles as I do, then the book is worth the purchase to have these articles all grouped together, but you may not want to buy if you will simply get frustrated at knowing all the stories already.

Phil has some great stories of epic poker battles and includes some advanced strategies gleaned from the hands. The hands are organized by events such as WSOP, WPT, European Tour and also by genre--Reading Players, Weird Hands, and Guest Contributions. Many of the pieces are from Card Player Magazine, but I hadn't read any of them before and having them all together helps get a better sense of the poker world and how to actually play in tournament situations.

It's a enjoyable read.

this is strictly a "read-it-at-Borders" book. i give it two because
Phil is halfway amusing with his own curiously appealing egomania and it's sometimes an ok read: like reading USA Today--you read a few interesting things but nothing really sticks once you put the paper down. fast food for the mind.