Most Helpful Customer Reviews
75 of 75 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Calculate odds with ease, July 1, 2008
Steven Roe has done a significant favor for the Texas Hold'em player who wants to learn how to calculate the odds of hitting his hand but is shaky on the math.
While there are other books that cover much of the same material, Roe writes in an easy to read style that I think will appeal to the less knowledgeable player. Roe apparently wrote this volume as a tutorial for his own self-education about Texas Hold'em odds calculations, and it's apparent that he is a good teacher. The book appears to be self-published but is excellent in typography as well as content and appears to be uncommonly free of typos, misspellings, etc.
I can recommend this book without reservations for anyone who wants the least painful approach to this essential subject. There are chapters progressing from "Basic" odds calculations through "Beginner", "Intermediate", and "Advanced" levels. Chapter 5 is devoted to shortcuts in making calculations.
Chapter 6 ("Proper Betting") does a creditable job of explaining how one should size his/her bets in order to make an opponent's call a mistake. This important topic is seldom approached in sufficient detail to make sense to the novice but Roe does a very good job. I wish more Internet players had this information so they could replace many all-in bets with bets appropriately sized to accomplish the objective.
I do have one small quibble. On page 14 and again on page 61, his explanation of calculations when there are two cards to come is unnecessarily complex. I'll not try to explain Roe's method which gives precise results but is tedious in application; instead I will give a simplified method that is good to about 1% probability. Simply multiply the outs by 4 then if the number of outs is greater than 8 subtract the excess over 8. Thus with two cards to come and 13 outs the probability of making your hand is 4x13-5 = 47%.
Comparison with some other books that cover much of the same material is perhaps in order. King Yao ("Weighing the Odds in Hold'em Poker") covers very much the same material, but is both more sophisticated and more difficult to read. Readers who learn to enjoy the math after reading Roe would do well to follow up with a dose of sophistication from Yao. Catalin Barboianu ("Texas Hold'em Odds") is a formulaic approach that might appeal to computer programmers but probably not to most readers. Matthew Hilger ("Texas Hold'em Odds and Probabilities") has more tables of probabilities than any of the others, but leaves the reader uncertain of how to proceed in doing his/her own calculations. Mike Petriv ("Hold'em Odds Book") covers the same ground as does Roe though Petriv focuses a bit more heavily on the math whereas Roe provides the "spoonful of sugar" that makes the medicine go down more easily.
For the novice or mathematically uneasy reader I recommend Roe's book over any of those mentioned above or any other that I have seen.
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book on Hold'em Odds, November 13, 2008
This review is from: Calculating Texas Hold'em Poker Odds Made Easy (Paperback)
I am a relatively new Texas Hold'em Poker player and I wanted to cut
down on the learning curve so that I could quickly learn what my
opponents have learned from their playing experiences. I found
exactly what I was looking for in Steven C. Roe's book, Calculating
Texas Hold'em Poker Odds Made Easy. This book is right on point,
easy to understand and it really works! There is a lot more to
calculating odds than just the rule of fours and Roe explains it
thoroughly. He also takes on pot odds and betting patterns so that
you are always asking your opponent to make the wrong decision by
making a call. What I like most is that there are no charts to
memorize because Roe's techniques are so accurate and easy to use
that you can make your mental calculations in a matter of seconds,
not minutes, while playing at a live game.
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Calculating Poker odds - simply the best, November 12, 2008
This review is from: Calculating Texas Hold'em Poker Odds Made Easy (Paperback)
As a beginning Texas Hold'em player, I found Roe's book to be right
on the money. I wasn't exactly clear what my odds were in certain
situations but Roe cleared it up for me in his book. This is an easy
to read book that gives the reader the tools he or she needs to
calculate any hypothetical odds in a matter of seconds. The greatest
part about this book is that you take the "program" with you. Sure
there are computer programs that you can run while playing online,
but you can't take a computer program with you to a live game. You
can take Roe's practical guide to calculating odds to any live game
in the world and no one at the table will know you are running it!
I give Calculating Texas Hold'em Poker Odds Made Easy by Steven C.
Roe five stars!
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