Customer Reviews

Championship no-limit and pot-limit hold'em: On the road to the World Series of Poker

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Probably the best book on "big bet" Hold 'Em available. Written in an easy-to-read, "down to earth" style, making it very easy to understand, with reasons why to and NOT to make certain moves in different situations. Achieved my very first top finish in a "no limit" tournament after reading this book. Part luck, yes, as in all of Poker, but not a total coincedence, in my opinion. Also contains some very colorful and entertaining stories, told by T.J. Cloutier, about his days as a "road gambler".

I would not consider this to be the bible on no-limit. The book starts with an interview of T.J.Cloutier and ends with a few of his road stories. In between there are a couple of examples of how to play certain hands. But in general i found litlle basic big bet poker advice. The tournament section i felt was pretty good. Overall i wouldn't adivce this book to a beginning big bet player. I think they would be better off buying Pot-limit & No-limit poker by Ciaffone/Reuben. If on the other hand you're an somewhat advanced player, then you might find some usefull information in this book.

A truly great book for some of the reasons below:
Shows and illustrated how a great player like TJ Cloutier plays and thinks about the key hands. If you agree that preflop play is key then you will agee that which cards to play preflop and how to play them after the flop are the key issues.
Introduces key concepts of tourney play and splitting up how you approach the beginning , middle and late stages of a tournment.
The colourful road stories are all a bonus.
Several winners have mentioned this book as being piviotal to thier success including Mcmanus's 5th place at the WSOP main event.
With many newer books on NLH including the two books by Harrington taking a more detailed scientific approach to which hands to play this book is getting a bit dated.
However for ease of learning and its relatively small size which means you can implement your knowledge faster it makes a great primer to the more detailed newer texts.
Also you will learn and understand TJ's style of conservative tight/aggresive play.
Who is TJ Cloutier? The most winning NLHE tournament player. Placed 2nd twice at the WSOP main event (Came 2nd to Chris Ferguson) Holds 6 WSOP bracelets.
Who is his co author Tom Mcevoy?- Former wsop Main event Champion
This was one of the key books that I used to win the weekly Thursday NLHE tourney at the Shara Las Vegas. A $2000 return on my $20 book.

For the same reasons Sklansky's Advanced Hold 'Em book is required reading: most everyone playing no-limit hold 'em has probably read this book by now. The advice is sound, basic no-limit advice. Unfortunately, everyone else has incorporated this information into their play so you'll have to adapt it to your own style of play. For beginners, this is an excellent introduction. And as an aside: Jim McManus in "Positively Fifth Street" details his play in the WSOP main event and uses this book as his "guide". As he gets closer and closer to the finish he ends up playing against the author of this book. It's a brief, but funny moment in an otherwise 'okay' book. But back to this book: it's short at 200 pages, but it's still the best introduction to no-limit hold 'em which is all the rage these days because of the WPT. So before you go 'all in' read this book.

TJ Cloutier has long been one of my favorite poker players. He is a gentleman as well as a poker genius. That being said, I would argue that this book, like TJ seems to have let the game pass by a little bit.

There is fantastic history of some of the characters and tournaments of TJ's life as well as a quick auto biography, and the pot limit section reads well for anyone not to familiar with that type of poker. However, I feel like the no limit section is dated and fairly basic. It seems a lot of what TJ talks about comes from a time when people only played the top ten hands, and doesn't leave a lot of room for creative play that seems much more popular today.

That being said, if one reads the book carefully, there are several good tips that should make the serious player plenty of money over the long haul. TJ is one of the classiest and best poker players of all time and this book is as good of a starter book as any; it's not too thick and there is plenty of character.

This is the best book on poker from the best player. A great companion to 'Super/System' poker fans will enjoy this hands on gear turning read. Truly a neccesary book for the poker library. In contrast to Sklansky this book will not hold your hand so if your a begginer or your weak you need not pick it up. THis book is for the serious player looking to notch himself up. THis book helped an amateur take 5th in the WSOP and it can help you too!

This book is pretty poor relative to other poker books.
It's not that the book doesn't have anything to teach, it's just that I felt that for the cost of the book compared to the material versus the value of other poker books is poor.