Customer Reviews

The Illustrated Guide to No-Limit Texas Hold'em: Making Winners out of Beginners and Advanced Players Alike!

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

 

 

This book was given to me as a gift by my sister and my brother-in-law. It's best for players who have 4 months or fewer experience, or players who don't get the opportunity to discuss or read strategy often.

The meat-and-potatoes of this book are the 150 scenarios it gives you. The author takes you through his logic of the given scenarios, and often explains what the actions of the other players in the hand indicate. I think this is a very practical way of teaching beginning players what they should be looking for, instead of just droning on about probabilities, courtesies, and personal tics for pages on end.

There are several different scenarios, and admittedly, a few of them are extremely rare ones. The point the author is making on these rare scenarios is that there are consequences for mistakes, often drastic ones.

One of the scenarios is four-of-a-kind, which I have achieved only once, last week against my brother-in-law actually. Another scenario is a royal-flush draw that the opponent is bluffing on. So yes, while a royal flush draw is rare indeed, the lesson being taught is that the betting behavior of the opponent earlier in the hand indicates that he is trying to pull a fast one. That's certainly a valuable lesson to learn, and the magnitude of the hand lends itself well to hammering in the message.

The book also has a respectable glossary that most beginning players will use from time to time, as well as an odds chart that will be of interest. Most poker books for beginners have these, though.

However, there are problems with this book. For instance, from page 144 to 151, the scenarios include you starting with a pair of sevens, one of which is a club. The table ends up showing another seven and two clubs... except that seven IS one of the clubs! If this scenario actually did happen, the lesson to learn wouldn't be about a flush draw, it would be about kicking the dealer's butt because there are two of the same card (a seven of clubs) in the deck! The scenarios on these pages are therefor completely invalid because there is an extra club and an extra seven in the deck, which completely screws up the odds. I'm sure it's just a mis-print, but it's a fatal one for the respective pages.

I've also noted that in several scenarios the author tells the reader that the pot-odds are something that they are not (page 187, the pot-odds are 5.4 to 1, not 4.4 to 1). Another typical problem is on page 149, again involving pot-odds, where the author should have written something along the lines of "The pot is too big with respect to the current bet..." instead of just "The pot is too big to fold." A new player could easily be lead to believe that it's always justifiable to stay in a hand, no matter what the odds, simply because of the size of the pot. Since the idea of pot-odds is such an important concept for players to understand, and this occurs in the section of the book where the concept is being firmly introduced, this is a bit of a problem.

And on another page (I can't remember which, I forgot to mark it), we're told a player has folded but the illustration indicates that they are still playing the hand.

Overall, if you're a beginning player, you're probably attracted to the idea of an illustrated guide, and this does a pretty decent job overall. It does have it's faults, but it's perfectly fine about 90 percent of the time and the average person will probably learn to ignore the other 10 percent, or at least not let it get in the way of their learning. The size of the book is a bit deceiving, but the format lends itself well to instruction - certainly better that some of the long-winded, jargon-filled snooze-fest books written on poker. I have to imagine that a poker-savvy editor would have made this a better book. If you've got enough games under your belt to realize that you need some help, this book is a pretty book place to start. Don't forget to play, though.

There are lots of books out there that are just too much work for the beginner. Sklansky is brilliant but I can't wade through his books or most of the 2+2 library just yet. That's a criticism of me not them.

Lots of other books attempt to describe hands in prose or through some kind of diagram. These books by Purdy provide a very clear way of illustrating and narrating a poker scenario so that it has the feel of being at the table. The situations can be read one at a time. Each stuation and analysis taking perhaps five minutes or so to read through.

Since 95% of the book consists of the 150 situations, don't buy this book unless you are willing to actively engage in thinking them through as presented. This is not a book to just sit back and read on autopilot. You have to "play" the hands. You might think of it as 5 hours of play at the casino poker room.

The books by Purdy have helped me the most in starting out. And who knows, after reading them, I may just be ready for some Sklansky.

Following the success of the limit version of this book the author has moved into the arena of the very popular no limit Hold'em game. Unlike most of the books out there this one breaks everything down into illustrated scenarios which include the important factors of position, pot size, action, and other useful information upon which decisions should be based. The reader can visualize the exact scenario and then read the correct course of action. By providing over 150 scenarios some of which are multiple parts of the same hand the reader is guided through a number of thought processes that are essential for any winning poker player.

A beginner is exposed to ideas they may never have considered such as the importance of position, how to figure pot odds, the consideration of prior action in the hand, theoretical hand strength, maximizing profit from a winning hand, and much more.

Some of the concepts will be old news to an advanced player, but to new and intermediate players it drives home some very important advice covering real life and internet games. By using illustrations with every hand the concepts are easy to grasp and remember. It is a book that can be read a little at a time and is very easily absorbed.

The book is well laid out, making it easy to understand the action in the hand and Purdy does a fine job explaining the rationale for his betting decisions. For the most part, beginners won't go wrong following his strategy. But at one point he had two players slowplay over pairs to a board with flush and straight draws. It's not going to happen. At least one of those players would raise enough to push out the draws.

If you want to learn how to play your own hand in vacuum, this is good book, an okay starting point. But you be better off picking up anything by Dan Harrington Harrington on Hold 'em Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments, Vol. 1: Strategic Play.

An easy to understand visual guide to the game of holdem. A great beginners book.

If No Limit Texas Hold'em could be a classroom elective, then this would be the textbook that you bring to class.

Your homework assignment is situation #1 which you will study carefully first thing in the morning, highlight as needed, make notations on the poker "table" and then spend the rest of the day just thinking about the play of this hand.

This is a great "workbook" and as such makes for an excellent supplement while reading another author of your liking to impart their poker wisdom by way of prose. (My favorite is Lou Krieger).

While this text is geared toward Tournament play, I would love to see Dennis Purdy team up with Lou Krieger to produce a similar situation text on the No-Limit Cash game that I am most likely to play at the Hard Rock casino here in South Florida.

Five Stars for this excellent workbook.

I'm between Beginner and Intermediate, and this book works great for me. Illustrations help reders to understand situations very clearly. With this book I feel as if I were at a card table with a great mentor.

I was not a fan of this book. It contains a lot of errors - like how to look like you are going to bet by holding your chips when describing an Internet tournament scenario! Of the 150 scenarios, one includes making a Royal Flush and another involves flopping quads. Sure, they happen, but I've been playing online for more than six years, and I've made one Royal. Are there people playing on the Internet as dumb as the opponents described in this book? Sure. But the overall message I took away from this book is, "Don't gamble unless you have the absolute nuts." Good luck on that. Find a better use for your money.

Unbelievably bad advice on playing no-limit tournaments. Several hands are devoted to how to play Ace/King with an effective stack of less than 5 big blinds. Some of the most bizarre advice you will find on this game. It might be worth picking up as a novelty item though.

This is a 5 star book- especially for beginners. But it really isn't a guide to no-limit Texas Hold 'Em. It simply isn't comprehensive enough to rate such a title. The reason is this:

The first 31 pages are the acknowledgment, introduction,and brief discussions of the starting hands, pot odds, and some probabilities. Then it is 300 pages of example hands, with information about the odds involved, and a detailed explanation of the most appropriate action in the given situation and why. There are 150 such example hands.

As such, it is a WONDERFUL book. I only recently got involved in playing poker (strictly for fun) and have read previous books including "Texas Hold 'Em for Dummies" and a couple of specialized books on odds, probabilities, and betting strategies. By far, this book advanced my knowledge the most, but it is NOT a good starting point for novices. For utter neophytes I think that the combination of this book with a very basic overview such as the "'Dummies" book is probably ideal.

Thus, I think that the title is a little bit presumptuous. If you are a Texas Hold 'Em amateur but already beyond the "'Dummies" book stage then it is outstanding, especially in the realm of strategy for "buy-in" style no-limit tournaments, which combined with limit ring games in casinos covers the vast majority of Hold 'Em games. It does an excellent job of teaching you to pay attention to things other than the hand being played- things like how close you are to being in the money, stack size, and should you fold an otherwise excellent hand so that you can sit back and watch an opposing player be eliminated without risk, etc.

GREAT book. It only loses a point for the too-expansive title. This book is not comprehensive, so if you need to learn the basic rules of Hold 'Em, you need a more fundamental book.