Customer Reviews

Killer Poker Online: Crushing the Internet Game

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

If you play K7o in early position (or don't know exactly what this means), this is not the book for you. Go buy Lee Jones's book on low-limit poker and read it about 10 times.

However, if you really know how to play, and you are frustrated on the internet, this might be what you need. He goes into the psycology of playing online. Talks about "What the hellism" - his concept for not assigning any meaning to the chips - and other self-defeating thought patterns.

Also read this if you are new to gambling period. Much of this "Self-control" type of stuff is what you learn from gambling experience in general.

However, the author does describe some "Winning Tactics for online play" that I take issue with. He talks about "betting it up" - going into a game and raising all the time to make people unconfortable. This is great if you are playing premium hands or constantly catching cards, but if you are against a even one or two decent players, you will see a lot of reraises, then get beat by the premium hands - the author doesn't go into how to handle that situation ! Another thing. If the game is low-limit, there is not a lot of bluffing that can be done period. So maybe the author is good enough do to this in the right game and the right stakes - but it's irresponsible offer this as general poker tactic to everyone.

I also take issue with his advise to chat decitfully or annoyingly so as to take advantage of "weak-minded or naive player". Every respected poker author on the planet tells players to be nice to people - this helps the individual game, the player himself (despite what the author thinks), and poker in general. This poker boom won't last if we are not decent to each other - and to suggest otherwise is again, irresponsible.

So while this is not a classic by any means, I found it a good mental check-up on poker and gambling in general.

I hope novices don't take this book to heart (unless they are playing at my table) because many of the concepts presented are more harmful than they are helpful. I guess the best thing to say about the book is there are FEW concepts (and therefore few harmful concepts) in the book. The author rambles about trivial things like where is your computer located, are you multi tasking, etc, and completely ignores the actual play until the last third of the book.

And then his tips? "Don't overplay, instead set an alarm clock to limit your play". PLEASE!!! If you have no more poker savvy then not to know when to quit, an alarm clock ain't gonna cut it. "Online poker is fast paced, therefore you don't get the rest breaks that you get in live games". Have you ever seen a little button called "Deal me out"? "Watch for this tell, although it can be faked and exploited". Well, there's some definite help. And how is that different than a person-to-person game.

Bottom line -- this book is VERY little help to anyone who wants to understand the world on online poker. As an aside, let me state that apparently I am not alone in this assessment. I purchased the book used, and the previous owner highlighted only one sentence in the 273 pages.

This book offers two ideas that are useful. One, learn how your
opponents play and document it. Two, focus while playing poker on
your computer. These points are over-emphasized ad naseum.

Essentially this is a collection of ideas that in theory could be used
while playing online. It is not a system of good practices based on
the author's actual experience. It cannot be, because too much is
impractical and contradictory.

No advice about how to play a hand is given.

What a disappointment. The title suggests that this book will give great insight into how to have much success playing poker online, then the author states within the first few pages that people can't make money playing online. So why insinuate that you can with the title of this book?
In short, this book is a stinker. Anyone with common sense and a little poker knowledge already knows everything this book teaches.

If you are a serious poker player forget this book. It contains
nothing that experience and common sense wouldn't tell you.
Very disappointing.

In short, this book contains absolutely no useful information. John Vorhaus complains that there are a pile of online poker sites out there with a pile of players all eager to take your money. Well, it looks like John Vorhaus is eager for some of it too. All he's done is jump on the poker train and he's laughing all the way to the bank. Kudos to you John for bluffing me with your book title. You had me at Crushing . This book will not help you win or provide you with any information to better your playing style. My advice? Use your $20 to buy any other poker book on the market, or deposit it onto a real online poker site to get some real online experience.

I have not read John's other Killer Poker books so I cannot comment on them. However, I did read this one and it sucked big time.

Vorhaus states several times that this book is not for the beginner, yet the only good advice contained in these pages is beginner material. All of the mental preparation stuff is good, all of the advice on booking is good, some of the ideas about playing a tight game are good, but the solutions proposed by the author are things that even the most humble online regular knows.

Aside from that, there are some really disturbing cop-outs. For example Vorhaus admits that there are online casinos which have simply robbed players of their money, but he won't tell us which ones they are because he wants us to "do our homework". What a joke. Let me get this straight, the book is all about how to make money by "Crushing the Internet Game" yet deliberately won't tell us which online sites are the con-artists? Give me a break.

This book will be useful to some that struggle with the mental unpreparedness of online poker, but aside from that it's a real rag. Look elsewhere.

It's obvious that John Vorhaus knows introspection because that is what this book is all about: Take a look at yourself. Often. Remember if you're losing (and most online players are, to put it bluntly, losers, who, guess what, LOSE) the only person you can really blame is yourself. What Vorhaus does is make objective the very subjective experience of self-analysis in relation to the game of poker and attendant psychology.

Poker is a game that lives within the very heart of the rapacious human soul. Because it is about money (and money is the electricity of the human enterprise) and because it is highly psychological, in that we ask not only what is the other person up to, but also what does the other person think WE are up to, poker is perhaps the quintessential human game. Vorhaus in this book, in contrast to most books on poker, goes to the very heart of the personal psychology of poker. After all people playing poker GET INVOLVED. They sweat BB's and they go on TILT. They rant at the screen and pepper their opponents with "trash talk" chat and other lies. It's an emotional game. A bad beat on the river in a huge pot can cause many an otherwise level-headed person to go bananas. Vorhaus, who cut his teeth in the California casinos, in particular at the spacious Commerce Casino ("The King Of Clubs") just down the road from his residence in Monrovia, hands out tips, exhortations, and advice, makes observations--some of them rude and off the wall--and using his own very extensive experience, attempts to guide the average Internet poker junkie into his or her own mind to see why he or she is a guppy amongst the sharks, as the case may be.

Vorhaus himself is obviously a very good poker player, but he is also a very good writer, and that is what makes this book interesting. There's not a whole lot of strategy, and you won't learn much about which hand to play in which position, or how to play JT when A, K, rag flops or whether to check the nuts on the river. You will learn, for example, about "feste verstellung" (German for "fixed idea"). What does this have to do with playing poker? Well, many players believe all sorts of bizarro things about why they win or lose, and in believing them they lose track of reality and end up massively focused on such delusions as "the game is fixed," "I'm playing against 'bots," "the river always kills me," etc., ad nauseam. Vorhaus observes (and this is a splendid example of how well he writes): "The fixed idea...stands squarely between a person's perception and his outer reality, warping incoming information like a black hole bends gravity and light." (p. 167)

What Vorhaus insists upon is keeping records of both how your opponent's play and how you play yourself. Say you run salty for a while at a game you usually beat. You feel you have been unlucky, that you just haven't been holding any cards. Normally in the brick and mortal world, barring a photographic memory, you can't really be certain what happened exactly. Your feeling could be a fixed and erroneous idea. It could be that you got outplayed, or that you fell into some bad habits like playing too many marginal hands or betting second pair into four players, etc. But on the Internet you can actually go back and see exactly what cards you held and how you played them. Vorhaus recommends that you do exactly that. Good-bye subjectivity, hello science.

Here's another example of Vorhaus's vivid style: He's talking about Internet poker as a "time sink." You're waiting for your spouse to finish dressing, sitting "in the front hall impatiently tapping your shoe." "Not to worry," writes Vorhaus. "Internet poker is there to swallow up those few stray minutes and put them to entertaining use. So stay at your computer until the tapping shoe is on the other foot!" (p. 223)

So this book is more (and less) than an introduction to the online game. For those strictly interested in a step-by-step, very basic introduction to Internet poker I recommend Winning at Internet Poker for Dummies by Mark Harlan and Chris Derossi. For those interested in "Money Management," "Mood Management," "Mind" and "Data Management" (titles of some of Vorhaus's chapters) I recommend you not miss this excellent and eye-opening look at what it's like immersed in the virtual, but very real world of online poker. It's a place where the players are all in alias, and the chips don't roll around the table, but flash electronically from seat to seat, while the cards fly through cyberspace like limbs in a kung-fu movie.

What a waste of time and money. I can't believe Jan Fisher and Linda Johnson would endorse this book without reading it. If they had read the book, they surely would not have endorsed it.
They have lost all credability. Surely John does not play poker online as his "online suggestions" are pure common sense. If you want to waste your money, drive down the street and toss $15 out the window... it will be more satisfying than reading this book.

If you are looking for a book that will tell you HOW to play poker, this book is not for you. There are a million books out there that cover starting hand requirements, positional considerations, pot odds, and game selection. If you are a beginning player I would suggest Winning Low Limit Holdem (Lee Jones) or Play Poker Like the Pros (Phil Hellmuth).

This book covers many topics that are critical to learn if you want to become a winning player such as "mood management", "money management" and gathering "book" on your opponents. I see that many people have slammed this book but these negative reviews also had fantastic phrases like "the advice is too general and time consuming to be of any value." I LOVE TO HEAR COMMENTS LIKE THIS!!

Yes, many of the topics covered in this book will take a great deal of time such as gathering data on your opponents. Nobody can ever say that playing winning poker is easy, if they do, they loose plain and simple.

Learning which hands to play and in what position will do wonders for your game. Learning how to calculate pot odds will take you further, however this will only make you an average player who may squeak out very meager gains at the lower limits. As you start climbing into the higher limit games you must be able to spot your opponents betting patterns, tendencies and then be able to quickly adapt to change. While your doing all of this you must also keep your ego and mood in check. This is easier said than done.

The topics covered in this book are very important for online play. This book is not Super System, Harrington on Holdem, Championship Holdem nor the Theory of Poker but it does have its place in your beginning poker library. Buy Winning Low Limit Holdem, buy Play Poker Like the Pros, learn how to play from these books. If you think you want to learn more check out Killer Poker Online. If nothing else, Killer Poker Online may shed some light on the amount of work that is required to play a winning game online at respectible limits. After you are finished with Killer Poker you can decide if you are ready to continue on a winning poker path or if you are more comfortable squeaking out minor gains in a low or micro limit game.