10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great book for the poker fan-atic in your life!, September 3, 2007
This review is from: My 50 Most Memorable Hands (Perfect Paperback)
This is a review of _My 50 Most Memorable Hands_ by Doyle Brunson.
This book consists of a series of very short chapters (typically 2-3 pages) describing hands from all over Brunson's career, from a family game to the WSOP Main Event final table. Brunson says that the hands are not in any particular order (p. 9). Some readers will enjoy this book an immense amount, but others will find it completely uninteresting. Do you know who Doyle Brunson is? Have you heard of Johnny Moss, Stu Unger AND Phil Ivey? Are you amazed that anyone would re-raise pre-flop and then bet out on the flop, turn and river with 22 and a board of KK767 (hand no. 30)? Do you even understand what that last sentence meant? If you answered "Yes" to all these questions, you will probably really love this book. (If you answered "No" to any question, don't even bother finishing this review.)
I have to admit that, prior to reading this book, I had a sort of romanticized image of the life of Doyle Brunson. I guess I really bought into the persona he projects in televised games. I assumed that he was born into some Bible-belt community where gambling was frowned upon, and had to hide his new profession from his family. I imagined that he had gambled in seedy places where people did things like pull a knife on him for having a higher flush. I fantasized that he had seen people literally drop dead of exhaustion at the table during marathon multi-day gambling sessions. I even supposed (don't laugh at me here) that Brunson had seen someone shot dead right at the poker table. Yes, that was my silly, unrealistic vision of the gambling career of the man known as "Texas Dolly."
Well, guess what? That's all true, and much more equally amazing stuff. (For the particular stories I just adverted to, see hands no. 22, 24, 10 and 2.)
But true poker fans will be even more interested in the details of the hands that Brunson played. The famous hands are certainly here, including Brunson's stunning back-to-back 1976 and 1977 WSOP Main Event wins with the same hand: 10-2 (nos. 3 and 6). He also includes his second-place finish to Stu Unger in 1980, a hand he admits he misplayed (no. 17). But for me, the single most spectacular hand was the one in which Brunson had AA, the board was A4224, no flush (hence no straight flush) was possible, and he folded to a bet on the river. Did you get that? Brunson had the nut full house, aces full of fours, he folded on the river - and it was the correct laydown! (See no. 7 for this one.)
This book is not perfect, even for its target audience. Sometimes I would have liked more information about the details of each hand. How large was the pot? Who bet how much pre-flop, and on the flop, turn and river? Sometimes this information is provided, but not always. But overall this is a terrific book for any big poker fans you know.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fast Easy Read, May 5, 2007
This review is from: My 50 Most Memorable Hands (Perfect Paperback)
From the title you can tell that Doyle is going to give an acount of his most memorable hands and that is exactly what he does. He gives about a 2-3 page description of each entailing why the hand is memorable. Sometimes it is Doyle laying a bad beat on someone or someone dying at the table. I guess that would make a hand memorable for me too!
Obviously, this book is not technical. There is no hand analysis or percentages listed. Just a first hand account of some interesting poker hands from one of the legends of poker.
As always, I hang on ever word that doyle writes, and he writes precious few. The book ends abruptly after the last hand. Too bad Doyle isn't half the writer that he is a poker player, otherwise this would be an outstanding book.
All-in-all this is a very light book and an easy read. I laughed a couple of times, and gained a little more respect for the legend... About a 2 hour read.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining and easy to read, June 30, 2011
This review is from: My 50 Most Memorable Hands (Perfect Paperback)
I have played Texas Hold'em for about 4 years, and Doyle Brunson has also been an interesting character on some poker TV shows. So when I saw this small book in which he retells his 50 most memorable hands from his long career, I had to take a look, and I was not disappointed. Each hand is introduced with a little historical context, and the sequence of poker play for that hand is very briefly retold -- each hand covers only a couple of pages in this book. The entire book can be read in about 4 hours. Doyle mentions in one place in the book that if you play poker long enough, you are bound to see just about anything, and that rings true when one sees how several of these hands played out. This includes a tension-filled situation, with lots of betting, but which then evolved into a rather comical situation when the very same card appeared twice in the flop, indicating that a duplicate card had been somehow accidentally introduced from another deck!! Doyle related how on rare occasions a player at the table actually collapsed and died, and he noted that poker players can be rather cold hearted since play resumed about 30 seconds after the ambulance had taken away the corpse! I should point out that, in addition to this small book, Doyle Brunson has also published an autobiography that is quite entertaining as well.
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