Customer Reviews

Online Ace: A World Series of Poker Champion's Guide to Mastering Internet Poker

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I had been looking forward to this book coming out since I first heard about it. Scott Fischman is one of the great under 30 players. To read what he has to say on the topic of online poker had me quite excited.

With that being said I couldn't wait to write a review of the book giving it five stars, but the deciding factor was `would I be in trouble if my opponents read his book?' ....no. I play a lot of cheap sit and gos and I currently do rather well. However, I was looking for something to help me move more into the ring games where I think I could do better on profit per hour. Is it going to help me move to the ring games and make money there? Perhaps.

I was looking for great insights into the differences between the online game and the in person game. Not a lot in depth deep insight. I was also looking for strategy differences between different monetary levels, like what kind of plays to avoid at lower levels and at what levels skill changes change. The other day I watched a $530 SNG, I was surprised by how little differences there was between the $11 game and the $530 game. I wish that could have been addressed in the book. What time of the day is most profitable would have been another good discussion. The book at a whole is pretty much an overview of poker.

When I do play online I do breakdown my game after I am done playing I do analyze my game what I did and where, why it worked, what would have worked better....etc. There were two major things I got from the book to get better at online poker you have to PLAY the game to learn it and the way I am approaching the online game is correct. I feel like I could have written about half of this book with what I have learned. That gives me a lot of confidence in my game.

Another nice thing about the book, Scott does not talk about online poker sites individually at all. There is no recommendation of any sites or any discussion of them.

The book is 224 pages long and it is a fast read. It took me two days to read it. Would have taken me one day but life events got in the way. If you have read any poker book prior to this one the first 45 and last 35 are pretty much filler or roughly a third of the book.

If you have not read a poker book prior to this one it will help your game. You will find it all very useful. It is a great book to make your first poker book, especially if you do not like math. It WILL help you. I highly recommend the book to you.

If you have read more than say 10-12 poker books, make a few visits to the bookstore and read it there because it is a good read but not really worth having in your home library.

I thought the book was excellent; it was not a re-write or clone of everything else already out there. Although it is a niche book-addressing mostly online play- it is one of the best niche books I've read so far. Unlike many other poker books, Fischman's books teaches you how to "think" about the game in ways your opponents might not consider. There are more "nuggets" in this short text than many of the "cookie cutter" approach books coming down the pipeline.

His format and style are also very refreshing after so many rehashed "clone" type poker books. Although he doesn't provide a "hand chart" type book, his strategic ideas are worth their weight and he gives away much more in the way of "secrets" than many of the other high profile authors seem to be willing to.

If there is a drawback to his style, it is that he seems to have developed a great feel for the game which may be unique to him personally and is somewhat difficult to learn other than just by doing what he did. His insights and those shared by several other top pros are good food for thought and definitely got me thinking deeper about my game and online play specifically. He also covers several psychological factors that are not often discussed which make the book particularly valuable(tilt, burnout, boredom, etc). Overall a solid 5 for content and a 5+ for the bonus intangibles he provides. Highest recommendation.

If you're looking for your first poker book, this is not the one. If you're looking for your 20th poker book, this still isn't the one. If you're stuck on a plane for two hours and the choice is the in-flight magazine vs. this book, then this book is for you.

Scott Fishman said in an interview with Phil Gordon that he hates reading books, and that he wrote this book so you can skim it in a couple of hours. He's certainly accomplished that, as this book is almost completely devoid of any content. It is full of "filler" material, like the rules of the game, hand rankings, a bunch of blank forms for keeping track of session notes, sample tournament structures, etc.

Also, he asked a few pros "What is your #1 tip for aspiring players?" The result are platitudes like "practice makes perfect", "do not dwell on your mistakes", and "focus on exploiting weaknesses in players who are worse than you". This kind of stuff takes up another dozen pages.

His main "message" can be summed up like this: there isn't a single correct style, you'll have to find what works best for you. Don't read books (he didn't), just put in time at the tables, talk to experts, practice a lot, and you'll eventually get pretty good.

Here's my favorite bit of "advice" from his book: "Before I choose a Sit-n-Go, I like to take a look at two or three that are already running to find a 'lucky seat.'...I know this sounds ridiculous, but I'll talk more about positive superstitions in the next chapter." Now mind you, the book doesn't talk about pot-odds until the appendix, where he goes on to say that they're not really important, because "odds are nearly impossible to calculate accurately." Wow! Picking a lucky seat is worth talking about, but basic concepts like pot-odds aren't?!?!

The only thing that makes this book two stars rather than completely worthless is his chapter on Sit-n-Gos. He actually shares some specific strategy ideas that are pretty interesting.

Finally, there is almost nothing in this book that is specific to online poker. Any decent discussion would have to cover the tools specific to online, such as Pokertracker and how to interpret the various stats it generates, which he barely mentions.

I think you get the picture: a quick read, lots of generalities, a waste of time.

Similar to the first reviewer's comments, I really expected a great book from Fischman, regarded as one of the best online players, and certainly one of the best online players who've transitioned to live play ... Almost to a word, I'll agree with the first reviewer's comments ... I expected this to be a "turning point" work, one that would allow me to tweak my game, or simply understand the online game a little better ... If you've never played poker online, this is a great place to start ... If you've played poker for awhile, well, you may not need this one in your library ... Certainly anyone crushing the $22s or higher will not find anything useful here ... But, Fischman does present some very good advice for players just starting out ... This book would have been very useful at the beginning of my online poker career ...

Scott Fischman is a guy who was once a dealer who went on to win a couple of World Series of Poker bracelets including one for the HORSE event. This interested me. (Yes, I used to play basketball and remember Bob McAdoo of the Lakers who was a deadly shot at HORSE, about whom it was said--by Michael Cooper--"You do, McAdoo.") But I digress.

HORSE in poker stands for Hold'em, Omaha hilo, Razz, Stud, and stud Eight or better. It's spread in some clubs, but you can almost always find some limit games at PokerStars and other places on the Internet. A round is played of hold'em and then a round of Omaha eight or better, then a round of razz, which is stud lowball, and then a round of regular stud and then stud hilo, and the cycle is repeated. You have to be a pretty good all-around player to be successful at HORSE, and anybody who can beat that game regularly earns my respect.

This book, like many others published in the wake of the TV- and Internet-turboed rise of poker, is directed at beginners or near beginners. The "Mastering Internet Poker" in the subtitle is justified however because Fischman reveals a lot about his overall approach to the game of poker, especially his psychological approach. For Fischman the most important psychology in the game is self-psychology.

There is plenty of strategy presented throughout the book and some explanations given on how to play various hands in various situations; but mainly Fischman concentrates on his overall approach to the games. In a sense this is a hybrid book: part "how-to" and part "how-I-did-it."

Fischman is not a deep strategic master of the game or a mathematical whiz. He is a "by the seat of your pants" player with a wealth of experience both online and in the brick and mortar clubs. His advice on tournament strategy, especially online Sit-N-Go's is excellent. He divides the tournament, one-table or otherwise, into three "seasons," the beginning when blinds are small relative to stacks; the middle, when the size of your stack begins to dictate decisions; and the endgame, when many or most decisions will involve all your chips and your tournament life.

In the "beginning" he likes to "look for spots where I can safely--or as close to safely as poker allows--double my stack. Otherwise, I've got no business being in the hand." (p. 71) In the middle he likes to start making small raises often with the idea of picking up the blinds from his now very careful opponents. In the endgame, Fischman becomes super-aggressive. One excellent idea of his is that near the bubble when many players start to play very carefully you can steal a lot of pots. He believes that in Sit-N-Gos you should aim to finish first, not just in the money because of the big difference between first place money (usually 50% of the prize fund) and third place (usually 20%). So he advises, don't be afraid of finishing fourth and out of the money. A first and a fourth are better than two third-place finishes.

Also interesting is Fischman's take on "multi-tabling" online. He believes that playing several tables at once not only allows the expert to win more money, it allows the expert to get into the zone and become "the Robot," as he calls himself when he is just one with the decisions, one after another in front of him on his computer screen. His idea is that because multi-tabling is so demanding on your attention it forces you to focus. You don't have time to worry about bad beats or time to over-analyze. You are a Robot, focused, decisive and unemotional. Yes, you miss subtleties and some opportunities, but you don't try to do too much and you go with your first instinct which is often right.

Fischman tends to the superstitious, which of course is NOT recommended. However he justifies it from a psychological point of view by noting that if something makes you feel confident that will help you win. So it's okay to depend a little on that lucky shirt, and yes it may very well be the case as you drive into the club and see all those license plates with the poker hands on them, "KAA 555," etc., that yes you ARE going to be lucky today!

Some of Fischman's recommendations on how to play specific hands in specific situations go against the grain of the conventional wisdom. But here again I found his ideas interesting. Sometimes he seems clearly "wrong" or maybe just doesn't make himself clear. For example on page 125 he writes about tables being broken down later in a tournament as players are eliminated. He notes that he doesn't like being moved to a new table after having made some rebuys because "I want to have the chance to win back the chips I have lost. I can't do that if the players I've been kind enough to 'loan' my chips to are suddenly scattered throughout the tournament. There's nothing worse that rebuying 10 times, having your table broken down, then finding yourself at a new table where no one has purchased a rebuy."

Unless I'm missing something, this seems plainly illogical because it doesn't matter from whom he wins chips. He still has the same number of chips and the same relative chance of winning the tournament. I think what he must mean is that while losing those chips he picked up some valuable information about those players and now can't use that information.

What is obvious from reading this very readable book is that Scott Fischman is one heck of a good poker player and that his strength is in his overall approach to the game, some of which comes shining forth from these pages. I think both experienced players and beginners will find something of value here.

Scott Fischman, Online Ace: A World Series of Poker Champion's Guide to Mastering Internet Poker (ESPN Books, 2006)

I've read a lot of poker books over the past few years as I've been trying to take my game up a few levels, and I've found most of them to be useful in one way or another. I'm not sure, however, I've found any of them as useful in as many different ways as Scott Fischman's Online Ace. The reason is simple: Fischman spends far less time talking about the kind of hair-splitting decisions that separate the wheat from the chaff at the highest levels of the game and spends more time talking about the world the rest of us live in. Most importantly, Fischman talks more about playing short-stacked then all the other books on the subject of tournament poker I've read-- combined.

Fischman approaches the game in a more general fashion than most authors; he's more interested in telling you about such things as how to stay in your comfort zone than what to do with pocket jacks if you're under the gun. And let's face it-- if you've read one other poker book, you know what to do with pocket jacks under the gun. But ways to avoid going on-tilt when the guy who calls you has king-0deuce and flops the full house? You don't get that in the other books. As comforting as I've found Dan Harrington's maxim that "if your full house gets crushed by quads, it just ain't your day," had I not spent years as a horseplayer before this, I'd not have figured out long ago that the other side to that maxim actually came from Scarlett O'Hara, not a name one normally associates with high-stakes poker: "Tomorrow is another day." There's always another race when you lose that photo finish; there's always another two cards waiting to be dealt to you. Scott Fischman knows this. Scott Fischman will tell you this. And that's the kind of thing that makes Online Ace well worth your time. ****

If you think your game would improve by emulating Scott Fischman then you should read - no, study - this book. Scott's game is a mind game, and this small volume gives some valuable insight into how he plays the game.

As several reviewers point out, it is short on number crunching, pot odds vs. drawing odds, specific hand recommendations, etc. That's because Fischman doesn't play poker that way. I remember seeing Scott at the final table of a tournament fold his pocket Jacks and go to the rail where he excitedly told his buddies "he's got ace-king - I can bust him." It turns out that his opponent did have ace-king. And Scott did win the tournament. That's what poker is all about - put your opponent on the correct hand and you can forget all about the odds. One of Fischman's greatest strengths is precisely that of putting his opponent on a hand - the mind game. He is very skilled in this area, and in this book, reveals much of how he thinks.

While dealing poker, Scott made the most of his opportunity for observing players and putting them on hands. Compare what Scott says with what Doyle Brunson says about no limit hold'em and you'll see why Scott has been so successful.

If you want a table of starting hands or a formula for calculating the odds of hitting your hand to four decimal places this isn't the book for you. If, however, you'd like to get some insight into how pros play the game you really should read this one. And, if you're one of those who read it and didn't see anything new - I suggest a more careful, thoughtful rereading.

I wouldn't say that the book was horrible, but it would only truly be valuable to someone who was just starting to play online poker. There were a few insights here and there that I picked up, but not enough to make the book worth what I paid for it.

If you've been playing online poker for any length of time you probably already know 90% of the strategies in this book. I've only been playing since July and most of the book was not new to me. His sitngo strategy is similar to one you can get from Roy Rounder free by signing up for his email newsletter. There's nothing advanced here. A good online player can use the sitngo strategy and make modifications for better results. If you're the kind of person who is constantly evaluating his game, reading forums and books then this book is not for you.

Not a bad book, it does have a lot of useful tid bits inside the pages, but the book will not really challenge your thinking and insight to the game. If you're a beginner this book may be a useful read, but if you've been playing for a while and past the beginner stage, you might want to look at some other more in depth material.

If you are just starting playing internet poker sit n go's, then this book is for you. It will give you a basic strategy to go by and it works. In the first 11 sit n go's that I played in using this strategy I cashed in 10 of them. But being a experience player, I found that the strategy was too basic and I was missing to many missed bets and easy pots. I have modified his strategy and I have incorportated his tips on multitabling into my game and I have seen positive results.

Both beginner and experienced players can pull useful information from this book but I would say that it is more geared towards the beginner.