Customer Reviews

Poker for Dummies

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

At first, I felt a little sheepish putting this title between my copies of David Sklansky's "Theory of Poker" and Mike Caro's "Fundamentals of Winning Poker," but this is a very serious and very excellent poker title.

There are individual chapters on strategy for the most popular casino games (Texas Hold 'Em, Seven Stud, Seven Stud/8, Omaha/8), all of which were very clear and helpful. However, unlike any title I've seen before, this book is a COMPLETE reference, including chapters on poker tournaments, becoming a pro, Internet poker, and even video poker (which my mother found excessively useful).

Like all "Dummies" books, there are entertaining sidebars about great games, poker legends, etc. All in all, this is an entertaining book filled with invaulable information for all levels of play. Highly reccomended!

This book has its strengths, and I'm not sorry I bought it, but a few days later I had to buy another, more straightforward one to clear up some basic questions. That is not a strong selling point for a "Dummies" book.

I have two main criticisms (aside from the fact that it barely mentions draw poker at all): First, a complete and easy to find glossary is a must in a book for beginners, and the one in this book is neither (you'll need it for chapter 2, where you are unexectedly thrown into the deep end of the jargon pool). Second, the examples were few and somewhat hard for me to follow. I need to be led by the hand for a few games, so I can apply that slowly but thoroughly acquired knowledge at my own pace. I don't feel that "Poker For Dummies" offers me that opportunity.

A very useful thing I did get from this book was their recommendation of wilsonsw.com, whose software (with free demos) allows you to participate in thousands of hands of certain variants of the game in a pretty realistic manner...not tutorial exactly, but very helpful.

Before I read this great book, I had been playing poker a few times a week for about a year. I was pretty much gambling with little to no strategy. Like most beginners, I thought I knew what I was doing. After a few months of playing, poker quite honestly frustrated me. I would have some really lucky nights, and then a long streak of bad nights. I certainly lost more money than I put in. At this point, it was either give up, or get better.
I then found Poker for Dummies. Contrary to the opinions of others, I found this book to be the perfect beginners poker book. Much of the book shows how to play the most popular poker games, like stud, hold'em, Omaha, etc. There are also some sections for advanced strategies. I think any player can benefit from reading this. Was this book effective? Absolutely! After reading a few chapters, my game improved dramatically. Because of the easy reference format, I could find the specific areas I needed improving in. For example, if I needed some more info on starting hands, all I have to do is flip to the hold'em chapter and find the starting hands page. Since I have read this book, I have stopped gambling and started playing my odds. If you are tired of losing and want a good place to start improving your game, look no further.

As a relative newbie to the world of poker, I was looking for an easy-to-understand introductory text to the game. The book worked well in explaining the essentials (hand rankings, object of the game, rules for the variations of the game, etc.). The starting-hand tables were actually pretty good, too (especially for a beginner).

However, one must keep in mind that this book isn't meant to be the sole title in your poker library. The book touches on many, many topics (ranging from strategy to history to professional poker). But, it doesn't cover any of those topics completely (nor does it intend to).

If you understand the game and have some experience, you're probably pretty safe to move onto a more advanced title. However, if you're looking to get your feet wet, Poker for Dummies is a definitely worth checking out.

it's great that this book assumes that you know nothing about poker, because i knew nothing.

this book is great in helping you think of all the considerations in poker, what the odds are, the groupings of hands, what other players are playing etc, but with a bit of practise, you can make these decisions in a matter of seconds. and practise i did. when i found that lou krieger was host of royal vegas poker, i practised there.

the only aspect that put me off a bit, but was my own shortcoming, not the book's, was the issue of calculating the standard deviations, outs etc. being mathematically challenged, puts me at a disadvantage.

but this is a great book, which is comprehensively basic - as it should be. i'd recommend it to anyone.

America has given the world Freedom, Bourbon, Hollywood, Baseball and Poker.

Unfortunately we've also given the world "How To" books. And their most recent obnoxious incarnations, the "Zen in the Art of---" and the "---For Dummies" series.

However this one's not bad at all. I wish some of the reviewers who disliked it could name a better beginner's book--though I concede that if you play for money against some pros following the instructions given you might conclude you should have bought "Poker for Morons" instead.

(Do not despair. The real morons are playing Baccarat following amazing systems that enable them to count to 9 )

If, after reading Lou, you decide to keep on and take the plunge might I also suggest Lee Jones 'Winning Low Limit Hold 'Em '--a book which gives strict advice on the most popular form of Poker nowdays and which cannot possibly work because everyone has read it and feels obliged to deviate from it because they know everyone else has read it too, consequently, it does work. (did you folow that?)

Also consider buying Slansky's 'The Theory of Poker' regarded as 'The Bible' especially if you're a math-geek who can already discourse on the difference between probability and odds.

Otherwise just consider it but don't buy it. Carson's 'The Complete Book of Hold 'Em Poker' should also keep you busy for a few months, as well as anything written by Ciaffone, and by then you should be ready to enter the World Series of Poker.

Well, soon enough, anyway.

Seriously, if you can break even after playing cardroom poker in your first year, you're doing great. (If you can get a bunch of rich dolts to come over to your place on Friday nights and play Anaconda or a sillier variation you're doing even better but don't count on it.)

Lou's book is a good overview and he does list up to date internet groups which provide links to discussions and articles which will keep you addicted forever.

Just remember that over the long run, it's all about skill, not hunches. Besides, it's bad luck to be superstitious.

This book is great for everyone who's new to poker, especially casino poker. It explains all kinds of poker in detal and gives general rules on how to win in poker. You certainly can learn all your basics from this book, but I don't think it's good for people who want to learn Hold'em in particular - for that I'd recommend "Hold'em Excellence: From Beginner to Winner" by Lou Krieger. It explains everything in detail. Krieger certainly knows what he's talking about and explains it in a simple, easy to read form.
Poker for Dummies doesn't deal very well with internet poker; it only gives some general advice and the info is somewhat outdated. If you're interested in online poker, it's definitely not for you.

The problem with this book is that it lacks a focus. A "Dummies" book
should instruct beginners on a specific subject. But here the subject
is too broad.

This book tries to address *all* of the following: casino poker, home
poker, online poker, strategy, tells, bluffing, money management, world
series of poker, poker personalities, tournaments, video poker, and more.
And being a reasonably short book, it doesn't cover any of these topic
satisfactorily.

There are some good bits in the book. However my advice is to determine
your objectives for reading a poker book and find one focused to that
objective.

I haven't really read that much of the book. I bought it at the same time I bought Phil Hellmuth's "Play Poker Like the Pros" and I haven't had much reason to refer to the Dummies book after I started readinng Hellmuth's.

The book sets itself out to be like a general encyclopedia of poker. While it certainly purports to cover many different games and many aspects of the game, I found that it did not go into much detail at all about how to actually play the games.

For example, in the Texas Holdem chapter I was expecting the author to compare many different ways of playing the game and the approaches of different professionals and the pros and cons of different strategies. Instead he lists the table of opening hands he says you should play in different positions and makes pretty much no comment on why you should do this except to say that the standards are somewhat loose. Then he writes 1.5 pages about how to play on the flop, turn, and river. Wow, after a lesson like that I'm ready for vegas.

The title is "For Dummies" and I have no clue about even the first step in a poker game, I didn't even know hand rankings, and I found it hard to follow. The author will often use slang that I don't understand in an attempt to explain a key concept.

The home poker chapter was especially bad. He listed about 7 games you can play on one page. I'll leave it to you to infer what depth of coverage you can expect on those games. He made no mention whatsoever of what hands you should expect to win on in baseball, excpet that really good hands are quite common. Gee, thanks. I've played baseball before buying the book and I know there's no way you're going to understand how to play it at home after just reading the 5-sentence paragraph he wrote about it.

The author is a poor writer too. Sometimes it's hard to tell what he's talking about.

I'm not good at poker, so maybe this book has some wisdom to impart to a more skilled player, but I doubt it since it has very shallow coverage. Like I said before, I didn't read the whole thing so I didn't give it a fair chance, but I had seen such good reviews on the internet that I thought I'd go ahead and buy it. That should tell you not to trust net reviews- the author of the book is probably writing them.

Hellmuth's book costs the same and it was much easier to follow and had more in-depth information. Plus Hellmuth won the world series 7 times so it's just cooler to own a book written by him. I've never read any other poker books, so there could very well be better books than Hellmuth's, but I don't see much reason to buy Poker for Dummies.

The only part I've used so far are the chapters where he tells you what books and software you can buy to learn. I'd suggest that you pick this thing up in the book store, find those chapters and buy one of those other books instead.

I bought this book with "Fundamentals of Poker." This was a better buy for the information. As a true beginner, I wanted the biggest bang for the buck, and I got it here. For the beginner/novice, start here. A good read offering a sound foundation for the neophyte, I hope!