36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Know Thyself, June 12, 2007
This review is from: Your Worst Poker Enemy (Paperback)
I received this book today in an order along with two others. After a cursory review I put the others aside and spent several hours reading "Your Worst Poker Enemy." I knew from the title that the book would in some sense be my biography - everyone's biography.
Shoonmaker, in the style I expected based on his other books, outlines why you are your own worst poker enemy and provides careful psychological analysis that will help you to make that enemy your friend.
The book is organized in five sections:
- Logic versus Intuition
- Evaluating Ourselves and the Opposition
- Understanding Unconscious and Emotional Forces
- Darwin: Adjusting to Changes
- Handling Stress
- Finally, essentially an appendix, a detailed review of suggested reading for players at various levels
The section that may be least anticipated by most readers - it was by me - is the one titled "Darwin: Adjusting to Changes." Here Schoonmaker discusses in some detail the changes that have occurred in poker due to the explosion fueled by lipstick cameras and the Internet. Poker players must adapt to these changes and to others on the way. Some of these changes are obvious to the most unobservant, but some fall in the category of "Unintended Consequences." One of the unintended consequences discussed is that Seven-Card-Stud has actually gotten harder because less-knowledgeable, less-experienced players have abandoned it for the (apparently to the uninitiated) easier game of Hold'em. If you are a Stud player it is of more than passing interest to know that the fish may have abandoned your game!
Schoonmaker will give you the pointers needed to "get your mind right" in order to play at your optimum. Poker is very much a "mind game" and the primary focus of this book is the player's mind, and in particular those "mind factors" that contribute so significantly to losing. He discusses various causes of losing play and what you can do to correct losing habits. This is the heart of the book, and it is done superbly.
In a quick read there is only one point with which I disagree. Schoonmaker makes a hard and fast distinction between logical players (Chris Ferguson, Mason Malmuth, David Sklansky, etc.) and intuitive players (Doyle Brunson, Layne Flack, Stu Unger). Though I agree with him in that these terms describe HOW these players play the game, I think a deeper analysis of the formative experiences of the intuitive players reveals WHY they play that way. Brunson spent his formative years (as regards poker) traveling with Amarillo Slim and Sailor Roberts from game to game in the Texas poker circuit. On the road and at other times away from the table this trio invested countless hours discussing the game, analyzing player betting patterns, strategy for playing specific hands, etc. Unger's father was a bookmaker and the son was apparently obsessed at a very early age with the numbers (see his biography "One of a Kind: The Rise and Fall of Stuey ',The Kid', Ungar, The World's Greatest Poker Player"). His memory was legendary, so much so that application of that skill to Gin got him barred from playing Gin at the Vegas Casinos. My point is that these intuitive players developed their intuition through observation, deep interest, and deep analysis. The intuition came after years of preparation.
Enough of my quibbling. This book is an outstanding piece of work and deserves a place on every poker player's bookshelf - and a periodic re-reading.
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44 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Didactic and None Too Inspiring, November 18, 2007
This review is from: Your Worst Poker Enemy (Paperback)
Schoonmaker's writing is didactic, condescending and opinionated. He lectures as if he's a school principal admonishing an errant pupil. His approach to "helping" you boils down to: your results at poker are disappointing because you overestimate your abilities, rely too much on intuition, spend too little time studying the game and believe in luck. He argues that if you believe you have great intuition, you're memory is too selective and that it's actually hurt you more than it's helped you. Logic is essential, but ignoring intuition - the vast subconscious mind and all it has to tell you - is nonsense. Amazingly, Schoonmaker opines that you should spend more time thinking about your own limitations than exploiting those of your opponents. By focusing on exploiting your opponents' weaknesses, you will minimize your own weaknesses. I just finished writing a book on cross-examination for criminal defense lawyers; rather than tell my readers why their results are so disappointing (which is negative feedback and incidentally I don't know that their results are disappointing), I teach them how to think about strategy, exploit or cripple witnesses, and persuade the jury - all positive direction. Schoonmaker offers little positive direction. He freely admits he's not a great poker player, but insists that neither are you. If you think you're a great player, you're denying reality. I threw the book in the trash (I've never before thrown a book in the trash). It was a total waste of time to read and his ideas on categorizing players as tight, loose, etc. are unnecessarily complicated. After ten hands, I usually know if a player is loose or tight.
If you want to improve you're better off buying Harrington's three volume set on No Limit. Without being condescending, he teaches you how to evaluate your own hand, put an opponent on a hand (or at least narrow it down), how to bet for value, ect., and think about poker in general. His writing is so conversational and, at times, witty, it was a pleasure to read. I couldn't recommend Harrington more highly.
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11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A second vote for Didactic and Uninspiring, April 24, 2008
This review is from: Your Worst Poker Enemy (Paperback)
I agree with the other reviewer who felt Schoonmaker's tone was condescending and his analysis too rigid (I really take issue with his definition of "intuition"). In all fairness to Mr. Schoonmaker, I have not read his other book about being your best friend at the tables, but this book is not a good read for experienced players who are trying to improve their game or lift themselves out of a downturn.
Schoonmaker's characterization of prominent poker players like Doyle Brunson and Chris Ferguson as either intuitive or logical is also inaccurate (as the other reviewer noted) and he doesn't seem to understand the "art" of poker that only develops from a passion for the game, a willingness to learn and be humble at any stage, and the heightened perceptiveness (often called "intuitive" or "feel") that comes from spending a lot of time at the tables.
Schoonmaker seems to think there is only one way to approach poker -- from a purely logical standpoint. And in many respects he is right. But he does not allow for the creativity that comes from practical experience (I would say Doyle Brunson is more like this than an "intuitive" player). For the intermediate or even advanced player, I would suggest reading The Poker Mindset by Ian Taylor and Matthew Hilger, respected authors and experienced players themselves.
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