Poker: A Guaranteed Income for Life by Using the Advanced Concepts of Poker (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 246 pages
• Publisher: Crown Pub; Revised edition (June 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517530171
• ISBN-13: 978-0517530177
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,213,670 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought Provoking True Believer Guide, May 18, 2003

By	Ashley Adams "dadams2796" (Roslindale, MA USA) - See all my reviews

Wallace's is surely one of the best books ever written about playing poker. His is not the scientific how to manual that will make you more technically proficient. For that read any of a number of books about specific brands of casino poker (Sklansky, Malmuth, Caro, Kreiger, Jones, Carson can help you there). But if you want the quintessential book about how to take advantage of poor home game players then this is your bible.

Intentionally or otherwise, in the process of showing you how to best fleece your friends and acquaintances at poker Wallace forces the thoughtful reader to examine the underlying reasons we play this game. Do we really want to get friends into feeder low stakes games, dupe them into thinking they're pretty good, convince their spouses that they're doing OK at poker, while luring them into higher stakes games where we can go for the kill? If we do, this book shows us how. But even if don't, by showing us how, Wallace forces us to come to grips with how far we're willing to go to win at this fascinating game.

The book is not without its flaws and holes however. Wallace's statistical tables in the back are in error. Check out Scarne's tables in his books or Caro's from the MCU on line. And Wallace doesn't even touch on tournament poker or playing in a casino or on the now-popular forms of poker like Hold Em and Omaha. But then, Wallace begins his instruction as if you are already a solid technical player. His tutoring is on how an already good poker player can win the most money from other home game players. In that regard his book is a masterpiece.

As a final aside, it's interesting to note that in Wallace's later works -- the whole "Neo-Tech" genre -- he clearly has gone off the deep end. But this book was written before these bizarre excursions into psuedo-science and seems sane, though obsessive.

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Major milestone in poker books - and beyond, February 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Poker: A guaranteed income for life by using the advanced concepts of poker (Paperback)

This should have been the poker book that ended poker books. At the time it came out, it was far, far deeper and more sophisticated than anything else in the field, and in some ways, despite the exponential improvement in poker literature, still is. When the Jacoby's and Rubens's were telling us to keep stakes down, quit by midnight, and don't let players get hurt, Wallace knocks down those barriers like wooden fences in a category 5 hurricane.

As with Wallace's other writings, he purports theory without many specific examples. that's up to you, which demands a lot of the reader. But this book is the only one I know of which provides a framework for working a maximum-win approach in home poker games, with stark amorality and requiring a tremendous amount of work (and patience, a necessary poker virtue which Wallace severely underemphasizes). That approach isn't what most poker players want, and few of those would work hard enough to implement it decently, but for the handful of others it could work.

The book gets its true greatness at the end, when he explains that for all the possibilities inherent in poker, it's a losing proposition. After teaching us to be "good players," he explains why the "good player is the biggest loser in poker." Why, you'll have to read. This book is no match technically for the products of Sklansky, Malmuth, Zee, and others, but has a vision which stands tall even today. Poker is work - if you want it, you can excel at it. and that's true for a lot of the rest of life as well.

12 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A First-Class book on winning Poker, November 21, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Poker: A guaranteed income for life by using the advanced concepts of poker (Paperback)

This book focuses on winning maximum money in poker and earning a living on it. Therefore, it is a rather serious book that outlines the 120 concepts of winning poker. This may sound confusing, but once you read it, you will understand it fully. This book is a great book if you want to win money. If you only want fun, don't bother.