|
|
 |
|
 All In:
Texas Hold'em as Played on Late-Night TV
by Anthony Holden
User-friendly guide to the Texas Hold'em
poker game, by author of the classic book BIG DEAL.
When Anthony Holden
was the only British player in the 1988 world poker championships in Las Vegas
- with which his classic poker book, "Big Deal", begins - there were 167
entrants. Last year there were 2,500; this July (2005) there were
5700.
What qualities do you need to play poker well? How do you know
when to bet, raise or fold? When to bluff? What's the difference between casino
poker and online poker? Where to buy chips? Which online site to choose - and
how much to risk? Anthony Holden, the game's finest writer, will answer all
these questions and more, adding a brief history of the game and anecdotes
about its great players, how it recently got so popular, and a glossary of
useful poker terms - as well as advice on the percentage chances of winning a
hand, the subtleties of 'position', the difference between pot-limit and
no-limit poker, and so on. Aimed at those wishing to play Texas Hold'em, the
poker game played on TV and in the world championships, Holden's manual will be
the definitive starter's guide.
Paperback -160
pages (December 8, 2005)  £3.99  not
available
|
 The Virgin Guide to Poker: If You Can't Spot the Sucker..it Must Be
You
by Alex Tanner
Intrigued by the talk of big pots, flushes, blinds, and bluffs?
Seduced by the subtle politics of the game? Or simply drooling over the
possibility of a huge win? Whatever your inspiration "The Virgin Guide to
Poker" covers everything you need to know to become a poker pro.
This
essential guide moves from a brief history of the game and a solid grounding in
the rules to understanding bankroll and calculating pot odds. Whether you want
to play online, with friends and a few beers, for money or just for fun, "The
Virgin Guide to Poker" will bring the thrill, the buzz, the pure anticipation,
and nail-biting excitement of poker within your grasp.
Paperback - 224
pages (December 8, 2005) £8.39 $11.53
|
 Poker on the Internet (second edition)
by Andrew
Kinsman
Andrew Kinsman started his
games playing career with chess, early on reaching the position of
International Master. His has clearly moved on to better things and has done
some serious homework on this project.
This book covers all the
aspects of poker on the internet that the new or experienced player would want
to find out. There are good discussions of the worrying aspects of internet
poker as well as site reviews of the main operations world wide. He gives a
good comparison of live versus online play and talks quite a bit about how to
organise your online play so as to keep yourself in check.Great beginners and
low-intermediate guide. If this is your first holdem book, or you've put in a
few hundred hours online in low limits but are eying the online game, then you
can't go wrong. This is a very thorough book and covers all the basic
strategies at every stage of the game. Andrew Kinsman takes a very "user
friendly" approach to describing the game and fundamental strategies
thoroughly. Kinsman also addresses the specific techniques applicable to online
play.
Paperback - 208 pages (October 6, 2005) £9.09 U$13.57
|
 Moneymaker: How an Amateur Poker Player Turned $40 into $2.5 Million
at the World Series of Poker
by Chris Moneymaker, Daniel
Paisner
Moneymaker's improbable
2003 victory at the World Series of Poker (where he was an untested amateur
player) has been seen on ESPN's WSOP series as many times as a Seinfeld rerun.
Here, with veteran coauthor Paisner, Moneymaker (the publisher insists this is
his real name) presents a blow-by-blow, hand-by-hand account of the
experience.
Unlike James McManus in Positively Fifth Street, Moneymaker
eschews analyzing the psychology and milieu of the poker world in favor of his
real interest: gambling. The result is a sophisticated deconstruction of the
important hands Moneymaker played as the tournament progressed, many already
famous among fans of the WSOP. For connoisseurs, this offers an entertaining
and insightful insider analysis that will allow them to decide for themselves
whether Moneymaker was fabulously lucky or played a skillful game and thus
deserved his success. For the uninitiated, the excitement of Moneymaker's
progression toward the big prize will be enough to thoroughly engage. Readers
also get some surprisingly candid glimpses into a gambler's consciousness--one
that reflects the myth of American exceptionalism, the idea that each of us is
entitled to make and to break our own rules, and to make our own
luck.
Paperback 240 pages
(February 1, 2005)
UK Amazon £9.09 U$16.29 from Amazon USA
|
 The
Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of
All Time
by Michael Craig
"A thrilling portal into a culture the rest of us can scarcely
imagine, this book plants the reader ringside for history's richest poker game,
then won't let go until we know the hearts and minds of the world's greatest
players, and the soul of the billionaire amateur who dared challenge them for
everything they owned."
- Robert Kurson, New York Times bestselling
author
The "professor" is Howard Lederer, a professional poker player
whose rigorous analytical approach to the game earned him his nickname. The
banker is Andy Beal, a multimillionaire obsessed with beating the world's best
poker players at their game, limit Texas hold 'em, played for stratospheric
stakes. The suicide king, a symbol of the aleatory nature of the endeavor, is
the king of hearts, who holds his broadsword behind his head. It's a great mix,
and Craig (The 5 Minute Investor) offers a knowledgeable and observant
chronicle of the high-stakes games between Beal and the syndicate of
professional players organized by the "Babe Ruth of poker," Doyle Brunson. The
syndicate put up $10,000,000 to sit opposite Beal, trading $100,000 bets. Beal,
for his part, took a mathematical approach, at one point running millions of
computer simulations of various poker problems, in search of an edge against
the pros, who rely on an uncanny intuition honed by thousands of hands. Craig
includes enough details about the professionals to allow readers insight into
their gambler personalities. Having interviewed many of the participants in
this legendary poker battle, he describes it with an appropriate sense of awe,
and readers will be awed as well.
Hardback 288 pages (June 2005)
UK Amazon £12.87 U$16.47 from Amazon USA
|
|
 The Man Behind the Shades: The Rise and Fall of Stuey "The Kid"
Ungar, the World's Greatest Poker Player
by Nolan Dalla, Peter Alson
and Mike Sexton (Foreword)
Begun as
an as-told-to by Dalla with Stuey Ungar, this biography tells in painful detail
the story of the poker and gin superstar. Ungar is certainly a fascinating
subject. He was prodigiously dysfunctional, a manic sports bettor and cocaine
addict who won an estimated $30 million during his life, but who, after his
death in 1998, needed a collection from his friends to pay for his
funeral.
Unfortunately, the complexities of Ungar's personality aren't
satisfactorily unraveled by the authors. They offer stories from the likes of
poker legend Doyle Brunson and Mike Sexton, television's reigning poker guru,
of Ungar's fabulous skills as a card player and spectacular need for "action,"
but few insights into the source of Ungar's self-destructive demons: he died
prematurely at age 45 from the ravages of drug abuse. Without any analysis, the
repetitious account of years of poker ups and downs, sports gambling losses,
manic acts of generosity and descents into drug abuse, as tragic as it is,
becomes tedious. Still, without distorting or downplaying Ungar's depredations,
this is a heartfelt, respectful and accepting biography.
Hardback 316 pages (June
30, 2005)
UK Amazon £11.29 U$16.50 from Amazon USA
|
|
|
Main Menu
)
