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 he Guardian Poker Column |
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| Victoria
Coren |
| Friday June 16, 2006
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How to play poker
(How to play has been running from issue 16) |
When it comes to poker literature, there are three basic
types. The first type (which is what people usually want when they ask me for
reading tips) is the strategy book. The problem is, most of the volumes that
flooded on to the market during "the poker revolution" are cheap fillers which
might actually make your game worse; conversely, as soon as a book is known to
be any good, everybody reads it and you lose the benefit of secret
advice.
With that in mind, my best tip is to read Doyle Brunson's Super
System (which describes a very aggressive strategy for various games), followed
by Dan Harrington's Harrington on Hold 'Em, an impressive guide to more
conservative hold 'em technique. Then remember that everybody has read Super
System and knows about making a flair raise with a gut-shot straight draw;
everybody has read Harrington on Hold 'Em, and can recognize "the orange zone".
So don't make notes to follow these authors' exact moves. Just read the books,
and let them inspire you to have a good hard think about your own
game. |
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The second type of poker book is the
novel. Here, I would recommend Richard Jessup's The Cincinatti Kid for its
unique status, and Jesse May's Shut Up and Deal for its grumpy
authenticity.
The third and most interesting category of poker book is
the documentary: biographies and stories about great games and great players.
My favourite is Jon Bradshaw's Fast Company, a series of inspired interviews
with the world's six most significant gamblers, as they were when Bradshaw
wrote the book in 1975. Other modern yet pre-revolution classics are Anthony
Holden's Big Deal (1990) and The Biggest Game in Town by Al Alvarez (1983),
both of which recount the writers' amateur poker journeys and bear a lot of
re-reading.
But a promising new contender is joining the market:
Swimming with the Devilfish, by Des Wilson, published today. Having begun a
project to write a biography of the notorious Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott, Wilson
found so many other intriguing characters on the British poker scene that he
ended up writing about all of them. The result is a comprehensive yet pacy romp
through a previously uncharted corner of poker geography, which Anthony Holden
himself describes as "compelling".
Now, please don't go rushing off to
some soulless internet corporation just because I've mentioned a lot of great
titles. If you want these books and your local independent retailer can't get
them, visit Gamblingbooks. |
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