The Intelligent Poker Player

by Philip Newall

As poker theory develops, the field is becoming more abstruse and mathematical; gradually becoming less accessible to the layperson. The Intelligent Poker Player by Philip Newall aims to reverse this trend by presenting a cohesive and sophisticated method of play in plain English. This approach in principle can be used to analyze any form of poker, although this book mainly shows applications in the popular forms of limit and no-limit hold em. The Intelligent Poker Player is also the first book to discuss the emergent field of artificial poker intelligence otherwise known as poker robots. The best computers are capable of playing heads-up limit hold em at a world class level, and this book deconstructs some interesting features of their play. And finally, professional poker is a risky career choice. So in addition to the strategy chapters which include topics such as Information Hiding, Middle Game Concepts, and No-Limit Hold Applications and Extensions, the author will show how to mitigate avoidable risks with topics such as Bankroll Management and Shot Selection, Risk Preferences, Psychological Biases, Investing, and Predicting Future Poker Returns.

Genres: Games

428 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2011

Reviews

[Bryce Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

One could roughly break TIPP into three topics which I will consider separately:
1) General discussion of game theory. I am quite familiar with Chen & Ankenman, so much of the abstract theory presented was just a rehash of that in a somewhat less precise manner (presumably for a more general audience). That said, as much as topics like balancing ranges were brought up, the book could've used at least one fleshed out example, e.g. "With this line of betting and this particular board on this betting round, one's range might be {these hands} and of those we v-bet this subset and bluff this other subset, and that is in accordance with [0,1] games because of this." I mean, maybe Mr. Newall just doesn't want to share specifics, and it's hard to fault him for that.
2) Discussion of play vs. Polaris. This was quite useful, and I thought his analysis of nonstandard plays was nice. On the flip side, there were quite a few places hand histories were relayed in the most verbose manner possible, with accompanying grammatical errors ("There is 5 big bets in the pot"), making it somewhat unpleasant to read.
3) The general nonpoker stuff at the end. This was all right and are probably things one must seriously consider to be a professional poker player, which I am not.

So, I wasn't wowed. I'd probably recommend this to someone whose main game is LHE (mine is triple draw). In future publications of this book, they ought to correct some spelling and grammatical errors. Also, one needs conjunctions between independent clauses, not just commas.

[Fred · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of this book is mostly limit holdem strategy. While the author tries to make it applicable to no limit holdem as well, I didn't find it very interesting. The 2nd half of the book is excellent if you're a full time player and makes the whole book worth reading.