Decide to Play Great Poker: A Strategy Guide to No-limit Texas Hold Em

by Annie Duke, John Vorhaus

Decide to Play Great Poker lays out a revolutionary conceptual framework for no-limit hold 'em based on understanding your purpose for every bet during every hand of every session of poker you ever play again. Rather than hard-and-fast rules, Decide to Play Great Poker provides tools to gain enough information about your opponents to know how to beat them.

Genres: Nonfiction, Games

1 pages, Audiocd

First published May 31, 2011

About the author

Annie is the co-founder of The Alliance for Decision Education, a non-profit whose mission is to improve lives by empowering students through decision skills education. She is also a member of the National Board of After-School All-Stars and the Board of Directors of the Franklin Institute. In 2020, she joined the board of the Renew Democracy Initiative.

Reviews

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those of you who don’t know I’m an amateur poker player and I love poker, I have for a long time and while I’ve never won much money (in fact I’m sure I’ve lost more than I’ve ever won), I keep trying and I want to improve. I used to watch poker on TV and while I haven’t in years, I got to know a lot of the pros. I have heard of Annie Duke and I know she’s a good player. So with 4 credits (there are benefits to being a slow reader) I decided to use one to get this audio book.

For me I enjoyed the first half and last quarter of the book the most. Annie gives a lot of good advice and tells you about giving up most of the hard and fast rules you may have picked up (I’ll admit I’ve certainly got a bunch). While poker does contain a lot of math, I’ve always just tried to go on my feelings/instinct, none the less I did find it interesting how she evaluated most card situations in terms of expected outcome and rate of return.

Annie is the narrator here and as she’s a poker pro she talks fast (as she knows this stuff inside and out I’m sure), this means that there are times where I felt lost. I also thought that she goes into details on way too many hands. I understand this is meant to be helpful but for me it got dull/overwhelming as I could only take in so much information at a time.

She does recommend you go back over certain parts again and while maybe I should, I can’t say that I will. Annie does a good job putting humor in whenever she can and she also makes an effort to make it relevant to non-poker pros. I have learned things that I will use when I play again in a casino/poker room both in cash games and tournaments.

Annie does also give you some exercises to do at the end, which sound worthwhile and I will do online soon. She also gives tips for balancing poker in your life, how long you should play a session and how to manage your bankroll.

I enjoyed this book, though unless you are a poker player (and have played for at least a year or two) I don’t think you would get anything out of this. I do recommend to poker players who want to get better (and who have some experience.) It’s not long (though parts of it feel that way) and is certainly worth the credit on Audible.

[Joe Beer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very enjoyable book in an easy style. The first third was easier for me to absorb as the last chapters go through many permutations that I struggled to keep up with while listening. That's more a criticism of my poker skills than the book thorough !

[Tom Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have you ever wondered why you play poker the way you play?

Every persons story is unique, let me give you the reason why this is the greatest poker book I have ever read.

I began playing poker with my friends when I was in college, it was for fun, the mind games, the competition, the prestige (and of course the good company!). I have played this way ever since.

Ten years I have been playing poker, and I have never done more than break even. I wanted to learn the maths but it felt too inaccessible to me, always the idea that if I learned optimal mathematic pot sizing I would win. But that's not what this book is about.

This book is about the maths, yes, but pot sizing is only a small part of it. This is a book about decision making, and mostly game theory. Which nicely integrates mathematics with behavioural psychology.

Now, since reading the book (and I will be re reading to ingrain the principles in my mind) I ask myself fundamental principles. I ask the question why do I play the way I play? Only instead of answering this with vague notions of pot sizing I look at each hand and I think, why did I play this hand the way I played it? Based on position, board texture, table dynamics, action. The nice thing about this book is it brings it all together into one big picture, which as a conceptual person but not very organized one is so useful.

This book is accessible, funny, logical and well worth checking out. To open the mind to the idea of variance and reduced decision making, whilst magically through the laws of game theory give your game a compelling and mysterious story without breaking a sweat is fundamentally what has been provided here. It's nothing short of the poker bible for me. I'll be looking for books similar to this one, thank you Annie Duke for sharing this knowledge with us.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is actually good for trying to seriously challenge some of her 'overstated' strategies

Some poker experts seem to think Annie is off 20% of the time, but it has the feeling of going through a vintage book on pool, the skill making the book most useful is knowing when the author is 'correct' and 'not so correct'.

It's an interesting and quite a stimulating book if you see any of the online discussions about certain pages on the book, and whole debates if certain examples are good strategies or iffy strategies.

[Kaushik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detailed book review to follow.

Overall the book is not for beginners (which I am). So it took longer for me to digest, and even had to re-read one of the sections. But definitely an amazing book covering lucidly how Poker is supposed to be approached. How you have to think in terms of bet sizing, about bluffing, about position, how you got to have a game plan for river as soon as you place a bet pre-flop. Would love to read this book again after playing a few games (Corona permitting).

[J.R. Emry]

I won some money a few hours after finishing this book. And what's better is that this book helped me not only to improve my game by teaching poker theory, but also showed me how to reflect and see how I went wrong on my bad plays. It really kick-started my ability to interpret the game.

[Carlos Vagetti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful and delightful. Annie is really smart and funny. Although most of the strategies are outdated, it's always worth to wear the hat of a poker champion and how they look the game.

[Rolando Gill · Rating 4 out of 5]

So deep and rich with information and detail. Took me a while to get through it. I will have to listen to it at least 2 if not 3 more times to get all the meat off the bones. Very smart!

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A better book than the title suggests.

[Brittany McLaughlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

easy to remember reasons for a range of play approaches that keep you playing smarter than you otherwise would have :)

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much better than I expected. Her teachings and style connected with me.

[Roberto Souza Álvarez · Rating 4 out of 5]

lear, insightful, and practical. Annie Duke breaks down poker thinking, not just plays. A bit dense at times, but overall a great guide for improving your decision-making.

[R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t pretend to have internalized all of these lessons but it definitely reframed how to play.

[Damien Franco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Back in the heyday of online poker and it's explosion in the U.S. market I played poker very often. I would play online. I would play in poker rooms. Tournaments in bars. House games.

If there was a game and I had the scrap I was playing.

Fast forward to present: I hadn't played in over a year and the wife and I were heading to New Orleans for a weekend getaway. Our plans were to hit the poker room at Harrah's. Great casino.

I didn't have time, or see the real value, in playing some free games online to brush up on my skills. It's not the same. Fake money just doesn't drive real decisions from players.

So I listened to this book during my drive at 1.5X speed and was able to finish it in during my drive from Houston to New Orleans. Perfect.

Loved it. I wouldn't recommend this book for a noob. You have to know some of the basic strategy and hand structures in order to understand the complex decision making criteria in this book.

That's a good thing. It sets this book apart. It makes this book a great companion piece to other poker books.

If you know poker terminology and understand beyond the basics of how to play you will find value in this book.

Results: Sat at a 1/2 NL table with Annie's recommended 50 big blinds and walked away with more than a full rack. Boom.

[Bill Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

It seems written for more advanced players and holds out promise that it will teach you how to be a winning poker player, but it didn't make me one.

At my micro-stakes play, her advice to read someone playing a weak lead, as being strong, just didn't work. At my level, you are pretty much not playing that fancy.

I liked reading it and the promise it seemed to offer me. I just wish it had made me a winner at poker. Of course, I probably didn't mix up my play enough and was too easily readable by the other players. That's why I quit playing for money.

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want to get a lot better at poker, this book is for you.
It focuses not on specific rules but rather on general patterns and your thought process. Basically, you should be keep hands that benefit you and you should be betting to increase your information of your competitors and to give you a higher return percentage of your bet compared to the current pot.

[Susan Shipman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Annie Duke. She plays tournament poker with the big boys and has overcome (ignored, actually) any hurdles that most women would struggle with and won the bracelet. It's written in an easy, conversational and at times fun style that I enjoyed very much.

I am better at cash games but if I do decide to re-enter the world of tournaments, her book is definitely a re-read.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great poker book that I was planning on implementing at AC this past weekend. Unfortunately I got drunk, which is the opposite of deciding to play great poker. Not a knock against the book, of course, which is well written, entertaining, and lays out solid principles in an interesting manner. All of which doesn't help if you're drunk.

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was an excellent marriage between Game Theory and actual poker strategy showing how the two did not contradict each other but complimented one another. More than that it was a deeply profound book of life lessons because the author addresses the fact that poker, like life, isn't about outcomes but rather the ability to make good choices over time.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was expecting a book of poker rules and explanations of percentages and stuff, but this goes well beyond tha and explains theories and strategies that explain all of the rules you always hear about. I will probably only actually remember and be able to apply a fraction of what I learned here!

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

over my head but well written

[Cpgames1989 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Need to re-read

[Hookshotwillaby · Rating 5 out of 5]

The money I've made using these basic strategies has paid for this book many times over. Anyone who plays poker on a regular basis should do themselves the favor of peeking into this book.

[Dancomfort · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once a while you hit a book at the exact time you need to read it. This book hit me that way. Annie walks you through the calculations you need to make at each stage of a NLH hand.