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Why You Lose at Poker
Why do you lose at poker? Before you answer that question, think about this. There is no magic key that unlocks the door to poker. You might be able to pinpoint a leak or two in your game, but you may be surprised to find that there are many more lurking under the surface. This book shows you the sixteen most common errors in poker, and how to avoid them. You will learn the keys to finding the leaks in your game and plugging them for good. Stepping away from the table and watching others play incorrectly is the best path to understanding your own mistakes. You?ll learn why these errors are so bad, and why they cost you money over and over. Recognizing these errors in your own game can be painful, but the rewards of revealing them are well worth it. If you?re ready to admit that you?d like to lose less and win more, then you need this book!
226 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2006
10 people want to read
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January 8, 2010
Russell Fox and Scott T. Harker, Why You Lose at Poker (ConJelCo, 2006)
When you're looking at basic how-to books, unless you find yourself a very canny author, you generally find yourself with one of two things: either a book that's marketed to beginners that is actually for advanced (sometimes very advanced) players, or something that's marketed to beginners that talks so far down that the authors take that old (and very,very wrong) advice to assume the reader knows absolutely nothing. (On extreme and amusing occasions, you get them both in the same book. Such things should simply be laughed at and burned.) Very rare is the book for beginners that can actually be understood by beginners without treating them like idiots. Rarer still is the book like that that can also be appreciated by those who are not beginners. And after that very long, convoluted introduction (for which I apologize, but not enough to delete it), I am here to tell you that Why You Lose at Poker is that book.
Not to say it doesn't have some... well, I don't want to call them “problems”, but oddities. The authors state (and I have seen Scott Harker reiterate more than once) that all the hands in the twenty-hand simulation are actual hands that played out at actual card rooms. All I can really say to that is “wow”. I understand that sometimes people play silly hands because they've watched too much televised poker, but here we're faced with a different crowd entirely: some of them seem to have never watched a hand of poker played. Ever. I hope, someday, to meet these unfortunate souls and take their money.
Other than that, the main criticism I've seen levelled at the book is that most of what's here is common sense. This is exactly the case, and I don't understand why that's a criticism. I haven't been a serious poker player for very long (I started playing for more than just fun in 2002, for real money in 2004), so maybe I don't understand the mindset. Two things I have been doing for much longer are programming computers and playing the horses. In both of those pursuits, I still have the first books on the subject I ever read, and in both of those pursuits, I go back and re-read those books periodically, along with other beginner tomes I've accumulated over the years in both pursuits. This despite that fact that I have read, digested, and loved graduate-level texts in each. Why? Because everyone needs a refresher now and then. Even the most brilliant computer programmer every once in a while draws a complete blank on something as basic as the construction of a FOR loop. It's just one of the stupid things the brain does to mess with you. I'm not a math guy, and about a quarter of the time, when I'm structuring a superfecta ticket in my head, I find when I get to the machine that I've over- and underestimated the amount it will cost me. That's just what happens sometimes. We all make minor mechanical errors. (Thankfully, being off by a couple of bucks on a superfecta ticket is not the equivalent of, say, forgetting to build sway into that famous collapsing bridge.) The best way to minimize those minor mechanical errors is to just drill yourself. Over and over and over. (There's nothing one can do about the mind suddenly deciding that 3*2=9, though...) I can't imagine it's not the same in poker. The more we learn about the higher levels of the game, the more the stuff we learned at the beginning tends to slip away. Especially when some of the higher-level stuff is counterintuitive. (Fifteen years of programming in C++ and I still don't fully understand pointers...)
I have little doubt that this will be added to the arsenal of poker books I re-read periodically for a basic brain-clearing. It's good, solid, common-sense advice. If you're looking for something more advanced, pass this one by, but I'd suggest at least giving it a shot. You might be surprised. *** ½
When you're looking at basic how-to books, unless you find yourself a very canny author, you generally find yourself with one of two things: either a book that's marketed to beginners that is actually for advanced (sometimes very advanced) players, or something that's marketed to beginners that talks so far down that the authors take that old (and very,very wrong) advice to assume the reader knows absolutely nothing. (On extreme and amusing occasions, you get them both in the same book. Such things should simply be laughed at and burned.) Very rare is the book for beginners that can actually be understood by beginners without treating them like idiots. Rarer still is the book like that that can also be appreciated by those who are not beginners. And after that very long, convoluted introduction (for which I apologize, but not enough to delete it), I am here to tell you that Why You Lose at Poker is that book.
Not to say it doesn't have some... well, I don't want to call them “problems”, but oddities. The authors state (and I have seen Scott Harker reiterate more than once) that all the hands in the twenty-hand simulation are actual hands that played out at actual card rooms. All I can really say to that is “wow”. I understand that sometimes people play silly hands because they've watched too much televised poker, but here we're faced with a different crowd entirely: some of them seem to have never watched a hand of poker played. Ever. I hope, someday, to meet these unfortunate souls and take their money.
Other than that, the main criticism I've seen levelled at the book is that most of what's here is common sense. This is exactly the case, and I don't understand why that's a criticism. I haven't been a serious poker player for very long (I started playing for more than just fun in 2002, for real money in 2004), so maybe I don't understand the mindset. Two things I have been doing for much longer are programming computers and playing the horses. In both of those pursuits, I still have the first books on the subject I ever read, and in both of those pursuits, I go back and re-read those books periodically, along with other beginner tomes I've accumulated over the years in both pursuits. This despite that fact that I have read, digested, and loved graduate-level texts in each. Why? Because everyone needs a refresher now and then. Even the most brilliant computer programmer every once in a while draws a complete blank on something as basic as the construction of a FOR loop. It's just one of the stupid things the brain does to mess with you. I'm not a math guy, and about a quarter of the time, when I'm structuring a superfecta ticket in my head, I find when I get to the machine that I've over- and underestimated the amount it will cost me. That's just what happens sometimes. We all make minor mechanical errors. (Thankfully, being off by a couple of bucks on a superfecta ticket is not the equivalent of, say, forgetting to build sway into that famous collapsing bridge.) The best way to minimize those minor mechanical errors is to just drill yourself. Over and over and over. (There's nothing one can do about the mind suddenly deciding that 3*2=9, though...) I can't imagine it's not the same in poker. The more we learn about the higher levels of the game, the more the stuff we learned at the beginning tends to slip away. Especially when some of the higher-level stuff is counterintuitive. (Fifteen years of programming in C++ and I still don't fully understand pointers...)
I have little doubt that this will be added to the arsenal of poker books I re-read periodically for a basic brain-clearing. It's good, solid, common-sense advice. If you're looking for something more advanced, pass this one by, but I'd suggest at least giving it a shot. You might be surprised. *** ½
Displaying 1 of 1 review