08-19-2001, 01:24 PM
SERIOUS POKER (7) by Dan Kimberg. Even though this book has the word ?serious? in the title, it is really aimed at beginning poker players and probably should have been called ?Beginning Poker.? I also found it uneven and way too wordy. I?ll start with the problems first.
The most important area in any poker book that is trying to teach people how to play should simply be the strategy advice, and this is where this text is a little weak. The other topics, even if they are well covered, simply pale in importance. And, even though there are over 300 pages here only about fifty are actually devoted to how poker should be played. However, for a beginning player the advice is reasonably accurate and should help someone get started on a proper path to good play.
The real strength of the book is what I will call other topics. The author does a good job of explaining mathematical expectation, fluctuations, bankroll requirements, record keeping, and self evaluation. He also has a short discussion of tournaments, computers and poker, and what he calls poker resources. Again, he does a reasonably good job here even though much of this material has already been written up in other places and many successful players won?t consider all of it very important.
So my conclusion is that I don?t quite recommend this book. (It needs to get an 8 on my rating system for that to happen.) However, some of you may want to pick it up as a supplemental read, and in that sense it?s pretty good.
The most important area in any poker book that is trying to teach people how to play should simply be the strategy advice, and this is where this text is a little weak. The other topics, even if they are well covered, simply pale in importance. And, even though there are over 300 pages here only about fifty are actually devoted to how poker should be played. However, for a beginning player the advice is reasonably accurate and should help someone get started on a proper path to good play.
The real strength of the book is what I will call other topics. The author does a good job of explaining mathematical expectation, fluctuations, bankroll requirements, record keeping, and self evaluation. He also has a short discussion of tournaments, computers and poker, and what he calls poker resources. Again, he does a reasonably good job here even though much of this material has already been written up in other places and many successful players won?t consider all of it very important.
So my conclusion is that I don?t quite recommend this book. (It needs to get an 8 on my rating system for that to happen.) However, some of you may want to pick it up as a supplemental read, and in that sense it?s pretty good.