The Making of a Poker Player - Matt Matros

[Awesemo]

Is this book any good? Is it geared towards experienced players, or more towards beginners? Is it worth buying, or should I just read it in the bookstore?

[jakethebake]

*sigh*

[maurile]

It's a good read. It's not really an instructional book, and it won't directly help your game all that much, but it is definitely worth a read if you like poker. It's essentially Matt's poker autobiography -- how he got started playing, his learning process as a beginner, his learning process as he got more serious, his ups and downs along the way, etc.

[sethypooh21]

There is some good poker content in there as well, particularly the tournies where he walks us through important hands (as well as talking about Russel Rosenbloom's meltdown-comeback-meltdown at the 2002 WSOP)

[dragon14]

I found it to be quite readable. I have so many instructional poker texts that it's nice to read more of a narrative book about poker. Often after playing I have the urge to read a little about poker but TOP and HEPFAP are not relaxing reading.

I learned a few things about poker that I didn't know before, and got a glimpse into what its like to play pot limit and no limit poker in casinos. He also touches on his WPT 3rd place tournament finish.

Some of the text is geared towards beginners but its easy enough to skip those occasional few pages.

[SNOWBALL138]

He doesn't really give a whole lot of practical intermediate advice. He seems to go from super-tight "don't play anything but AA-AK-KK-QQ from up front" advice to discussions of obscure game theory. You CANNOT learn how to play poker from reading this book. It is a very poor instructional text. However, some of the stories were somewhat interesting. His life was sparely discussed though. If it was autobiographical, where were the personal stories?