Review of "Poker, The Real Deal"

[cowboyzfan]

ranking 8 +/- 2

This book is a 10 for total newbies IF they actually follow the advice in it. And when I say TOTAL NEWBIES that is exactly what I mean, ie. Pre WLLH. Why is the advice so great? Because it advises you to read books such as WLLH, HPFAP, and TOP. There is even a minor shout out to SSH in a footnote. The book also advises people to come to this site. In addition to 2+2 titles, Gordon recommends sound books such as WLLH, MLH, and Caro's Book of Tells.

Obviously Gordon is not trying to write the new treatise on poker strategy, but he is trying to send a group of people to the right information. Not that the book doesn't give a lot of information on its own, because it does.

Now, the advice is strong from what I can tell. His limit Hold'em pre flop charts are really good. Of course they are just Sklansky's charts published with permission [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] But, that shows this guy is not trying to BS people, he is giving good advice. He pretty much gives straightforward info on how to play, and focuses on the fact that aggression wins in the end.

The book is well written and it covers most of what a newbie would be interested in. It discusses poker history, the rise of televised games as well as the author's poker bio. The author sprinkles the text with fun stuff like lists of the best poker movies, and lines from Rounders.

One thing I really liked about the book was that Gordon tries to cover all the key subjects (in brief). There are sections on limit (both low limit and higher), no limit, home games, tournaments, online play, and even separate discussion of sit and go's and MTTs. There is also a pretty good intro to brick and mortar play.

This book is very well written. It is also written in a manner where you can read it for short periods. It is not a "hard read" at all. I guess you could call it "light reading", but it would not be fair to call it fluff.

I repeat, if you are trying to learn something new about poker, and have already read TOP, SSH, etc, this book is not for you. But if you know a newbie, who has never read a poker book, this is a great one to start with. Just have them understand that it will be the first of many.

* understad that this review is written by someone who may or may not know what they are talking about.

[popniklas]

hi! i will be holding a sort of.. series of basic lessons/seminars or whatever you should call it in english.. ("studiecirkel", for those of you who speak swedish [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]) on poker for a few people, most of them friends on mine, and most of them not very familiar to poker except for five-card draw. (some play a little low stakes holdem online, but some dont even know the rules.)

if we should use a book on holdem for them to study, would this book be a better choice than, say, WLLH, sklanksy's hold'em poker or hilger's ITH?

i guess my question basically is: do you think this is the best beginner's book on texas hold'em available?

thankful for your opinion.

[CDSNUTSINYAMOUTH]

I borrowed this book at the library. Not really worth buying in my opinion. Fun to read and you'll get something out of it to help your poker game. But as of right now, I can't remember what I learned from it, except pretending that I won the WSOP sucking out on Phil Hellmuth.

[Beavis68]

[ QUOTE ]
I borrowed this book at the library. Not really worth buying in my opinion. Fun to read and you'll get something out of it to help your poker game. But as of right now, I can't remember what I learned from it, except pretending that I won the WSOP sucking out on Phil Hellmuth.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree, most of the book is re-prints of other material, i was about 1/3 of the way through it and it was still on why AK is better than 7-2, I took it back.

[cowboyzfan]

[ QUOTE ]
hi! i will be holding a sort of.. series of basic lessons/seminars or whatever you should call it in english.. ("studiecirkel", for those of you who speak swedish [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]) on poker for a few people, most of them friends on mine, and most of them not very familiar to poker except for five-card draw. (some play a little low stakes holdem online, but some dont even know the rules.)

if we should use a book on holdem for them to study, would this book be a better choice than, say, WLLH, sklanksy's hold'em poker or hilger's ITH?

i guess my question basically is: do you think this is the best beginner's book on texas hold'em available?

thankful for your opinion.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would think WLLH or ITH would be better. They are more texts on Hold'em, you are talking limit right? As I said before, I think the book is good for rank begginers that want an introductory exposure to Hold'em poker. It is a book that can get them excited to learn more about the game and direct them to more complete material.

This might be a good book for them to read as a sort of prep reading for your class.

[popniklas]

ok, thanks. (yes, i'm talking limit.)

[joeboe2001]

The Real Deal taught me one valuable thing, and that was twoplustwo.com. Well worth the $20 for that reason alone.

I have read a lot of other holdem articles and parts of books in stores--of all of them The Real Deal was probably the most entertaining and well written. The book itself will do little for your game, except to confirm much of what you may have read elsewhere about basic holdem concepts, but it will open your eyes to the wealth of information around you about holdem.