PHIL HELMUTHs PLAY POKER LIKE A PRO

[TexArcher]

This was one of my first few reads as well. I thought at the time the book was about a 6, not bad for someone moving from beginner to intermediate, but nothing too informative either. And it was written EXACTLY like you'd expect a Hellmuth book to read, which got pretty annoying.

After reading and re-reading Super System, three by Sklansky, and about 6 others, I've got to say Phil's book is about a 3, good for a beginner, but that's about it...

[TexArcher]

I don't think there's a right book to read 50 times cover to cover, why not read 25 books twice and get some perspectives??

[iraise50]

I give his book a TWO. Here's why:

I also bought it as my first poker book. It gives good information on the set-up of the game, but seriously, as I've learned more and more about poker I think there is are fewer holes in governmental policy than his book. It's an easy read, but very, very lacking I think, in many areas.

[helpmeout]

Its complete trash.

I read all the bad reviews and thought well surely there must be one nugget in there.

The whole thing is fluff I really have no idea what he was smoking when he wrote it.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Small Stakes Hold'em is orders of magnitude better than Hellmuth's book. PLay limit Hold'em the way Phil's book says and you'll lose a lot of money.

[chief444]

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I would equate myself to a style more like Phils (agressive and player reader, vs mathmatics kinda guy.

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Most bad players probably do think of themselves in exactly these terms.

[phish]

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I would equate myself to a style more like Phils (agressive and player reader, vs mathmatics kinda guy.

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Most bad players probably do think of themselves in exactly these terms.

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Well said. It's so much more fun to play aggressively all the time. And it's so much easier to be a 'people player' than to bother learning some basic probabilities. My girlfriend is an aggressive people-player. Everytime I transfer her some money, she usually runs it up a little and then lose it all. And she plays $1/$2 or smaller.

[Overdrive]

What you have to know is that at this point Phil Helmuth is more of a poker marketing machine than he is a poker player. He really only plays for publicity now, like at tournaments he knows will be televised. Phil is widely known as one of the worst cash game players around. After his 1989 World Series vitory he took his $775,000 first prize into the side games and lost virtually all of it. Daniel Negreanu said, "I would pay him just to play him." - (n a ring cash game) Daniel also said,"His fundamental knowledge of most games is very weak. When he makes claims that he is the best player in the world it's insulting to people like Chip Reese, Doyle, Phil Ivey and the like - it's like are you kidding me Phil?"

But you should try out Phil's book for yourself I guess - just follow his strategy for a few months and then see what the results are. If you can win by three betting 77 in early positin before the flop, and then reraising when the flop for your 77 comes A J Q like he recommends in his book - then God bless you my son.

[Alobar]

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, and then reraising when the flop for your 77 comes A J Q like he recommends in his book - then God bless you my son.

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This is just plain stupid. Obviusly phil looks into their soul and knows they will make the correct laydown against your set of aces, so dont try to tell people that phils advice is bad. You are just jealous cuz you cant look into peoples soul.

[wegs the wegs]

And Dmoney, memorizing a book word for word probably isn't that healthy, for any book. I've read posts by people claiming that they are going to memorize word for word books like TOP and SSH and they typically get the same response, why?

In my opinion it's not knowing the words of the books that matter, its being able to understand and apply the theories that the book offers. No hand in poker is the same, so committing to memory what Phil on any one hand will have much different results at any table that you play.

If you've read this book 50 times, MOVE ON! Anything helpful that you have learned from this book will be there in your mind, even if you aren't quoting the page number that it's on when a similar situation comes up. No book out there should be read 50 times, especially in a row. Read it, think, play, think, play, come back a while (and I mean weeks and months) later and read it again.

I've read Hellmuth's book about 9 months ago, didn't hate it. I do believe that Hellmuth is an absolute top notch Hold'em tournament player. However I do think that its pretty obvious that he writes the book deep within his own ego. He expects that players will respect every move he makes and fold their hands just because it's Phil. Now, after HOH vol2 I am planning to read the book again, just to review what I read and see if I missed anything, but I can also compare the advice from what I have learned in the other books I read. Move on to Theory of Poker.