Championship no-limit and pot-limit hold'em : on the road to the World Series of Poker

Rating:
Summary: Essential Hold 'Em Book?
Review: For the same reasons Sklansky's Advanced Hold 'Em book is required reading: most everyone playing no-limit hold 'em has probably read this book by now. The advice is sound, basic no-limit advice. Unfortunately, everyone else has incorporated this information into their play so you'll have to adapt it to your own style of play. For beginners, this is an excellent introduction. And as an aside: Jim McManus in "Positively Fifth Street" details his play in the WSOP main event and uses this book as his "guide". As he gets closer and closer to the finish he ends up playing against the author of this book. It's a brief, but funny moment in an otherwise 'okay' book. But back to this book: it's short at 200 pages, but it's still the best introduction to no-limit hold 'em which is all the rage these days because of the WPT. So before you go 'all in' read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Not the bible
Review: I would not consider this to be the bible on no-limit. The book starts with an interview of T.J.Cloutier and ends with a few of his road stories. In between there are a couple of examples of how to play certain hands. But in general i found litlle basic big bet poker advice. The tournament section i felt was pretty good. Overall i wouldn't adivce this book to a beginning big bet player. I think they would be better off buying Pot-limit & No-limit poker by Ciaffone/Reuben. If on the other hand you're an somewhat advanced player, then you might find some usefull information in this book.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Leave Home Without It!
Review: Probably the best book on "big bet" Hold 'Em available. Written in an easy-to-read, "down to earth" style, making it very easy to understand, with reasons why to and NOT to make certain moves in different situations. Achieved my very first top finish in a "no limit" tournament after reading this book. Part luck, yes, as in all of Poker, but not a total coincedence, in my opinion. Also contains some very colorful and entertaining stories, told by T.J. Cloutier, about his days as a "road gambler".

Rating:
Summary: Don't Leave Home Without It!
Review: Probably the best book on "big bet" Hold 'Em available. Written in an easy-to-read, "down to earth" style, making it very easy to understand, with reasons why to and NOT to make certain moves in different situations. Achieved my very first top finish in a "no limit" tournament after reading this book. Part luck, yes, as in all of Poker, but not a total coincedence, in my opinion. Also contains some very colorful and entertaining stories, told by T.J. Cloutier, about his days as a "road gambler".

Rating:
Summary: Even Phil Hellmuth agrees this is the hold-em bible
Review: This book is an absolute must for a no limit or pot limit hold player. It is arguably the best book on the market. T.J. Cloutier is one of the most successful poker players of all time without question and he is still around those final one or two tables at the World Series of Poker. T.J.'s secret to success is how he analyzes players throughout a session. He knows your betting patterns from all positions of the table. He shows you how vary your play based on the player. Will he only raise big with AA or KK or will he raise anything like K 9? In my opinion, you can't buy a better pot limit hold em book. It shows you how to build up those pots and tells you the differences it is compared to no limit and how to win. It talks about no limit tournament play but doesn't really have a section on no limit play in general. But don't get me wrong, you can learn just about anything you need to know about the game in this book.

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Rating:
Summary: pretty poor book
Review: This book is pretty poor relative to other poker books.
It's not that the book doesn't have anything to teach, it's just that I felt that for the cost of the book compared to the material versus the value of other poker books is poor.

Rating:
Summary: Not the bible
Review: This is the best book on poker from the best player. A great companion to 'Super/System' poker fans will enjoy this hands on gear turning read. Truly a neccesary book for the poker library. In contrast to Sklansky this book will not hold your hand so if your a begginer or your weak you need not pick it up. THis book is for the serious player looking to notch himself up. THis book helped an amateur take 5th in the WSOP and it can help you too!

Rating:
Summary: the best
Review: This is the best book on poker from the best player. A great companion to 'Super/System' poker fans will enjoy this hands on gear turning read. Truly a neccesary book for the poker library. In contrast to Sklansky this book will not hold your hand so if your a begginer or your weak you need not pick it up. THis book is for the serious player looking to notch himself up. THis book helped an amateur take 5th in the WSOP and it can help you too!

Rating:
Summary: Very good enjoyable book ¿ Now Get to Playin
Review: This was a very Enjoyable Book. It provided important and useful concepts about the game of Poker. I learned new concepts, which identified some leaks in my game. Leaks in your game can come from anywhere!!! Leaks can originate from lack of aggression, overcalling raises, misreading opponents and any other number of ways. So this book helps. Many people look at poker the wrong way. They think to win they need to do all of this super fancy plays and mindblowing stunts. Well folks...there are not that many options in poker...you fold, call or raise. So its really hard to do thinks that will just fool your opponents all the time. To win at poker it is mostly limiting your mistakes and getting all that you can from winning hands and minimizing losses on losing hands...that's it

Ive been playing for about 5 years now and love the game. Ive read many poker books and found this one to be very good. So I would suggest you buy this book and maybe a couple others and get to playing. There's really no excuse anymore - since anyone can access the internet.

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Rating:
Summary: Great Book on tournament Play
Review: Until this book was written, the best advice on playing Texas Hold'em in Pot Limit or No Limit games was the section from Doyle Brunson's epic, Super System. Since the writing of Super System the state of the art in poker writing has advanced considerably. There certainly remained a lot to be said about "the Cadillac of poker games".

T. J. Cloutier, who has been competing in big time poker events for the better part of two decades, has impeccable credentials as an expert in pot-limit and no-limit Texas Hold'em. The question is, will his expertise translate into a good book? This was especially of concern because although his collaborator, Tom McEvoy, has been one of the most successful tournament poker players in the last 20 years, his book, Tournament Poker was a mediocre offering at best, offering few, if any, significant new insights into being a successful tournament poker player.

I'm happy to say, that these fears turn out to be unfounded. This book was written clearly, as a spoken exposition by Cloutier. The topics in this book are well organized and carefully spelled out. All aspects of the play in these poker games, with a special emphasis on tournament play, are covered. More importantly, there is a significant amount of information here that has never before seen print.

Cloutier goes through how to play starting hands in various positions in detail, covers having various hands on the flop, turn and river. He discusses carefully how to get a read on one's opponent, the skill Cloutier believes most critical in winning these games. This is a difficult topic to discuss, reading players is much more instinct than science, but he does a respectable job of it.

There are two chapters specifically devoted to tournament play, a very good set of practice hands with commentary by Cloutier, and the book concludes with a set of tales from Cloutier's colorful life.

I like this book quite a bit, but it is by no means perfect. First, charging $39.95 for 206 pages of paper bound content seems a little steep to me. While one could rightly argue that if this book saves you just one bet at a game of these limits, or moves you up one money place in a medium sized tournament, you've recovered this money, it's out of line with what I expect from books in general.

My second complaint, with which it may be fair for the author to take issue with me, is that I get the sensation that the author is holding back a bit. There are several places, where Cloutier does a good job of explaining what one can expect in situations, except that one has a feeling that the author was almost ready to continue with an "... except in these cases..." or "... but watch out for ..." but didn't.

This has been a point of a great deal of soul searching by poker writers for years and can be found in Super System and Ray Zee's introduction to Texas Hold'em for Advanced Players among other places. However, the sense I've gotten from Brunson, David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth is that after a great deal of soul searching, they decided to "damn the torpedos" and bare all to the poker public. I don't get the same sense from Cloutier. Again, this is merely my impression. I'd be very interested in hearing how the author answered this question, very diplomatically worded, of course.

Nonetheless, this book represents the current best information in print on pot-limit and no-limit Hold'em. If you are a beginner or intermediate Hold'em player interested in pot-limit or no-limit ring games or tournaments, don't be afraid of this book's price tag.

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