Bad Beats and Lucky Draws : Poker Strategies, Winning Hands, and Stories from the Professional Poker Tour

Rating:
Summary: A rehash of Jr.
Review: As far as I can see, this is just a collection of previously published articles, mostly from the pages of Card Player (TR) Magazine. If you must have them handy or have never seen most of his articles, then by all means get the book; but do not expect to learn much that is new.

Rating:
Summary: The Arrogant Phil Hellmuth
Review: I've been playing poker for many years and have watched Phil on TV a fare amount. After reading this book I do have to say that his reputation as a cry baby and snob is right on the mark. If you are interested in hearing Phil tell you how good a poker player he is and how he should never lose, this is the book for you.

Rating:
Summary: Hellmuth has his moments...(...)
Review: In a year highlighted by a close presidential election that emphasized how divided the United States is, I present to you Phil Hellmuth Jr., arguably the most divisive man in professional poker. Anyone even vaguely familiar with professional poker is aware of Hellmuth. The spectacle he can make with his immense poker talent is matched only by the monumental spectacle he makes when he loses. He yells, he swears, he collapses to the ground, he cries, he whines, and he commits various other overtly dramatic acts in the name of defeat. It's quite a show.
Any player with his level of talent in pretty much any field of will attract some fans. Perhaps because of the attention he brings to himself with his dramatic flailings, or perhaps because he is not modest about how good he is, the people that hate Phil Hellmuth are far more vocal than his fans. On message boards all across the internet, right now as you're reading this, people are arguing about Phil Hellmuth. Some are merely calling him a cry baby, some are suggesting he has always just been lucky, and many, many people are calling him an idiot. The loyal legions of Hellmuth fans are busy at work refuting all of it. (He is tied with Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan for the most WSOP bracelets ever, of course. They mention that a lot.)
In any case, it is into this mess of controversy that Hellmuth has unleashed his second book, Bad Beats and Lucky Draws. The subtitle of the book is: Poker Strategies, Winning Hands, and Stories from the Professional Poker Tour. This is not a very accurate description of the content of this book, as the entire text of the book, every page, is dedicated to telling the story of real hands from big poker tournaments, most of them being important hands from Hellmuth's career.
So to be clear: there is no poker strategy in this book.
The book is a quick read at about 220 pages, and it should certainly be considered light reading. Not a lot of deep thinking will be done over what Hellmuth has offered us in this one, and in fact, a few times in the early going I found myself asking, "Why am I reading this?" The book is ultimately an entertaining read, though, and if you're grinding your way through something more technical and boring like David Sklansky, this is an excellent counterpart to turn to, to take a break from the math and implied odds theory.
There are some awkward moments in this one, due to Hellmuth's aforementioned ego, that will surely provide fodder for the anti-Hellmuth crowd. A few times through out the book, Hellmuth directly addresses the famous poker player he is talking about. For example, if it were a chapter about a hand Daniel Negreanu played, it would end like, "Great job, Daniel! I'm proud of you!" I could imagine this crazy combination of silly and shmoozy would turn some readers off. I found most of the stuff like this to be kind of funny, but that's just me.
On the whole, as I got through the book, I realized that I found Hellmuth to be an oddly entertaining writer. At first, his writing style seemed very strange and almost immature. He doesn't seem to take himself too seriously on the page, though, and once I got used to it, I really flew through the book. He used an insane amount of exclamation points, which have never seemed funnier. His personality really came through, and if you've seen a Hellmuth interview on TV, it was basically just how you'd imagine it'd be to have Phil Hellmuth tell you a bunch of poker stories.
The best portion of the book is the Cheesehead Poker chapter at the end, which tells a bunch of stories from Phil's early poker days back in Wisconsin. He really sets the scene well, and you can feel a bit of the nostalgia he must feel to be telling these stories from years ago. The thing that separated this section from the rest, I guess, was that the stories from big poker tournaments were stories that only a poker fanatic would want to hear, but the Wisconsin stories went into greater detail about the characters and lives of the other people involved, described places around Madison that Phil played poker, and you really just got more of a sense of how the things in these poker games affected the real lives of the people and places involved. They seemed like stories real enough that your uncle would tell you about them one night when he was feeling nostalgic, whereas the major tournament stories are a bit lifeless in that respect.
And I suppose with that, Hellmuth has set the stage to release his autobiography to be titled Poker Brat. On the strength of the Wisconsin chapter, I am really looking forward to it.

Rating:
Summary: Priceless
Review: Nobody simply likes Phil Hellmuth. You love him, hate him, respect him, fear him, want to kill him, and sometimes all of the above. At the very least, he inspires passion. But, no matter how you feel, there's no denying the fact that Phil is one of the top five greatest poker players of all time. And during his nearly twenty years at the top of the game, he has acquired wisdom. Not to say that he always acts wisely, but Phil is able to take what he's learned and pass it on to the rest of the poker playing world. It's in that way Phil is in a class by himself. He translates often esoteric poker jargon and complicated table experiences into language that we all can understand. You wouldn't know it to look at him, but Phil is an excellent teacher. Both "Bad Beats" and "Play Poker" are spectacular teaching tools -- must haves for all people interested in the game.

[...]

Rating:
Summary: Profesor Phil
Review: Phil has some great stories of epic poker battles and includes some advanced strategies gleaned from the hands. The hands are organized by events such as WSOP, WPT, European Tour and also by genre--Reading Players, Weird Hands, and Guest Contributions. Many of the pieces are from Card Player Magazine, but I hadn't read any of them before and having them all together helps get a better sense of the poker world and how to actually play in tournament situations.

It's a enjoyable read.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but not a strategy guide
Review: The subtitle of this book says "Poker Strategies, Winning Hands, and Stories..."

The order of those three should be reversed, because this is largely a collectoin of stories. True, you can learn from these stories if you pay attention (if you ever play Phil, I suppose this could help), but most of his analysis seems self-explanatory, or merely justification of a wierd play that he made himself.

The most annoying thing about this book is the amazing sense of deja vu you get while reading it. Many of these stories have already been printed in CardPlayer Magazine, which I found annoying, since I am a reader.

These things said, the book is entertaining if you like bad beat stories and stories about big hands. If that is what you are looking for, definitely get it. It is a quick read for your bedside or bathroom, and should be viewed mainly as entertainment.

Rating:
Summary: Great bedside reader from someone who's done it all!
Review: This book is a fun read making for a good bedside reader... or in the "library" if you know what I mean!

Phil Hellmuth is a person you either LOVE or HATE. Many people on online forums chastise his seeming crazy antics and dumb play at the WSOP, but results speak for themselves and Phill is the winningest tournament player.

Phil's first book Play Poker Like The Pros sold like crazy yet every above average holdem player laughs at the content... then again, maybe it's GOOD for poker that so many new players are learning from Phil!

Regardless of your opinion of Phil, this book is a fun read. The various "fish stories" are great entertainment. If you LOVE Phil then you'll love this book. If you HATE Phil then the stories in this book (about superstition, ESP, profiling players, etc.) will just reinforce everything you already feel for Phil.

This book won't change your mind about Phil, but it is worth a read through once. And maybe only once. :)


Rating:
Summary: Ego boost
Review: This is just an entire book for Phil Hellmuth, Jr. to drop names and make money bragging to everyone about his famous poker friends. Buy if you like hype, pass if you're looking for a book of real strategy and not Hellmuth patting himself on the back for the entire length of the book.