Winner's Guide to Texas Hold'em Poker

Texas hold'em supposedly is the most popular poker game now in casinos...I had noticed over last few months on my cable several shows in ESPN and Travel Channel on Hold'em poker tournaments and the game instantly fascinated me. I already had two books on poker and read the chapters on Hold'em and found them lacking and bought this book and was very pleased. He explains in depth his logic with betting. Also, he emphasizes, as I have seen the air-on commentators do, the vital importance of your position at table and how that effects what cards you will bet with. I found it very useful for my online gaming, even though he doesn't specifically address that. Only criticism is that I thought he could have made some of this tables clearer, in fact I ended up making my own tables using his advice on betting depending on whether you were sitting early, middle or late in a large table game.

One of the above reviewers gave the book a single star, stating that KW gives advice that encourages people to play low cards. In the edition I have (I believe it to be the 5th edition, 2002), KW states on pg. 51 "A Hold 'Em player who consistently plays low cards cannot be a big winner in this game". I respectfully disagree with that reviewer, who seems to have taken something out of context.As I mentioned above, this book has something for just about everyone. KW starts with simple concepts general to poker and then specific to hold'em, ruminates on the all important nature of position, includes plenty of strategy advice, and covers advanced ideas such as pot odds, the art of the check raise, and bluffing/semi-bluffing. He also gives tips on how to play specific hands, although I'm sure he is by no means unique among poker authors with this one. He backs up his advice with a number of different charts showing percentages, ratios, etc. He also includes a good section on playing short-handed.To summarize, although you'd probably get mostly the same stuff if you picked other poker books at random, KW provides a comprehensive and very readable guide to hold 'em. It's not perfect, but in a literary genre in which authors try to outdo one another to give the best advice and the secret tips no one else does, this book stands out.Having said all this, in an otherwise excellent book, the "stereotype" section (e.g., you want to play against beautiful women and people with tattoos, as these folks are never good at poker) is silly and superficial. Additionally, his advice that off-duty poker DEALERS are preferable to play against is just plain dangerous. Unless you are an expert, if you know your opponents to be dealers you should avoid that particular game altogether.

I currently play Hold em for a living and this was my first Hold em book. Political incorrectness aside, this is still the most complete guide to playing Hold em on the market. I find the Advanced Sklansky book to be more of a strategic case studies book (thought provoking but very incomplete and very qualitative only) but Warren is more tactically complete (what to do and when to do it). He goes out on a limb and gives you more of a complete action plan than Sklansky, Krieger, etc. and therefore is more easily criticized for it. No book is going to help you on an advanced level, however, when you're ready for real time, expected value pot odds calculations, chapter 14 (Hold em odds) is worth the entire price. As a side note, the odds he presents do not match the odds I have seen elsewhere despite the supposedly same methodology, however, the relative strenghths of hands seem to be in line. Also, to address another critic, Warren's rhetoric re: the pro vs. cons between AA and AK are 100% correct and he never states that AK has a higher W% or EV, he only uses it as the classic example of why AA will lose more when it is beat (his way of explaining this aspect of game theory).

This was the first hold'em book that I ever read. After reading this book I began playing very often winning at high rate (3-6, 5-10 games). I began reading other books, and began loosing. Many other books made my level of beginning hands decline, and made me forget how important it is to protect winnings. Warren's book is an excellent book and should be reread every couple of months for any player who wants to win consistently.

There are a lot of great Texas Hold'Em books available. And if you're a serious hold'em player, you should own several. However, if you're only going to buy one, this is the one.Ken Warren offers advice on everything from what to do before you arrive at the casino to what to do if you get raised on the river. He gives the reader position-by-position lists of starting hands, digestable tables of probabilities, clear guidelines on how to play individual hands in particular situations and solid advice about reading other players.This book will make you a better poker player.