Winning Poker for the Serious Player, 2nd Edition

Silberstang is a great writer. He's written novels and other gambling books. All are cogent, well crafted texts that smoothly transport the reader through interesting subjects. Winning Poker for the Serious Player is no exception, as the author presents the four standard casino games of Texas Hold Em, 7-Card Stud, Omaha8 and Stud8. Silberstang's strength is in taking the home game player into the world of casino poker with a careful, clear and powerful writing style. The ideas he presents are surely presented in other texts -- often with more detail -- but never with the simplicity and clarity of this text. His is a common sense approach to winning, that couples powerful winning concepts with an accessible text. On a personal note, this was my first poker manual. It, more than any of the many other poker books I've read since, helped turn me from a losing casino player into a winning casino player. In that regard it tranformed me from bad to good. That jump was surely more significant than the subsequent jump from good to great. For that journey, other texts may be more useful

I have been playing poker for a long time, or so I thought until I read this book. In his very clear writing style, Edwin Silberstang has opened my eyes to the way I SHOULD be playing. I recently returned from a trip to Las Vegas, and I put the practices Silberstang explains in this book into practice, and I took third place in a Hold-em tourney at the Orleans, and won around 300 bucks at the Flamingo (in a 1-5 stud game). This book is wonderful, and I recommend it to anyone who is ready to get serious about poker.

Silberstang gears this book toward the casino game. Many of his comments start with a differentiation between the home game play and the casino game play and expounds on the casino play. I'm a home game player with a group that seems stuck on 7 card high-low split. This book taught me to stop playing weak pairs and how to punish those who do and made me some money. Unfortunately for me, the book doesn't focus exclusively on the high-low game. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it the most of the 5 or so poker strategy books I've read. This is the only one I've re-read.

I used to play "nickel, dime, quarter" poker with buy in set at five dollars. (Normal game where I'm from.) Most of the time I would walk home minus 5 dollars. Once every blue moon I might walk home with 10 dollars, but not most of the time.After reading this book, I went to play my usual weekly poker game. I paid 10 dollars for the book, and at the end of the night I walked home with 40 dollars in my pocket. I then started to have parties at my house. But all the guys that came over were cheap, so we played penny poker. (minium bet: one shiny penny) I usually average around 30 dollars a night on penny poker. This book took me from a "just to have fun and hang out" poker player, to a "just give me your money at the door, and save us both the time" poker player.Knowing what cards to stay in on, and which ones to fold. Knowing how to read people's hands, and disabling them from reading your's. Knowing when to stay at the table, or just walk away. It's all here. I'm not saying I could go to Vegas and come home a millionaire, but for home games, it's pretty much a guaranteed win.