Editor's pick

Outplaying the Boys: Poker Tips for Competitive Women

Product

Outplaying the Boys: Poker Tips for Competitive Women by Cat Hulbert

Hits

  • Solid advice on reading players and assessing your personal tells
  • Uncomplicated tips backed up by examples from Hulbert's years of experience

Misses

  • Writing can be a little clichéd and cutesy
  • Contains a lot of Seven-Card Stud references, which could confuse people who are only familiar with Hold'em

Review

Cat Hulbert's book is the sort you read pressed flat against your lap on the daily commute to work. Its hot-pink cover begs for attention, and its title, Outplaying the Boys: Poker Tips for Competitive Women, is sure to draw a smirk from the home-game hero sitting across from you on the train.

But if you can stomach the tummy-tuck jokes and Hulbert's occasional cliché bath, the book just might have you stealing chips from those men who are still uncomfortable with too many X chromosomes at the poker table.

Some of Hulbert's tips border on sexist ("You might not think men notice whether you're sporting a French manicure or fire-engine-red polish, but they do - and a woman who cares about her appearance is more intimidating at the tables"), others are faintly ridiculous ("Tip 18: Do not play if your hormones are carrying hand grenades") and some are just common sense ("Don't loan money to a player whose name you just learned last week").

That said, you can't help but learn from Hulbert's years of experience and the undeniably solid advice contained in Outplaying the Boys. This isn't really a book for beginners, although its appendixes outline the basic rules of play for Texas Hold'em and Seven-Card Stud and the prose is sprinkled with footnotes explaining common poker terminology.

Using examples from her colorful career as a world-class stud competitor and card-counting blackjack pro, Hulbert dishes secrets in a chatty manner and isn't so pompous as to leave out some of her less-stellar career moments.

In one cautionary tale of playing poker to escape personal problems, Hulbert recalls the time she came closest to crying at the poker table. After being dumped, she stays up all night playing past her stop-loss limit only to have the former love of her life appear at her table looking like the Esmeralda to her Quasimodo.

"There I sat, red-eyed, pathetic, with a two-inch stack of chips, which was the remainder of $9,000," she writes. Rather than give him the satisfaction of leaving, Hulbert antes, bluffs, raises and is forced to do the walk of shame at the hand of her ex. Ladies, consider yourselves forewarned.

Entertaining though the rest may be, however, Hulbert's best advice comes when she skips the fluffy stuff and concentrates on how she achieved success through reading other players and assessing her own plays and tells at the table. The book is best used to complement an existing foundation of practice and previous poker-related instructional reading.

With chapters on how to avoid acting like an amateur, having a balanced approach to playing, practical techniques to improve your win rate, the strengths of being a female player, competing online and running a smooth home game, there's something for everyone to learn from in the book - maybe even the boys.

Details:

  • $12.95
    Workman Publishing