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Why You Lose at Poker
Product
Why You Lose at Poker by Russell Fox and Scott T. Harker
Hits
- Forces losing players to take an honest look at their games
- Written in an informal and relaxed style
- Frequently uses hand examples to illustrate important points
- Introduces readers to many of the most common types of players
- Is conveniently broken down into the 16 biggest problem areas for easy reference
Misses
- Has many typos and inconsistencies in hand examples
- Is at times oversimplified
Review
In the foreword to Why You Lose at Poker, professional poker player and card-carrying member of Team Full Tilt Andy Bloch points out that while the shelves of bookstores are overflowing with books on how to win at poker, very few volumes focus specifically on why we lose.
Russell Fox and Scott T. Harker attempt to tackle this issue and have succeeded in laying out the 16 biggest problem areas costing poker players money.
The authors assert that at least 85% of players are lifetime losers in the game of poker. This statistic is clearly at odds with the opinions you will hear from the poker players themselves and part of this book's objective is to force these deluded players to take an honest look at their game.
Why You Lose is written in an extremely informal and relaxed style which may help facilitate the sometimes painful process of accepting the fact that you are indeed a losing player. Interestingly, this book is equally useful for the winning player who would undoubtedly benefit from plugging the leaks they may still have in their strategy.
The lessons in this book are broken into 16 separate modules and while, even by the authors' own admission, much of the content can be found in other similar texts, it is compiled here for easy reference for the reader.
The authors introduce us to 10 different fictitious players who encompass the many styles present in both live and online cardrooms. Illustrating their points through hand examples told from the perspective of their various characters, they offer us a glimpse into the mind and strategy of our would-be real-life opponents.
The one drawback to this casual approach is that it seems to have been translated to the book's editing process as well. There are numerous technical errors in the writing and even a few hand examples where the same card appears in more than one place.
Fortunately these problems do little to detract from the lessons being taught. While many experienced players may find the bulk of the wisdom presented to be elementary and somewhat obvious, the statistic mentioned above suggests that there are still more than a few players whose games would benefit from reading and implementing the ideas put forth here.
Why You Lose at Poker is one of the rare books that address the phenomenon of players who go their entire lives committed to a losing strategy in poker. Whether the reason for your declining bankroll is poor game selection, bad money management, misguided assumptions about the mechanics of the game itself or a myriad of other snags, this is a book that can help get you out of the red and back in the black where you belong.
Details:
- $19.95
Paperback
ConJelCo
212 pages
