Lessons From The Pro Poker Tour: A Seat At The Table With Poker's Greatest Players


Book Description

The invitation-only Professional Poker Tour is strictly limited to the top 200 players in the world. David Apostolico is one of the elite, and he found that going up against other poker masters every day was like attending an incomparable seminar. He takes you through specific hands that he either played or observed, giving detailed analyses that will teach you how to think like a pro. Assessment and adaptability are key factors for survival and success in fast-moving games with experienced players. Smart strategy is your greatest asset, and by studying the extensive hands in this book, you'll learn the tactics and approaches of legendary winners. Most poker books focus on the math and science of poker. But the pros know that there really are no hard and fast rules, and that playing "by the book" will only get you so far before your game becomes completely transparent. By studying the real-world strategies of players like Doyle Brunson, T. J. Cloutier, Billy Baxter, Berry Johnson, and many others--brought to you by one who's been there--you can raise your game to the next level, and have a great time doing it. "David Apostolico has just delivered his third book telling you how to destroy your opponents at the poker table. I loved all of them and feel everybody should add all three to their poker library." --Tom McEvoy, WSOP champion and co-author of the Championship series of poker books David Apostolico plays in dozens of poker tournaments each year. He has won tournaments in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and online.




Phil Gordon's Little Blue Book


Book Description

In Poker: The Real Deal and Phil Gordon's Little Green Book, Phil Gordon -- a world-class player and teacher -- shared the strategies, tips, and expertise he's gleaned during his phenomenally successful career. Now, he shows players how to apply those theories to actual hands in order to make smart, confident decisions with every move. Gordon walks readers through hands that he's encountered in cash games; early, middle, and late tournament play; Sit & Gos; satellites and supersatellites; and the final table of the World Series of Poker, revealing not only what plays he made but also why he made them. He relates what goes through a pro's mind in every situation, whether it's a timely bluff or a questionable call, and helps players calculate their own best moves in the most pressure-fueled of situations. In analyzing specific hands, Gordon also imparts important lessons in key poker skills such as calculating odds, shorthanded play, and discovering tells. And he discusses memorable plays -- the good and the oh-so-bad -- explaining why certain moves were made and, in many cases, how the hands should have been played differently. Insightful, witty, and filled with real-life pro secrets, Phil Gordon's Little Blue Book is required reading for every player looking to make a profit and raise his game to the next level.




Red Chip Poker


Book Description

The first volume in a series, the book reviews a collection of poker hands played from the button, cutoff, and hijack positions which illustrate concepts to help improve the reader's poker game.




The Pursuit of Poker Success


Book Description

Why do some poker players become immensely successful while others fall by the wayside?What is it that separates the successes from the failures?Is there a magic formula? Over the last 12 years, Lance Bradley has been one of poker’s leading journalists and now finds himself at the helm of PocketFives.com as President and Editor-in-Chief. During his time covering the poker world, Bradley has interviewed hundreds, if not thousands, of the world’s best players. This experience has revealed one fascinating trend; contrary to what might be expected, there is no single guaranteed path to success. Each and every poker player featured in The Pursuit of Poker Success has taken their own route to becoming one of the world’s best players. The players interviewed for this book include World Series of Poker bracelet winners, World Poker Tour champions, online poker wizards and some of the best cash game players on the planet. Bradley spoke to each player about the way in which they found success in a game that can be humbling for so many. What worked for them can work for you.




The Biggest Bluff


Book Description

A New York Times bestseller • A New York Times Notable Book “The tale of how Konnikova followed a story about poker players and wound up becoming a story herself will have you riveted, first as you learn about her big winnings, and then as she conveys the lessons she learned both about human nature and herself.” —The Washington Post It's true that Maria Konnikova had never actually played poker before and didn't even know the rules when she approached Erik Seidel, Poker Hall of Fame inductee and winner of tens of millions of dollars in earnings, and convinced him to be her mentor. But she knew her man: a famously thoughtful and broad-minded player, he was intrigued by her pitch that she wasn't interested in making money so much as learning about life. She had faced a stretch of personal bad luck, and her reflections on the role of chance had led her to a giant of game theory, who pointed her to poker as the ultimate master class in learning to distinguish between what can be controlled and what can't. And she certainly brought something to the table, including a Ph.D. in psychology and an acclaimed and growing body of work on human behavior and how to hack it. So Seidel was in, and soon she was down the rabbit hole with him, into the wild, fiercely competitive, overwhelmingly masculine world of high-stakes Texas Hold'em, their initial end point the following year's World Series of Poker. But then something extraordinary happened. Under Seidel's guidance, Konnikova did have many epiphanies about life that derived from her new pursuit, including how to better read, not just her opponents but far more importantly herself; how to identify what tilted her into an emotional state that got in the way of good decisions; and how to get to a place where she could accept luck for what it was, and what it wasn't. But she also began to win. And win. In a little over a year, she began making earnest money from tournaments, ultimately totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. She won a major title, got a sponsor, and got used to being on television, and to headlines like "How one writer's book deal turned her into a professional poker player." She even learned to like Las Vegas. But in the end, Maria Konnikova is a writer and student of human behavior, and ultimately the point was to render her incredible journey into a container for its invaluable lessons. The biggest bluff of all, she learned, is that skill is enough. Bad cards will come our way, but keeping our focus on how we play them and not on the outcome will keep us moving through many a dark patch, until the luck once again breaks our way.




Kiplinger's Personal Finance


Book Description

The most trustworthy source of information available today on savings and investments, taxes, money management, home ownership and many other personal finance topics.




Harrington on Hold 'em


Book Description

Provides poker strategies for every phase of tournament play, covering the early phase where the stakes are small to later tactics such as bluffing, flops, scare cards, playing shorthanded, loose games, and endgame play.




Treat Your Poker Like a Business


Book Description

Poker star Dusty Schmidt presents his first book [¬" one that stands to shake up poker in the same way Moneyball did for baseball. Schmidt offers an inspiring look at how in just five years, he went from not knowing a thing about poker to netting a seven-figure annual income. Far from a mathematical or technological genius, Schmidt says what guides him through is a fundamental understanding of business. Treat Your Poker Like A Business provides a foundation upon which all poker will be evaluated in the future, and will help an entire generation of poker players evolve their games into empires. A consummate "grinder," Dusty Schmidt has played nearly 7 million hands of online poker over more than 10,000 hours during his five-year career. He's won over $3 million during that period, and has never experienced a losing month. In 2007, he achieved Poker Stars' SuperNova Elite status in just eight months while playing high-stakes cash games exclusively. Schmidt posted the world's highest win rate in both 5/10 NL and 10/20 NL in both 2007 and 2008. In a four-month period between Nov. 2007 and Feb. 2008, Schmidt won in excess of $600,000 in high-stakes cash games. He is now a highly respected instructor at Stoxpoker.com, and plays as high as 25/50 NL. As a young man, Schmidt was a top-ranked golfer. He broke two of Tiger Woods' junior records, and was the leading money winner on the Golden States Tour when, at age 23, he suffered a career-ending heart attack. Schmidt returned to golf in 2009, winning medalist honors in qualifying for the Oregon Amateur Championship. Later that year, Schmidt famously represented himself in federal court in his suit against the United States Golf Association, which controversially stripped him of his amateur status, in part due to his poker profession. Schmidt is now a volunteer assistant coach for the University of Oregon's men's golf team, working under his good friend, Head Coach Casey Martin. Schmidt is also a successful entrepreneur. He is part-owner of Stoxpoker.com and Imagine Media, and the creator of 10thGreen.com, the first social network for golfers. His story has been featured in Sports Illustrated, Card Player, Poker News, Golf Magazine, Fairways and Greens, Golf Week, Golf World and the Portland Oregonian, as well as on ESPN, cnn.com, wallstreetjournal.com, forbes.com, fortune.com, espn.com, golfdigest.com and golf.com, among many others. He recently founded the House of Cards Project, a philanthropic effort to provide food and shelter to disadvantaged families. His life story will be told in the book [¬Raise: The Impossibly True Tale of Dusty Schmidt, [¬? to be released later in 2010. He lives in Portland, Ore., with his wife, Nicole, and daughter, Lennon.




Positively Fifth Street


Book Description

Rough sex, black magic, murder, and the science-and eros-of gambling meet in the ultimate book about Las Vegas James McManus was sent to Las Vegas by Harper's to cover the World Series of Poker in 2000, especially the mushrooming progress of women in the $23 million event, and the murder of Ted Binion, the tournament's prodigal host, purportedly done in by a stripper and her boyfriend with a technique so outré it took a Manhattan pathologist to identify it. Whether a jury would convict the attractive young couple was another story altogether. McManus risks his entire Harper's advance in a long-shot attempt to play in the tournament himself. Only with actual table experience, he tells his skeptical wife, can he capture the hair-raising brand of poker that determines the world champion. The heart of the book is his deliciously suspenseful account of the tournament itself-the players, the hand-to-hand combat, and his own unlikely progress in it. Written in the tradition of The Gambler and The Biggest Game in Town, Positively Fifth Street is a high-stakes adventure, a penetrating study of America's card game, and a terrifying but often hilarious account of one man's effort to understand what Edward O. Wilson has called "Pleistocene exigencies"-the eros and logistics of our primary competitive instincts.




Annie Duke


Book Description

The top-ranked female poker player in the world reveals an insider's view of the World Series of Poker. Annie Lederer grew up in a card-playing family, whose dual mantra was "Education is everything" and "win at all costs." At 26, when the Columbia alum suddenly developed a panic disorder just before finishing her doctorate, she freaked and fled to Montana. Months later, on a lark, she began to hone her poker skills and quickly started to win. Soon, she and her new husband upped the ante and moved to Las Vegas, and the rest is history. Highlighting strategic tips and keen analysis that will appeal to both the skilled player and the reader newly intrigued, Annie Duke shares a unique view of a game that's fast evolved into a subculture.--From publisher description.