Thinking in Bets


Book Description

A Wall Street Journal bestseller, now in paperback. Poker champion turned decision strategist Annie Duke teaches you how to get comfortable with uncertainty and make better decisions. Even the best decision doesn't yield the best outcome every time. There's always an element of luck that you can't control, and there's always information hidden from view. So the key to long-term success (and avoiding worrying yourself to death) is to think in bets: How sure am I? What are the possible ways things could turn out? What decision has the highest odds of success? Did I land in the unlucky 10% on the strategy that works 90% of the time? Or is my success attributable to dumb luck rather than great decision making? Annie Duke, a former World Series of Poker champion turned consultant, draws on examples from business, sports, politics, and (of course) poker to share tools anyone can use to embrace uncertainty and make better decisions. For most people, it's difficult to say "I'm not sure" in a world that values and, even, rewards the appearance of certainty. But professional poker players are comfortable with the fact that great decisions don't always lead to great outcomes, and bad decisions don't always lead to bad outcomes. By shifting your thinking from a need for certainty to a goal of accurately assessing what you know and what you don't, you'll be less vulnerable to reactive emotions, knee-jerk biases, and destructive habits in your decision making. You'll become more confident, calm, compassionate, and successful in the long run.




Talkin' about Poker


Book Description




Poker For Dummies


Book Description

Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em Poker is America’s national card game, and its popularity continues to grow. Nationwide, you can find a game in progress everywhere. If you want to play, you can find poker games on replicas of 19th century riverboats or on Native American tribal lands. You can play poker at home with the family or online with opponents from around the world. Like bowling and billiards before it, poker has moved out from under the seedier side of its roots and is flowering in the sunshine. Maybe you’ve never played poker before and you don’t even know what a full house is. Poker For Dummies covers the basics. Or perhaps you've played for years, but you just don’t know how to win. This handy guide will help you walk away from the poker table with winnings, not lint, in your pockets. If you’re a poker expert, you still can benefit – some of the suggestions may surprise you, and you can certainly learn from the anecdotes from professional players like T.J. Cloutier and Stu Unger. Know what it takes to start winning hand after hand by exploring strategy; getting to know antes and betting structure; knowing your opponents, and understanding the odds. Poker For Dummies also covers the following topics and more: Poker games such as Seven-Card Stud, Omaha, and Texas Hold'em Setting up a game at home Playing in a casino: Do's and don'ts Improving your play with Internet and video poker Deciphering poker sayings and slang Ten ways to read your opponent's body language Playing in poker tournaments Money management and recordkeeping Knowing when and how to bluff Poker looks like such a simple game. Anyone, it seems, can play it well – but that's far from the truth. Learning the rules can be quick work, but becoming a winning player takes considerably longer. Still, anyone willing to make the effort can become a good player. You can succeed in poker the way you succeed in life: by facing it squarely, getting up earlier than the next person, and working harder and smarter than the competition. Foreword by Chris Moneymaker, 2003 World Series of Poker Champion.




Harrington on Cash Games: Volume II


Book Description

The first years of the poker boom were fueled by the interest in no-limit hold'em tournaments. Recently, however, players have been gravitating to another, even more complex form of hold'em - no-limit cash games. Harrington on Cash Games: Volume II, continues where Volume I left off. In sections on turn and river play, Harrington explains why these are the most important streets in no-limit hold'em, and shows how to decide when to bet or check, when to call or fold, and when to commit all your chips. In later sections, Harrington shows how to play a looser and more aggressive style, how to make the transition from online to live games, and how to extract the maximum profit from very low-stakes games. Volume II concludes with an interview with Bobby Hoff, considered by many the best no-limit cash game player of all times, who shares some of his secrets and insight. Dan Harrington won the gold bracelet and the World Champion title at the $10,000 buy-in No-Limit Holdem Championship at the 1995 World Series of Poker. And he was the only player to make the final table in 2003 (field of 839) and 2004 (field of 2,576) - considered by cognoscenti to be the greatest accomplishment in WSOP history. In Harrington on Cash Games, Harrington and two-time World Backgammon Champion Bill Robertie have written the definitive books on no-limit cash games. These poker books will teach you what you need to know to be a winner in the cash game world.




A Girl's Guide to Poker


Book Description

So you want to play poker. Maybe it’s the challenge. Maybe it’s the cash. Maybe you’re turned on by guys in hoodies and sunglasses. Whatever the reason, if you’re a girl – or guy! – who wants to learn poker, then this book is handier than your high school cheat sheet. Learn everything from insider poker lingo (bluff! checkraise! snapcall!) to fancy winning plays with the help of easy-to-read mini-chapters and quizzes. Most poker books read like a math textbook. This one reads like Cosmo. The only poker book that teaches card playing strategy and how to bluff your boyfriend, A Girl’s Guide to Poker will make you the belle of the ball – or the cardshark of the casino. Amanda Botfeld isn’t your average poker player – how many hold their cards with a red nail polish manicure? Not enough! Nicknamed the Bridget Jones of poker, she seeks to turn the tables for women everywhere, writing a sassy how-to guide so more women can join the game. A writer at heart, her work has previously been published in the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and Huffington Post.




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.




Elements of Poker


Book Description

"Beyond statistics, beyond whether to raise, call, or fold, Elements of Poker reveals a new world of profitability for your bankroll and your life. You know tilt costs you money, but do you know how to make it go away? You know position is important, but do you know how to cash in that knowledge? Elements of Poker will teach you all of this and much more. Published in 2007, Elements of poker has been extremely well-received by the poker community for its fresh perspective, grand scope, humor, insight, and tilt reduction teachings. Tommy Angelo is a top tier poker coach, poker writer, and philosopher. Join professional, winning poker players like Phil Galfond, Ed Miller, Simon Munz, Lee Jones, and David Benefield in reading the book that Jay Rosenkrantz calls the best poker book ever."--




Reading Poker Tells


Book Description

Provides information on common poker tells and gives a mental framework for analyzing and remembering that behavior.




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.




The Setup


Book Description

Leather Bound