Hold'em Wisdom for all Players

Hold'em Wisdom for all Players author: Daniel Negreanu rating: asin: 1580422101 binding: Paperback list price: $14.95 USD amazon price: $10.17 USD

Hold'em Wisdom for All Players is a somewhat disappointing effort by Canada's most famous poker player, Daniel Negreanu. The book consists of 50-odd sections of 3-4 pages where he will talk about a concept and often work in a story or hand from a game that he was involved in. Unfortunately, the title is misleading, as there is not much in the book that a moderately experienced player would find new. Beginning Hold'em Wisdom would have made for a better title, although it might not have sold as many copies.

Negreanu writes about some well-known principles such as not playing out of position, avoiding easily dominated offsuit hands, and not playing huge pots with poor hands. The book is written in a casual, conversational style and is a very quick read.

The book contains a fair amount of material on the psychological aspect of the game, briefly covering topics such as not going on tilt, bluffing and tells. There are some brief discussions of situations from tournaments such as the NBC Heads-up Championship and the World Series of Poker, including an interesting hand with Los Angeles Lakers' owner and High Stakes Poker player Jerry Buss.

Chapter 19, "Top Ten Trouble Hands" has some good advice for the beginner, in which Negreanu outlines some of tricker hands to play, such as pocket jacks and ace-queen.

If you have never played poker before, and you are looking for some simple advice to help you through your first few games, this might be a good choice for you. On the whole though, I would recommend Phil Gordon's Little Green Book instead of this. I don't think you will find yourself coming back to this book much over time.