The Smarter Bet Guide to Poker

I'm a slow learner when it comes to poker, especially Texas Hold 'Em. I started off playing a little less than a year ago. I played every hand and expected it to work out with little-to-no concept of odds of any sort. I just new that I needed to pay to make a good hand win. Since then I've learned a lot from playing live and online, watching the WSOP, and talking with fellow players. But there comes a point when you need a book. That's the trouble with my poker game: I'm more an intuitive, literary sort who doesn't have a lot of interest in calculating and trying be more mechanical. I like to feel things out. This is partly why I love poker and Hold 'Em especially: I learn something every game and, sometimes, every hand. Nestor's book puts the game in terms that are simple to understand for we commoners. He is a great writer and so he knows how to address his audience. Unlike various poker stars and math gurus who create poker books for technical university graduates, Nestor's is definitely a "guide for the rest of us". It is a crash course from poker basics to advanced strategies in succinct terms that anyone can grasp. There is no extensive work book or quiz at the end of each chapter but what he presents is enough for the beginner/novice poker player to chew on and learn from. I like to think of it as a stepping stone for more advanced books like "Harrington on Hold 'Em". Harrington's book is a phenomenal resource for a poker player who wants to advance his game but can be a bit intimidating. He doesn't hold your hand. Where The Smarter Bet will talk you through something, Harrington will toss you into the middle of the felt, put a gun to your head and say, "What do you do?!". At $5 it's a bargain. You will learn things here from books four-times the price. The design is nice and colorful, it's an easy read, and if you take the ideas to heart it will vastly improve your poker game. Then, like I said, you can tackle something like Harrington or Phil Gordon.