Two Book Reviews: Dennis Purdy's "The Illustrated Guide to Texas Hold’em"; David Apostolico's "Machiavellian Poker Strategy"

The two books reviewed in today’s blog are very different in scope and approach, yet each of them deserves a place in your poker library.

The Illustrated Guide to Texas Hold’em, written by Dennis Purdy and published by Sourcebooks, Inc., is aimed primarily at beginning players. Its innovative approach makes it a great complement to the many other books on poker theory — mine included — that have flooded the market in recent years. The format for Purdy’s work is what we used to call a “workbook” when I was in school, and the author organized his efforts around 150 real-game situations designed to teach the application of strategic and tactical points to beginning players.

The material is presented in a manner requiring the reader to make decisions about sample hands. Answers are provided that explain the correct action to take and the rationale behind each decision. Many of the 150 situations follow a hand from the beginning through its conclusion, so that the reader gets to make a decision before the flop, on the flop, on the turn, and on the river too — just as he or she would in a real game.

One terrific feature of this book is the quality of its illustrations. They are simply presented and logically structured so that the reader is taken from one game situation to the next and is easily able to follow the action by virtue of the illustrations and the narrative, just as if he was sitting at a table watching these same hands transpire in front of him in real time.

The writing is crisp, clear, concise, easily read and easily understood. The questions posed to the reader are unambiguous and cut to the core of each decision. No one reading this book will get lost in tortured syntax, bad grammar, structural errors, and the sort of stylistic bugaboos that bedevil so many other poker books these days.

Any poker player who has read and profited from my own books would probably do well to grab this one. It will take any player — even a complete novice — from the theory he has learned to a setting where he can turn his theoretical knowledge into practical know-how just by working through the 150 problems in this workbook. At $14.95 it’s priced to provide plenty of bang for the buck. If you’re a beginning player, this is a “must have” addition to your poker library.

Machiavellian Poker Strategy — How to Play Like a Prince and Rule the Poker Table, written by David Apostolico and published by Lyle Stuart/Kensington, takes Machiavelli’s time honored strategic and philosophical approach to obtaining and keeping power and exercising leadership, and applies it to poker. In a sense this book is a follow-up to Apostolico’s earlier Tournament Poker and the Art of War, in which he showed players how to use the strategies explored in Sun-tzu’s military manual to dramatically enhance their tournament play.

Machiavellian Poker Strategy — How to Play Like a Prince and Rule the Poker Table aims Machiavelli’s lessons on achieving and retaining power at the poker player who might not have thought about the game in quite this way before. The transliteration of Machiavelli’s writings and ideas into a variety of fields of endeavor is nothing new in and of itself. His principles have been used by politicians, business leaders, and others for centuries, and there’s no reason why these timeless principles will not work just as well at the poker table as they do in the broader game of life.

If you were to attempt to encapsulate Machiavelli, you might choose to do so with the phrase, “the ends justify the means.” Although dogmatically following an oversimplified Machiavellian approach can lead to all sorts of dilemmas in modern life, morality-based dilemmas usually fall by the wayside where poker is concerned. As long as one plays by the rules and doesn’t shoot angles, there are no moral issues at the poker table. The goal of any poker player is to win money, and by following Machiavelli’s pragmatic guidelines the smart, strategic player is able to propel himself to a higher level of discipline and improve his insights into his opponents’ play and his own too.

Apostolico is a corporate lawyer who plays poker whenever he gets the chance. He writes very well too, and his book is easy to read and understand. Although the philosophies of Machiavelli can sound off-putting to the uninitiated — like having to plow through a dense college philosophy text — the author does a bang-up job of making Machiavelli easily understood and appreciated without watering down his message. The nexus between poker and Machiavelli are easily connected dots, and no leaps of faith are required to follow Machiavelli’s principles or Apostolico’s writing.

At $14.95, it’s a terrific buy and a book any thinking poker player will look forward to reading over and over again.

As I mentioned earlier, I recently went on a poker book buying binge. Next up for review is The Book of Bluffs: How to Bluff and Win at Poker, by Matt Lessinger. Stay tuned for a book review just as soon as I finish reading it.

Picture of the Week: Three's Not a Crowd Any Longer...... 

Empire Poker Announces Legal Action Against Party Gaming

Empire Online, which operates Empire Poker, announced legal action against their former partner, Party Gaming. This announcement was made following the collapse of a deal between the two companies that would have resulted in the acquisition of Empire Online by Party Gaming.

In a recent statement issued by Empire, discussions were terminated for these reasons: “Following a protracted due diligence process and continued delays in the timetable, Party Gaming has made a revised proposal that is significantly different both in terms of the price and structure and at a level that cannot be recommended.”

Empire’s legal action is based on perceived damage inflicted on them by Party. According to Empire, they served as a conduit for new players to join the Party Poker, which enabled Party built a large player base, while Empire received a piece of revenue its players brought in. Once Party excised Empire and other skins, Empire’s player base was substantially reduced and they have already warned analysts that their financial results will be lower than expected.

Party Gaming said the rejected bid valued Empire Online at 60p per share, but earlier media reports indicated that an all-share proposal made last month was more than twice that. Empire Online’s shares have been trading at approximately 65p this week, but their stock was as high as 288p in the last 52 weeks.

Party recently purchased Multi Poker, one of their other three skins, and made Intertops Poker an affiliate, essentially absorbing that poker room. The fourth skin, Coral Eurobet will migrate to another poker network, with Party’s assistance.This is not the first time talks have ended between Empire and a potential suitor. In September, Sportingbet ended negotiations predicated on a bid of 270p per share for Empire. What a difference a few weeks makes!

If you wanna play poker for a living....

An aspiring professional player emailed me today, asking these questions:

I work a part time job while in school and as I save more and more money I have been considering becoming a part-time pro at my local casino Chumash, playing 10-20 and 15-30 limit hold em. I have several questions regarding this:

-How much would be a smart bankroll to start with if I decide to go this direction?

-What would be your decision if you were in my situation?

-What advice can you give me on being successful over and above what you have written in articles.

I take the articles you and Daniel Negreanu have written on this subject seriously and would appreciate your feedback. Thank you for your time and consideration.


If you are going to play professionally and support yourself that way, give yourself the best chance of success possible. You owe yourself that much. You should start out with a playing bankroll of between 400 and 600 big bets. For a $10-$20 game, you'd need between $8,000 and $12,000, and you can double that if you intend to play $20-$40.

To prevent yourself from having to use your playing stake to live on, you’ll also need to save at least 18-24 months of living expenses. Even living frugally on $1,500 a month requires between $27,000 and $36,000 to pay rent, buy food, buy gasoline, and money for anything else you enjoy doing.

And all of this will never be enough if you cannot beat the game. My suggestion would be to finish your degree first; save a bankroll anyway you can, then give poker a try by taking a month or so and playing in the games and casinos where you'd intend to play professionally.

If you accept the philosophy that a winning player can make one big-bet per hour, you can earn $40,000 annually by playing $10-$20. That's not much of a living to aspire to, but it's your call — not mine. If you think you can beat the $20-$40 or $40-$80 games for one big bet per hour, give it a try, but you really ought to have a "Plan B" in place just in case poker doesn't pan out for you, or you decide there's more to life than sitting in a poker game 2000 hours a year. That’s why getting your degree is important. It provides you with options outside of poker.

I don't mean to sound negative, and I really wish you all the best if you give it a try, but it’s important to know the perils up front so you can make whatever informed decision best fits your life.

Book Review: "Cards," by Jonathan Maxwell

Last week I bought about seven new books from the Gambler’s Book Store, and a few more arrived unsolicited in my post office box courtesy of various publishers and publicists. I’ve been reading them as I find time, and will review some of them here during the next few weeks.

Cards, by Jonathan Maxwell, a novel that arrived from the publisher, Silent Lyrics Productions, is a disturbing book on a number of levels. There are some things I liked about it and others I did not.

Cards is a compelling read from the perspective of getting the color and flavor of low limit poker absolutely correct. Paradise Haven, the thinly disguised casino that serves as a stand in for Hollywood Park is accurately depicted too. But a lot of the book is problematical. Aside from its one-note, tone-poem depiction of poker as Charles Bukowski might have written about it if he was into poker instead of horseracing, there are problems throughout the book.

There isn’t much in the way of plot, resolution, character development, or story continuity and the book’s 280-plus pages could have been tightened up significantly if many of the unnecessary hand descriptions were omitted. Like too many other poker novels, it’s longer on color than character development and plot.

Mike Jameson, the main character, is nearly broke, borrowing from friends to keep himself in the game when he gets a bit ahead and visits an old friend in who’s living in France. In Paris, he builds up his bankroll even more. Then he splits for Vegas, increases his bankroll to $30,000 and harbors dreams about winning the World Series of Poker. But he blows his money to a bunch of fish who really can’t play big-bet poker worth a damn and don’t realize how lucky they were when their long shot draws bust our hero.

A letter from the publisher that accompanied the book said, “…we would like to inform you that there exist about 30 grammatical typos in the 284 pages. These will be corrected in the next printing.” This kind of admission might not bother some readers but when one is an unrepentant language junky, it’s upsetting when the writer and editors apparently don’t know the difference between a playing “stake” and a playing “steak.” Errors like that are more than “grammatical typos;” they are issues of basic literacy.

There was precious little fact-checking too, as many names are misspelled. I’d like to think that anyone writing a novel would have a better job with grammar, syntax, fact-checking, and editing.

The physical production is equally lacking. Not enough white space exists at the book’s margins, giving it a dense, difficult-to-read feeling. The book’s protagonist is not really likable, and tough to empathize with. He personifies himself as a professional poker player, yet persists in raising blindly, playing hunches, and because he gets so emotionally upset it’s no surprise at all that he blows back a $30,000 win very rapidly and winds up right back where he started —albeit a bit more self-aware — walking through the side entrance of Paradise Haven Casino to scrounge up $600 to play $6-$12 Texas hold’em. Now his dreams are not about winning the WSOP, but of building his bankroll up to $6,000 — which in his view is sufficient to sit in the pot-limit games that give him the maximum edge.

Despite all the book’s negative aspects, it was a quick read and I enjoyed it. Although someone with the Jameson’s attitude and habits will never survive as a professional poker player, despite his belief that he can and will, the color and flavor of the poker alone — together with the fact that there just aren’t enough novels about poker (King of a Small World, Rounders, and Shut Up and Deal quickly come to mind, but that’s a very short list) make this a worthwhile read.

If the author, editors, and publisher are willing to rework this book, they may yet have a winner on their hand. But at this point, it’s simply a long-shot flush draw that has yet to pan out.

Bad Beat for Poker Skins on the London Stock Exchange

Stock analysts in London recently took the view that poker skins do not actually “own” their customer base. This had the effect of reducing share value, and placing skin owners in the position of owning companies that are probably not be as valuable as they thought.

Empire Online, which derives much of its income from Empirepoker.com, had been negotiating a sale to Sportingbet, a leading online gaming operator. Sportingbet was planning to purchase Empire for £790 million when the deal collapsed when London market analysts stated that the customer base belonged more to Party Gaming, the skin provider, than to Empire.

According to one analyst, “All that was being offered for almost £800 million was about 16 employees and a marketing war.” He went on to say that, “Empire offers an excellent marketing team, but it does not control its own customers.”

The collapse of that deal reduced Empire’s share price by 20 percent in one day. For other poker skin operators the message is clear: Even with a healthy revenue stream, their operations are overvalued because their revenue flow is controlled by other gaming companies.

Even a Former Governor Endorses Online Gaming

Now it's not just poker players who are endorsing online gaming sites, even former elected public official and hall of fame quarterbacks are getting in on the act. The following is an edited version of an article that appeared in today 's New York Times.

By MATT RICHTEL, The New York Times

(Nov. 16) -- Jesse Ventura is no longer governor of Minnesota. But he is still pushing an agenda - in this case, sports betting over the Internet.

Mr. Ventura is the new spokesman for BetUS.com, a Web site operated from Costa Rica that lets people wager on sports contests from their home computers. "This is a step toward bringing something above- board that clearly many people want to partake in," Mr. Ventura said.

In a sign of an increased acceptance of Internet gambling, online casinos in recent months have signed endorsement deals with a group of celebrities, including Tom Arnold, the actor; Brooke Burke, a model turned television host; and Jim Kelly, a former quarterback for the Buffalo Bills.

But there is a big potential catch: these stars and others who profit by promoting offshore casinos could be putting themselves in legal jeopardy. The government considers these Internet sports books to be violating American law by providing unlicensed gambling on domestic shores. Further, the government has said in the past that it could prosecute Americans who promote and assist such foreign operations for effectively aiding and abetting their illegal activities.

"There's a good chance they are criminally liable for the crime itself," said I. Nelson Rose, a professor at Whittier Law School in California and the author of "The Law of Internet Gaming." For celebrities who draw attention from law enforcement officials, he said, "the downside danger is enormous."

The Justice Department declined to comment for this article.

Internet gambling is projected to reach almost $12 billion in business this year, up from $8.3 billion in 2004, according to Sebastian Sinclair, a gambling industry analyst with Christiansen Capital Advisors. Americans account for more than half of the amount wagered, Internet casino executives and industry analysts say. The popularity has soared in recent years with the boom in poker, particularly Texas Hold 'Em, and its increasing prominence on cable television. Still, the industry insists that online gambling would be much larger were it not for efforts by federal prosecutors and some financial institutions.

(1) Inside Poker TV Show; (2) The Future of Poker Tours

I was in Las Vegas for the past thee days, shooting footage for a new TV show called "Inside Poker." It's a poker news show, sort of modeled after what Entertainment Tonight would be if it was about poker instead of movies and television.

The show is set to air in December, and it will be syndicated, so I've no idea what markets it will appear in nor the dates and times. You'll have to keep your eyes open for it.

While I was there, I ran into Matt Savage who was waiting to be filmed for the show too, right after they concluded my segment. We got to talking and the topic ran to my recent blog postings in which I ranted about the World Series of Poekr fast morphing into the World Series of Hold'em. When I told Matt I felt like the only person out there who was concerned about Harrah's lack of leadership in using the World Series of Poker -- surely poker's biggest and most significant brand -- to bring back poker's wonderfully rich diversity of games, he assured me that he and others felt the same way.

These are rich times for poker. It is thriving as never before. But it has to grow with direction and intelligence. The more I think about it, the more something like the PGA tour or the Rodeo Cowboys' Association seems like a model to use to provide some discipline and direction to the game. But building that kind of model involves the marriage of sponsors and an association (just like the PGA or RCA) in order to drive the wagon in a direction that's good for the players, the sponsors, and the properties who host events.

Building a poker tour, given all the competing interests right now, it is not going to be easy, and negotiations will be needed at every step in the road in order to satisfy competing interests. Still, it can be done, needs to be done, and should be done.

A strong association, rich with sponsorship could sanction tour events much like the PGA and RCA does. With all the interest in poker, you moight wind up with a major tour and satellite tours, jsut as they have in golf. Perhaps the poorest performing players on the major tour would be relegated at the end of the year to the minors with the leading players from the minors being promoted to the main tour. There are scads of ways to do this.

But it takes leadership, sponsorship, vision, and direction. I'll keep posting about this topic as long as I continue to get the same volume of email that I have been. It all suggests there's one hell of a lot of interest in this subject.

A-Rod: Playing Poker May be Hazardous to His Image

According to a recent AP report, Alex Rodriguez was cautioned by the New York Yankees that playing poker in illegal clubs could be dangerous and harmful to his image.

Early last month, the New York Daily News reported the star slugger attended games at an underground club with professional card player Phil Hellmuth.

Hmmmmm. This is A-Rod we're talking about, a guy earning about $25 million a year plus whatever his endorsement portfolio brings in. I think he can afford to take a few losses in New York City poker clubs. And just for the record, altho0ugh it's illegal to operate a poker club in New York City, I don't recall ever reading about anyone arrested for playing poker there.

If I were a reporter covering the New York Yankees, I'd focus on A-Rod's dreadful post-season performance, not his poker.

But I'm not a reporter covering the New York Yankees. I'm a lifelong Dodger fan who'se hoping the Yanks are fed up enough with A-Rod's disgraceful poker playing habits to ship him off to Los Angeles, where legal poker clubs abound. That way the Dodgers can reap the benefit of his usual 40 homers, 100+ RBIs, and .300 batting average. Alex can play poker to his heart's content. And we Dodger fans won't have to worry about his post season failures either; even with A-Rod in the lineup the Dodgers seem a long shot to make it into post-season play.