This is a pretty good book, but it doesn't address the games that are actually played in poker rooms now: Texas hold 'em and 7-card stud. So it is of no use to most players today.

5-card draw high poker is a dieing game in the US. This book is by far the best on this game; at least of the 50 or so poker books I have read. It is also an excellent book to get "Tells", body language that gives away the opponents hand. Even if you do not play draw high this book is great for any poker player. On the down side it has considerable bigotry which cannot be avoided. Ignore that, go for the strategy and tactics, and this book is for you

Daniel Kimberg says in the book that he is not a professional.

If you were 'serious' about something you would be a professional or at least attempt to be one. If you can't make it you should not be writing books, especially not 'serious' ones.

I have often been drawn to the card rooms in the casinos, but I have never felt comfortable sitting down at the table -- the rules and etiquette of the game are daunting to the newbie.

Kimberg's book taught me the basics and made me feel at home in the card room. He covers *everything*, in a breezy, approachable text that is a pleasure to read. His sections on basic strategy are particularly well done.

I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to enjoy their time in the casino and maximize their opportunity for profit.

I paid a high out-of-print price for this, and was disappointed. There's not enough poker advice here.

This is one of the true gentlemen of poker. His experiences tell it like it was in a glorious time. Must reading......johnnyhughes.com

This isn't going to help your poker game at all.

Spanier analyses the game not from a technical angle, but rather using a more complete view which includes the psychological aspect. He looks at a variety of games in a refreshing way, and makes the book readable even to those insufficiently talented to be able to play.

Poker books are perhaps best judged by characterizing the author; given this, reading Jeff Rubens' "Win at Poker" is like listening to your grandpa sermonize on his card strategy, which in this case is conservative and numbers-oriented.

Be forewarned--'Win' was written in 1968, and the game has changed since then. There is no mention of Texas Hold 'em or Omaha, and "stud" poker mostly means 5-card, which is virtually extinct. Not to say that the book isn't generally correct or effective (I have caught a couple of questionable calculations that don't give further explanation), only that it isn't very stimulating, and the sample deals and quizzes aren't easy on the eyes.

'Win' is good for the amateur player who already has style and intuition, but needs to learn a bit about probability. The book's strength is its coverage of pot odds and betting odds (calculating risk vs. possibility of reward), and its treatment of positional mechanics, or what you'd better have in relation to where you're sitting.

I'd like to give "Win at Poker" more, but the fact that it's dry and dated devalues it from a 'must-read' to a 'might-read.'

This book presents a no-nonsense approach to winning draw and stud poker.

The author not only talks about the strategies of winning poker, but he also talks about what you need to do to become a strong player besides just learning the strategies. He presents an entire plan for your poker development.

But that's the icing on the cake. This book is absolutely full of solid, fundamental poker advice. How do you determine whether to draw, raise, or fold? What cards should you throw away? How good a hand do you need to open? It's all in here.

This book is cheap but packed full on excellent information. I recommend it strongly for those who know nothing about poker other than that they'd like to play as well as those who, like me, know the basic rules already and want to learn what it takes to win.

I hated this book. I had read Lee Jones's "Winning Low Limit Hold'Em", and loved it. I've been winning consistantly in the online casinos since (just [money] tables), but wanted to read another "for beginners" book before I continued moving up the poker text ladder.

I absolutely despised this book. My poker friends alternated between annoyance at my constant complaining about awful passages, and absolute laughter when they agreed with my mockery.

The book is filled with paragraphs telling you to "Understand The Following Truths". It's never incorrect, but it's never useful, either. It's such general garbage that all I can do is laugh.

I picked up Sklansky & Malmuth's "Hold'Em For Advanced Players" and loved it. I suggest you do what I SHOULD have done, and first read Lee Jones's book, and then read the Sklansky&Malmuth Advanced. Leave Krieger's garbage alone.

This is a good book if you are just getting started. Lou will take you from the very basic start to a few common plays that come up often in a holdem game. This book also tells you how to become a great player but one must be devoted and have great discipline. This is a great book for starters. It is also a good book to have in your libaray if you are an advanced player. Like Lou says if you only find one thing useful and it helps you win a pot then your investment was worth it, as you can use it many times over.

This book is a solid compliment to other starting Hold EM books. I would suggest this as a second or third book for the interested player (winning Low Limit Hold'em might be a better first book) It gives sound advice on positional play, and reading the board. I noticed Mike Caro's influence on this book as well, and he is undisputadely one of the best authorities on the game.

This book has quite a few good points and strategies along with probability theory. I believe it will greatly improve a beginner and average poker players style if he/she reads and applies some of the basic principles herein. However quite a few of the strategies are common sense (never play with money needed for groceries -- duh).

Mr. Scarne himself is an egotist (anyone familiar with John Scarne should know this), so one must take him with a grain of salt while reading. Mr. Scarne believes his poker should be the definitive one. I don't think Scarne's rules will ever be "the rules" for poker, and his "according to Scarne" (takeoff of "according to Hoyle") stance on poker rules is a little outlandish. One must remember for all the card tricks and stunts he can pull (and they are REALLY good!), this man has never won a major poker tournament. You can build a cold deck, but that still is cheating in honest poker.

Anyway, get past the man for it is a decent treatise on poker strategy.

Humility is not one of John Scarne's traits but he has room to talk. The man is a genius in the realm of statistics, gambling, and gaming. He is self taught which makes his intellect even more astounding.

That aside, this book is all you need to play poker and play it successfully. By following the guidelines set forth by this genius it is only a matter of time before your experience catches up with your knowledge and you will be unstoppable.

Ok, maybe it takes alitte more work then that but you get the point. Scarne's books are the best, hands down. If you can find some of his older book (Scarne on Cards is my recommendation) pick them up. They are invaluable.

Scarne's Guide to Modern Poker, though over 20 years old, holds more useful info on poker than I've seen in any other poker book. Scarne covers topics such as rules for Draw and Stud Poker, with many variants, some major poker probability principles, money management in poker games, which poker games to avoid, and popular poker cheats (something most poker books ignore). This book deals exclusively with real poker games, played in a group of people, where the only possible house take is a fixed percentage or amount per pot (and he shows you how to figure out if a commercial poker house is giving you a bum deal). If you want to learn how to deal with video poker or casino poker games like Caribbean Stud, let me tell you right now -- you can't possibly make money in the long-term playing those games. Scarne himself will tell you this in one of his other gambling books.

There's basic sound advice to be found in this book, advice you will find elsewhere: obvious things such as don't borrow money to play poker, don't play against people highly superior to you at poker, and don't play when drunk or emotional (unless you really want to lose money). However, there's advice I haven't seen elsewhere (except when they're copying Scarne): ways to prevent common card cheats, ways to calculate whether one should stay in a pot based on pot size versus your odds, and ways to mix up your play, so as to make people uncertain of your style -- so that people will stay in the pot when you've got a sure winner, and so that people will drop out when you're bluffing. I've used this last bit of advice in playing poker with friends; they know I play close to the vest (I'm very conservative on risk), so when they see me calling & raising bets, they think I know I have a sure thing. I've gotten away with some pretty horrendous bluffs with this technique. The name of the game is: don't do it too often.

There are complaints about the number of stories Scarne tells about himself (and sometimes he refers to himself by name, and I go back to check who wrote the book.) Actually, in most of the stories, Scarne's not the central character; rather, some prime poker player is the center of the story. Some of the stories of the tricks he's performed is rather neat. But more to the point, I think these stories are good examples of the kinds of tips and strategies he talks about -- he mentions stories of cheats, of bold betting, and of people who have gone from great poker players simply to good, because they lost betting courage and needed to find games more their monetary limit. More to the point, I feel Scarne is completely justified in "puffing himself up" in these stories of high-roller games and visits to the Merv Griffin show - he can back up his self-promotion with actual knowledge and skill. Scarne also knew how to write a book that would serve poker players at any level, giving specifics as well as general principles to follow. For those wishing to improve their games, this should be the first book you get.

This book has very limited utility. Much of the 220 pages of information could probably be summarized in about 5 pages. I could only recommend this book to a complete novice who is too cheap to spring for one of the $2X books.

Much of the book describes what to do when a particular set of cards are on the board in a heads up situation. While Silberstang's advice in these situations may be correct the book is terrible at explaining why a particular situation is good, bad, or middle of the road. It would seem that stictly following the advice would make you prone to be dupped by more sophisticated players. Without any indepth discussion of position, pot odds, varing your play, etc. you will only be someone performing the 'correct' moves, not knowing if the situation really calls for that play. Therefore, this book should be called 'Basic Poker for the Complete Novice". It is hardly for 'serious' poker players, and most likely not 'The ultimate money-making guide' as espoused on it's cover.

If you buy this book, be ready to quickly move up to one of the more indepth books, such as Sklansky or Brunson. Good luck, unless I'm at your table ;).

Title says most of this. I learned VERY little from Silberstang. I'm on my third read.

Silberstang has a habit of showing examples without showing IDEAS. He says "If I had this hand, and that fell, I'd do this." Well, that settles that. But I'd like to learn a few concepts, to go with my facts.

I mostly play low-limit games, where the tables are loose. YMMV, but I found Silberstang useless and poorly written.

This book takes a lot of pages to say very little. Also, he assumes that you are familiar with a lot of poker lingo that he doesn't define (some of them I still don't know). There is a small glossary in the back, but most of the terms he uses are not in there. The book also lacks an index.

Probably the biggest drawback is that mostly he gives specific examples than general guidelines. For instance, if you have Ace-Ace-ten, here's what you do. These examples will rarely occur, and he needs to give general principles instead.

Respectfully, this book and its sequal are both hardly worth the paper they're printed on. As others have said, Mr. Nelson barely skims the surface of this rather complex game. He describes a couple of hands he's played (and won - big surprise!) and expects the reader to generalize correct Omaha/8 play from these few examples. There is no systematic discussion of starting hands nor play after the flop, turn, and river, and the reader is left knowing only that Mr. Nelson likes to hear himself talk. Better to use your eight dollars to raise when you have the button than buy this book.

This is a very thin book, with little substantive information. If you know the rules of omaha and know how to read the board, you are a step ahead of this book. The only substantive information is regarding good starting hands, but it is mostly common sense. For the small price, you will get your money's worth only if you are a true beginner to omaha.

this book is definitely for the beginner...i've played other games seriously and found that i had already figured out nearly everything this book mentions...the new information i found would fill less than half a page...omaha is a complex game and mr. nelson barely skims it's twists and turns...the book is very short, 71 pages, and does little with statistical analysis(which i expected in volume) if you've played seriously, or want to, i'd suggest skipping this one...

My main interest in buying this book was for information on Omaha high-low and overall I found this to be very disappointing. First, since the book is split between stud and omaha, I had little interest in the stud portion. Second, the information on Omaha was of a very general nature and not nearly as in-depth and specific as the Hold Em for Advanced Players by Sklansky. Why Omaha high-low didn't get its own book is beyond me, is it because the author just doesn't have that much strategy to share? That was my feeling and I ended up selling my copy through amazon marketplace. I've found more useful information on Omaha strategy at online websites than in this book.

The Omaha Eight or Better Section of this book is too basic. It lacks specific information on: post and preflop odds, table position, playing connectors, playing turn and river, percent of counterfeit occurances, drawing odds, pot odds and other valuable information that would be of interest to a serious player with a desire to improve their game. Very disappointing.

this title is far out to perfection repair or furthermore ajdusting is likely rewritting is most desirable and extremely of importance but meanwhile david sklansky is a perfect buy book for all players he has over a dozen of titles for all your needs is a must buy david is the way to go