The Poker Players Bible

by Lou Krieger

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Reviewer: wayne_84  -  Poker Basics to Help Get You Started

Whether you are starting out as a new player or are a veteran player learning a new version of poker, “The Poker Player’s Bible” by Lou Krieger is a good place to start. Lou Krieger has written many books, is a poker columnist for Woman Poker Player and PokerMagazine.com and is the host for Royal Vegas Poker, College Poker Championship and PokerTime. His book teaches you the basics of five different games; Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo, Seven-Card Stud and Seven-Card Stud Hi-Lo. Each game is color coded throughout the book making it easy for you to find it in each section.

In section one of the book it goes over the basics of each game and just poker in general. It tells you the simple things that a newbie to the game of poker wouldn’t know such as hand rankings, proper poker etiquette (which a lot of people have no idea about from my experiences) and analyzing the table and your opponents.

Section two gets into the mechanics of each game and explains how each game is played. It discusses each betting round and how the pot is won or split in each type of poker at the showdown.

Section three discusses starting hands. For each game the book ranks the starting hands on how playable they are and in which position you can play them. From the very best hands down to the unplayable hands the book lets you know why each hand has been put in its corresponding category.

The last section of the book goes through playing your hand from the flop to the river. It lets you know how to calculate your odds and how they affect your play of the hand. It tells you how to be deceptive and when to semi-bluff and also how to defend your hand against your opponents. It also discusses when to raise and when to slow play depending on the strength of your hand. Of course these items are all broken out for each of the five games as they all have different strategies.

Overall this book is really good to get a person headed in the right direction to becoming a winning player as it has a lot of good information in it that will keep you out of trouble at the tables. It is written in a way a novice will understand and the glossary in the back helps with all the terminology that may be new to them. The examples trough out the book are also very helpful when explaining certain situations by putting the words into pictures. If you are just starting out down the poker path or are learning a new game I would recommend reading the book, especially the sections on the type of game you plan on playing. If you are looking for a more advanced, strategic book I would say stay away from this one. Personally, I have used this book to play in VPP Omaha freerolls, although I did not win them the book at least made me look like I partially knew what was going on!

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