Re: Poker Unchecked - Book Review

I'm sure JackKing and his many identities are firing up right now.


"DELETETHIS" <"minus200(DELETETHIS)"@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:Br9ak.14375$LL4.8977@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
they will be all over you now

Robert Ladd wrote:
When it comes to poker books, there are no shortage on the shelves at
your local bookstore or from online sites such as Barnes and Noble or
Amazon. I've read a good deal of them in the last 10 years and some have
small nuggets of gold in them, but most of the time you have to wade
through pages of fluff to find them.

I just finished reading Poker Unchecked by Russ Georgiev and found it
quite informative and surprisingly readable. I want to be honest and
make it clear that Russ sent me the book for free, but he didn't ask me
to write this review or give it any kind of praise here on RGP. After
reading it I just thought it was a good book from a knowledgeable source
and so I wrote this post.

Over the past few years, here on RGP, Russ, besides dredging up quite a
bit of controversy, has written quite a few posts concerning how to play
poker. His RGP posts concerning poker play have been quite varied across
the range of casino poker games.

Often times, especially early on, the posts were difficult to understand
and contained a lot of grammatical errors, which not only detracted from
our desire to read the post, but also often obscured or even changed the
point he was trying to make. I've noticed over the years, that Russ'
ability for written communication has improved tremendously. I was wary
that a book by him would be partially unreadable. But I was quite
pleasantly surprised as I started reading Poker Unchecked. The front
cover gave credit to Vic Grey as editor, and obviously that had a lot to
do with the readability of the book.

Russ is, by all accounts, arrogant and quite opinionated, and is a poker
predator, but when he is honestly giving his knowledge about how to play
poker, in just about any form and forum, I try to absorb as much as I
can. His opinions have softened some over the years, and this book seems
to explain much more than any of his RGP posts how much of poker is
affected by the luck factor. Many of his posts were written to answer
specific situations and his opinions there were very cut and dried. In
the book, however, he points out, over and over, that every situation has
it's own solution and if you can grasp and have the patience to apply the
basic information that he is giving you that your results will improve
dramatically.

Obviously this book is written from Russ' perspective as a top player (he
uses the term "World Class Player" - WCP) but he still addresses many of
the issues that face the weekend, non-professional player as well. He
gives great advice on how to play both ring games and tournaments and I
was especially impressed on how he tried to keep the randomness of the
cards in perspective. Most books seem to gloss over the fact that poker
tournaments are basically a crapshoot with many skilled players getting
bounced early because the cards don't often give them the opportunity to
use their skills. Russ points out the best ways to maximize your "few"
good hands and he keeps reiterating how and where to throw away those
"tempting" mediocre hands and situations that constantly short-stack you
and create decisions that you are forced to make in less than favorable
spots when you are short-stacked. Most poker authors point out what they
think is the best play as if it will be sure to work. Russ points out
the randomness of the cards and that tournaments, if played correctly,
are just a series of mostly 50/50 decisions, and any one of those
decisions could put you out or render your stack almost worthless. His
explanation makes clear that if a player has patience and limits their
play to good spots then they should have just as much chance, maybe even
more, of winning a tournament than some of the so-called professionals.

His book is geared for taking your game to the next level and as such he
makes an effort to get the reader to drop a lot of the misconceptions
such as "tells" and to concentrate on reading the players and the
situations.

Many specific examples are given and there are quite a few interesting
side stories, as well as Russ' well covered perspective on the Poker
Industry in general. All in all a surprisingly good and candid book from
a knowledgeable player. Whether you're a weekend warrior, or an
experienced ring game or tournament player I think this book gives a lot
of suggestions that will improve your play.

Robert Ladd


.

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