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Online Ace: A World Series of Poker Champion's Guide to Mastering Internet Poker
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Online Ace: A World Series of Poker Champion's Guide to Mastering Internet Poker |
Author: Scott Fischman
Published: 2006-06-13 |
List price: $19.95
Our price: $13.57
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Usually ships in 24 hours
As of: August 20th, 2008 09:04:21 AM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 OUTSTANDING
WOW DICK COOK... do you even know what you are talking about? I thought this book was insighful and well thought out. It covered several different angles for beginers. This is who the book is aimed for. This book is not directed toward the more experienced players. Well done Mr. Fischman, well done.
 Worthless
Not one worthwhile idea in this book. For beginners try Lee Jones..Intermediate..Mat Hilger and advanced Harrington. They are worthwhile books. Tis one is not!
 Not bad, not great
Not a bad book, it does have a lot of useful tid bits inside the pages, but the book will not really challenge your thinking and insight to the game. If you're a beginner this book may be a useful read, but if you've been playing for a while and past the beginner stage, you might want to look at some other more in depth material.
Improved my INSIGHT and MIND!
****1/2
This was my second poker book and first online book. I have been playing off and on for about 7 years now and this book has helped my game tremendously, specifically online, but not exclusively either. Scott gives you a lot to think about during the game and also helps you to think on different levels and how your emotions and mind come into play whether playing online or live games. There were many excellent tips and anecdotes from well know pros as well, both online and brick and mortar. There is a great pace to the book - it is a very quick and easy read. Lastly, another nice feature is the multitude of pointers for sit-n-go's, tournaments, and cash/ring games!
The only drawback might be the lack of mention of odds in general, which do play a large part in poker, but that should be a given anyway. This can be learned from many other books anyway. I highly recommend this book to just about anyone, beginners and advanced players alike. You will certainly become a better player with all of the great strategies and insights provided. And, in turn, hopefully you can make much more money! Best of luck always!
 Good book for both experienced and inexperienced players
Scott Fischman is a guy who was once a dealer who went on to win a couple of World Series of Poker bracelets including one for the HORSE event. This interested me. (Yes, I used to play basketball and remember Bob McAdoo of the Lakers who was a deadly shot at HORSE, about whom it was said--by Michael Cooper--"You do, McAdoo.") But I digress.
HORSE in poker stands for Hold'em, Omaha hilo, Razz, Stud, and stud Eight or better. It's spread in some clubs, but you can almost always find some limit games at PokerStars and other places on the Internet. A round is played of hold'em and then a round of Omaha eight or better, then a round of razz, which is stud lowball, and then a round of regular stud and then stud hilo, and the cycle is repeated. You have to be a pretty good all-around player to be successful at HORSE, and anybody who can beat that game regularly earns my respect.
This book, like many others published in the wake of the TV- and Internet-turboed rise of poker, is directed at beginners or near beginners. The "Mastering Internet Poker" in the subtitle is justified however because Fischman reveals a lot about his overall approach to the game of poker, especially his psychological approach. For Fischman the most important psychology in the game is self-psychology.
There is plenty of strategy presented throughout the book and some explanations given on how to play various hands in various situations; but mainly Fischman concentrates on his overall approach to the games. In a sense this is a hybrid book: part "how-to" and part "how-I-did-it."
Fischman is not a deep strategic master of the game or a mathematical whiz. He is a "by the seat of your pants" player with a wealth of experience both online and in the brick and mortar clubs. His advice on tournament strategy, especially online Sit-N-Go's is excellent. He divides the tournament, one-table or otherwise, into three "seasons," the beginning when blinds are small relative to stacks; the middle, when the size of your stack begins to dictate decisions; and the endgame, when many or most decisions will involve all your chips and your tournament life.
In the "beginning" he likes to "look for spots where I can safely--or as close to safely as poker allows--double my stack. Otherwise, I've got no business being in the hand." (p. 71) In the middle he likes to start making small raises often with the idea of picking up the blinds from his now very careful opponents. In the endgame, Fischman becomes super-aggressive. One excellent idea of his is that near the bubble when many players start to play very carefully you can steal a lot of pots. He believes that in Sit-N-Gos you should aim to finish first, not just in the money because of the big difference between first place money (usually 50% of the prize fund) and third place (usually 20%). So he advises, don't be afraid of finishing fourth and out of the money. A first and a fourth are better than two third-place finishes.
Also interesting is Fischman's take on "multi-tabling" online. He believes that playing several tables at once not only allows the expert to win more money, it allows the expert to get into the zone and become "the Robot," as he calls himself when he is just one with the decisions, one after another in front of him on his computer screen. His idea is that because multi-tabling is so demanding on your attention it forces you to focus. You don't have time to worry about bad beats or time to over-analyze. You are a Robot, focused, decisive and unemotional. Yes, you miss subtleties and some opportunities, but you don't try to do too much and you go with your first instinct which is often right.
Fischman tends to the superstitious, which of course is NOT recommended. However he justifies it from a psychological point of view by noting that if something makes you feel confident that will help you win. So it's okay to depend a little on that lucky shirt, and yes it may very well be the case as you drive into the club and see all those license plates with the poker hands on them, "KAA 555," etc., that yes you ARE going to be lucky today!
Some of Fischman's recommendations on how to play specific hands in specific situations go against the grain of the conventional wisdom. But here again I found his ideas interesting. Sometimes he seems clearly "wrong" or maybe just doesn't make himself clear. For example on page 125 he writes about tables being broken down later in a tournament as players are eliminated. He notes that he doesn't like being moved to a new table after having made some rebuys because "I want to have the chance to win back the chips I have lost. I can't do that if the players I've been kind enough to 'loan' my chips to are suddenly scattered throughout the tournament. There's nothing worse that rebuying 10 times, having your table broken down, then finding yourself at a new table where no one has purchased a rebuy."
Unless I'm missing something, this seems plainly illogical because it doesn't matter from whom he wins chips. He still has the same number of chips and the same relative chance of winning the tournament. I think what he must mean is that while losing those chips he picked up some valuable information about those players and now can't use that information.
What is obvious from reading this very readable book is that Scott Fischman is one heck of a good poker player and that his strength is in his overall approach to the game, some of which comes shining forth from these pages. I think both experienced players and beginners will find something of value here.
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