Product Description

This poker book is a collection of articles about the various skills needed for playing good poker. Several poker forms are discussed, including limit holdem, no-limit holdem, and pot-limit Omaha. It is oriented toward the intermediate and advanced poker levels.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #392480 in Books
• Published on: 1997-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 220 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780966100709
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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About the Author
Bob Ciaffone has been a professional poker player for most of his life. He is the author of several other poker books, and writes a regular poker column. He spends a lot of time teaching poker, and his students have won over two million dollars in tournament prize money.

Customer Reviews

A true classic, definitely one of the best
I am a professional poker player, and own about 50 different poker books, most of which I've read more than once.

Ciaffone is a seasoned pro (also an accomplished chess and backgammon player) with considerable skill and experience, as well as an ability to convey his ideas interestingly and accurately.

The book is laid out as a series of short essays on all sorts of topics. Most of the information is not specific to any form of poker, but even those few essays that are, are written in a way that players of other forms should be able to apply the lessons.
As far as format of the book and content, the closest I can compare it to is the 'Poker Essays' series by Mason Malmuth.

This is truly one of the best poker books on the market. The essays throughout the book are helpful to players at all levels - I read this fairly early in my poker career, and have gone back to it many times, and still find new insights and reinforce existing ideas.

One of maybe 6 or 7 books I would call "must-read" for serious players.

a well-written book that lives up to its title
Improve Your Poker is a well-written and insightful book that I believe is worth reading once and will stand up well to re-reading. Ciaffone's goal here is not to teach the novice what poker is, or to provide a cookbook-style strategy guide, but to provide the reader with thoughtful reading on a variety of poker topics. The book covers a lot of ground, including tournament play and big bet poker, as well as more mundane topics like bluffing. Ciaffone's approach, which often invites disagreement, should appeal to the reader more interested in discussion than in dogmatic advice. Although he occasionally presents his views strongly, he rarely seems to be asking the reader to accept his word on faith.

I believe this book also lends itself especially well to mindset adjustment. That is, if you're on a plane to Las Vegas, and you haven't thought about poker for a few weeks or more, I think a book like this might be a better choice to help get back that poker mindset, rather than trying to cram with strategy manuals.

Although the writing is not quite as lively as the book on big-bet poker he co-authored with Stewart Reuben, it's engaging in its own way. I feel this book is better as a self-published book than it would have been in the hands of most publishers.

Its Quite Good, But...
This is an excellent compilation of Bob Ciaffone's magazine articles. Some of the included articles proove invaluable in game play, and should be read, re-read and highlighted. Some articles, in my opinion, were quite erroneous, like the one on going pro. On the subject of improving your poker, this seemed irrelevant.

Given the nature of this book, being a compilation, and not a traditional self-reflective guide, there is little continuity between sections. In another book, you might see a phrase such as, "As we discussed in chapter 3..." But these helpful reminders are absent here. The closest thing to such a phrase in this book is "For the purpose of this article..." Giving the entire work a disjointed feel.

On the other hand, given the naure of the short, self-sufficient sections, the book is incredibly easy to read and follow. Some of the articles, as mentioned before, provide an invaluable wealth of information. Ciaffone also groups the articles, there is an intro, a section on bluffing, reading your opponent, etc. These distinctions in areas are what keep the book readable through its disjointed nature, but with all the excellence that Ciaffone exudes.

Overall, a valuable purchase. Easy read, worth review. I personally have found books by David Sklansky to be better suited to my taste, as they deal more with the math and theory of the game, where Ciaffone offers a softer, more conceptual account.