I wrote this book to illustrate and analyze the underlying components of Texas Hold em poker odds so that you will become a better Texas Hold em poker player. The poker books I have read only devoted about ten pages on poker odds and expected you to memorize tables that seemed meaningless. The illustrations in this book will bring meaning and life to those tables. You will be able to make quick decisions about complicated problems. You will have more time to focus on other information, such as:
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Calculate odds with ease,
Steven Roe has done a significant favor for the Texas Hold’em player who wants to learn how to calculate the odds of hitting his hand but is shaky on the math.
While there are other books that cover much of the same material, Roe writes in an easy to read style that I think will appeal to the less knowledgeable player. Roe apparently wrote this volume as a tutorial for his own self-education about Texas Hold’em odds calculations, and it’s apparent that he is a good teacher. The book appears to be self-published but is excellent in typography as well as content and appears to be uncommonly free of typos, misspellings, etc.
I can recommend this book without reservations for anyone who wants the least painful approach to this essential subject. There are chapters progressing from “Basic” odds calculations through “Beginner”, “Intermediate”, and “Advanced” levels. Chapter 5 is devoted to shortcuts in making calculations.
Chapter 6 (“Proper Betting”) does a creditable job of explaining how one should size his/her bets in order to make an opponent’s call a mistake. This important topic is seldom approached in sufficient detail to make sense to the novice but Roe does a very good job. I wish more Internet players had this information so they could replace many all-in bets with bets appropriately sized to accomplish the objective.
I do have one small quibble. On page 14 and again on page 61, his explanation of calculations when there are two cards to come is unnecessarily complex. I’ll not try to explain Roe’s method which gives precise results but is tedious in application; instead I will give a simplified method that is good to about 1% probability. Simply multiply the outs by 4 then if the number of outs is greater than 8 subtract the excess over 8. Thus with two cards to come and 13 outs the probability of making your hand is 4×13-5 = 47%.
Comparison with some other books that cover much of the same material is perhaps in order. King Yao (“Weighing the Odds in Hold’em Poker”) covers very much the same material, but is both more sophisticated and more difficult to read. Readers who learn to enjoy the math after reading Roe would do well to follow up with a dose of sophistication from Yao. Catalin Barboianu (“Texas Hold’em Odds”) is a formulaic approach that might appeal to computer programmers but probably not to most readers. Matthew Hilger (“Texas Hold’em Odds and Probabilities”) has more tables of probabilities than any of the others, but leaves the reader uncertain of how to proceed in doing his/her own calculations. Mike Petriv (“Hold’em Odds Book”) covers the same ground as does Roe though Petriv focuses a bit more heavily on the math whereas Roe provides the “spoonful of sugar” that makes the medicine go down more easily.
For the novice or mathematically uneasy reader I recommend Roe’s book over any of those mentioned above or any other that I have seen.
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|Great book on Hold’em Odds,
I am a relatively new Texas Hold’em Poker player and I wanted to cut
down on the learning curve so that I could quickly learn what my
opponents have learned from their playing experiences. I found
exactly what I was looking for in Steven C. Roe’s book, Calculating
Texas Hold’em Poker Odds Made Easy. This book is right on point,
easy to understand and it really works! There is a lot more to
calculating odds than just the rule of fours and Roe explains it
thoroughly. He also takes on pot odds and betting patterns so that
you are always asking your opponent to make the wrong decision by
making a call. What I like most is that there are no charts to
memorize because Roe’s techniques are so accurate and easy to use
that you can make your mental calculations in a matter of seconds,
not minutes, while playing at a live game.
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|Calculating Poker odds – simply the best,
As a beginning Texas Hold’em player, I found Roe’s book to be right
on the money. I wasn’t exactly clear what my odds were in certain
situations but Roe cleared it up for me in his book. This is an easy
to read book that gives the reader the tools he or she needs to
calculate any hypothetical odds in a matter of seconds. The greatest
part about this book is that you take the “program” with you. Sure
there are computer programs that you can run while playing online,
but you can’t take a computer program with you to a live game. You
can take Roe’s practical guide to calculating odds to any live game
in the world and no one at the table will know you are running it!
I give Calculating Texas Hold’em Poker Odds Made Easy by Steven C.
Roe five stars!
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|Surprisingly Good!,
I was suspicious of this book and wasn’t sure it would include any new information that isn’t in other poker books (Harrington or Sklansky and Malmuth). Many poker books rehash concepts (play tight early, more aggressive later). This book has several new concepts I haven’t read before. For example, Howard Lederer talks about a hand versus Phil Ivey when Ivey raised. Howard raised all-in. Ivey folded. Lederer analyzes this nondescript hand and explains the concept of leverage. Andy Bloch in his preflop hands goes far beyond “play early tight, play quality hands” and gives a chart for the “Jam or Fold” game (small blind v. big blind). His chart, he believes, is superior to the Sklansky-Chubakov Jam of Fold ratings because in the S-C rankings the small blind turns up their hand. In Bloch’s chart, the small blind does not (which is more realistic). Andy explains that the S-C underestimates hands such as 9-T s Jam value. Howard Lederer’s chapter on Limit Holdem made me excited to play Limit holdem. He gives the reader a good limit system that the blinds can play out of position against a raiser. Chris Ferguson’s chapter on postflop No Limit play is also valuable. Ferguson’s chapter is like a minilesson with him. Other games besides Holdem are covered. Matusow in the 08 chapter explains why he raised with K-Q-J-6 facing heavy preflop action! The book is full of things like this. I was afraid that this book was an attempt to make a quick book on the poker boom with many authors writing a chapter for a quick paycheck and not taking responsibility for overall shoddy work. It isn’t the case. You will find material here that you will not find elsewhere.
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|Move Over Doyle Brunson,
This is destined to become one of the “must have” poker books. Brunson’s Super System (I and II) covers the spectrum of poker as played in ring games at casinos. This volume is the counterpart for tournament play.
The title suggests a joined-at-the-hip connection with the web site. Nothing could be further from the truth – the primary connection I see is that the book covers the games played on the site, and the site covers the games played at casinos, the World Series of Poker, etc.
Michael Craig (author of “Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King”, probably the best told tale ever of the biggest poker game ever) has done a masterful job of organizing the book. Though I did note a few small grammatical problems, none interfere with either the flow or the message.
Games discussed include: (1) No-Limit Hold’em (of course), (2) Limit Hold’em (similar name, different game), (3) Pot-Limit Hold’em (different strategy requirements), (4) Pot-Limit Omaha, (5) Omaha Eight-or-Better, (6) Seven-Card Stud, (7) Stud Eight-or-Better, and (8) razz. Long, long ago and far, far away I was a Draw Poker and Five-Card Stud player. Things I learned from those games make me a better Hold’em player, and if you’ll learn a bit about other variations of poker you will find your game improves.
A story has been told about Chris Ferguson and Andy Bloch in which Ferguson spotted Bloch setting in a restaurant. When Chris went over to Andy’s table he saw that Andy was poring over a binder of computer-generated tables, the result of Bloch’s extensive simulations of hand versus hand, hand versus table, etc. Ferguson had done precisely the same sort of computations prior to launching his highly successful career in tournament No-Limit Hold’em. The similarity of their style of play – and their success – stems from this mathematical analysis away from the table. In one fact and concept filled chapter of 57 pages Bloch presents a series of tables showing some of the results of his simulations. This chapter alone is worth far more than the price of the book.
Other notable chapters include:
- A chapter on Seven-Card Stud by noted Stud authority Keith Sexton.
- A cram session on Razz strategy by Huck Seed and Ted Forest.
- Chris Ferguson on Pot-Limit Omaha.
- Ironically, Mike Matusow on Omaha Eight-or-Better – a game in which bluffing is particularly difficult written by a master of bluffing at No-Limit Hold’em.
- Limit Hold’em by Howard Lederer.
- Rafe Furst and Andy Bloch on Pot-Limit Hold’em.
- Phil Gordon discusses Short Stack Play in No-Limit Hold’em.
- Gavin Smith shares some of his tricks for Big Stack Play at No-Limit Hold’em.
- And more.
This book does for tournament poker what Super System did for ring games. If you aspire to be good – really good – at tournament poker, you need to study this book.
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