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Phil Gordon's Little Green Book: Lessons and Teachings in No Limit Texas Hold'em by Phil Gordon
xterminal's review against another edition
4.0
Phil Gordon, Phil Gordon's Little Green Book: Lessons and Teachings in No Limit Texas Hold'em (Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 2005)
Howard Lederer and Annie Duke are correct, in their introduction, when they say that this book was, at the time of its publication, unique. There have been poker how-to manuals probably as long as there have been people playing poker, but back in 2005, no one had written a more personal, “how I play”-style book. Now it's five years later, and Phil Gordon's series of poker books has been as influential as Super/System or Harrington on Hold'em, both to poker players and, more importantly (at least as it relates to this paragraph), to poker writers. “How I play”-style books are still uncommon, but certainly not unheard-of (Gus Hansen's Every Hand Revealed is my favorite of the new breed). Given that, does Gordon's original little book hold up, or has it been surpassed by its cronies?
It holds up quite well in this reviewer's opinion, thank you. Gordon does a solid job of explaining the basics of his technique (which isn't all that out of the ordinary; tight-aggressive is the style you're going to see from most pros, or would before the coming of Tom Dwan, who's spawned a legion of loose-aggressive imitators), giving you both the how and the why of its mechanics. Like the entire tight-aggressive legion, he focuses a lot more on pre-flop play—why see a flop if you can get everyone around you to fold beforehand?—but the post-flop section is just as useful as you'd expect from one of the post-flop masters of the game—Hellmuth, Negreanu, Dwan, or the like. About two-thirds of the book is devoted to specific aspects of the game, after which comes a “general thoughts”-style section and a handful of the usual starting-hands charts and the like.
It's good stuff, front to back (well, okay, I could have done without the charts; even Gordon himself minimizes their importance as much as possible). There are a bunch of really good poker books out there, and the literate poker player's shelf needs to be a pretty long one to accommodate them all; this one should be on that shelf. ****
Howard Lederer and Annie Duke are correct, in their introduction, when they say that this book was, at the time of its publication, unique. There have been poker how-to manuals probably as long as there have been people playing poker, but back in 2005, no one had written a more personal, “how I play”-style book. Now it's five years later, and Phil Gordon's series of poker books has been as influential as Super/System or Harrington on Hold'em, both to poker players and, more importantly (at least as it relates to this paragraph), to poker writers. “How I play”-style books are still uncommon, but certainly not unheard-of (Gus Hansen's Every Hand Revealed is my favorite of the new breed). Given that, does Gordon's original little book hold up, or has it been surpassed by its cronies?
It holds up quite well in this reviewer's opinion, thank you. Gordon does a solid job of explaining the basics of his technique (which isn't all that out of the ordinary; tight-aggressive is the style you're going to see from most pros, or would before the coming of Tom Dwan, who's spawned a legion of loose-aggressive imitators), giving you both the how and the why of its mechanics. Like the entire tight-aggressive legion, he focuses a lot more on pre-flop play—why see a flop if you can get everyone around you to fold beforehand?—but the post-flop section is just as useful as you'd expect from one of the post-flop masters of the game—Hellmuth, Negreanu, Dwan, or the like. About two-thirds of the book is devoted to specific aspects of the game, after which comes a “general thoughts”-style section and a handful of the usual starting-hands charts and the like.
It's good stuff, front to back (well, okay, I could have done without the charts; even Gordon himself minimizes their importance as much as possible). There are a bunch of really good poker books out there, and the literate poker player's shelf needs to be a pretty long one to accommodate them all; this one should be on that shelf. ****