Poker Wisdom of a Champion Book

Average Rating:

This is certainly not the book to teach anyone the basics of poker strategy, nor to introduce anyone to modern poker culture. It's not supposed to be. But Brunson's stories are a perfect introduction to the culture and ethos of poker as it was when Brunson was a young Texas road gambler. The columns are entertaining, basically popcorn reading (I suspect some or all of them were told rather than written). They aren't engineered for self-promotion, and although some could be taken as mildly moralizing, they're not designed to change anyone's life. They're just the stories that Doyle Brunson has to tell. I thought they were a lot of fun when I was starting out in poker, and I still pull the book off my shelf now and then. I'm very happy to see this new edition in print, because I would recommend it to new players as a useful book in shaping their attitudes towards the game.

The only thing I found disappointing about this new edition is that it doesn't appear to contain any new material. I don't know that I can fault anyone for that, but it would have been nice to have either some truly new material or at least some newly recovered vintage Brunson to add. Maybe I've just gotten too used to DVD extras.