Internet Poker

How to Play and Beat Online Poker Games

Lou Krieger and Kathleen K. Watterson Reviewed by TwoGun on Aug. 02, 2005. Overview If you want to waste $20, then this is your book. Lou Krieger and Kathleen Watterson spend 194 pages basically just going over how to play online poker. There is virtually nothing that most players can glean from this book. Poker Advice Well, there really is not that much advice in this book. Most pages are devoted to simply going over how to play online poker instead of showing how to beat online poker games. I cannot comprehend why someone would need a whole book to explain "sign up at an online poker site, send the poker site some money, and press buttons that say check, bet, raise, and fold." Krieger and Watterson do go over some basic hold'em, Omaha, and stud strategies. However, these chapters only include the most basic, rudimentary tips of the game. They really do not delve into specific online strategies or give a depth of advice that really would qualify the book as a poker strategy book. In short, this book sounds like it was written by a below-average player instructing someone who has never heard of the Internet about how to play online poker. In fact, some of the advice just extends certain "myths" about how to play online poker. For example, the authors encourage players to spend a significant amount of time playing the practice hands before graduating to play money and then working their way up to the micro-limits. As an experienced online player, I can tell you that playing fake money games is next to worthless at improving your skills. Since no one takes these games seriously, you only end up learning bad habits that handicap you at the real-money games. So play money games are only for fun or to get used to the software, they certainly are not learning tools for real-money games. Presentation To its credit, this book has a nice presentation. It has a logical layout, and the chapters are well-written. Too bad the actual writing has next to no substance.