Book of Bluffs

A long time ago I could pretty much say I'd read ever book on poker that was worth reading. That's no longer true, the market has exploded. But I try to keep up with the good ones, even if I don't get to them right away.

Last year about this time I was at a book signing/sales thing in Atlantic City with a dozen or so other poker book authors. The one that seemed to be selling real well at that event was Matt Lessinger's The Book of Bluffs. So I vowed to get around to reading it eventually.

I still havn't read it, but have read the first chapter and I've changed my mind.

The chapter starts out with "12 Bluffing Proverbs".

There are only two ways to win a pot: You can show down the best hand, or bluff the worst one.

But, no. You win whenever your opponent folds, whether you're bluffing or not. That's a reason to be aggresive, but not neccasarily a reason to bluff.

And even if he's right that you have to either bluff or show down the best hand, it's next sentence is laughable.

If you don't bluff you are throwing away half of your pot-winning potential

That's wrong on two levels.

1. Even if there are only two options doesn't mean they are equally likely to arise.

2. Money winning potential is the goal, not pot winning potential.

If he can't do better than that on his lede, then I'm not sure I have time to read any more of it.

I seem to have a minority opinion though. Maybe I'll read some more of it later.

Click on the cover art to see Amazon reviews. Those readers give it 4 stars. So it's popular, even though it looks really sloppily written to me.