The Education of a Poker Player

This is the Bible of Poker, the book that every serious poker player has read and studied. Walter Browne, chess grandmaster and professional poker player, read and studied this book. Herbert O. Yardley, whose training in, and mastery of, the subtleties of poker made him just the kind of agile thinker whom you would expect to crack the Japanese Diplomatic Code (he did) and to write the classic book on codes, ciphers and spies (The American Black Chamber) Here is what the boys in back will have: This book talks about poker and people the way poker players talk about poker and people. It is lusty, funny, cool and knowing. The anecdotes are probably not for your Aunt Hermine. The poker instruction is for anyone (possibly including your Aunt Hermine) who likes to walk away from an all-night session a winner. Each chapter begins with a superb poker story story. Then comes a scientific analysis of the type of poker that was being played. (For example, the story of the corn grower who bets his farm against a circus tent show at Five-Card Draw, Deuces Wild – and wins under the fortunate circumstance of no longer being alive at the time – is followed by a brilliant analysis of how to play your cards at Five Cards Draw, Deuces Wild.) The author's tales of his early training in poker (in his teens when he was the protege of the celebrated Monty, who ran the only clean game in the only clean saloon in his section of the old West) amount to a professional education in the theory and practice of winning. His adventures in the Orient (in between assignments as a secret agent Yardley relaxed his mind – and in a sense repaid his debt to Money - by teaching a young Chinese boy strategic poker) are a post-graduate course in the art of the bluff – how to manage it artistically and successfully – whether the stake is a nest of Nazi spies or a big pot in Seven-Card Stud, Hi-Lo, plus just about every other poker variation you could name. Open the book. You'll know as soon as you read a few paragraphs and get Yardley's tone of voice, that the man knows what he's talking about. His stories are great. His advice could easily turn a steady loser into a steady winner. Yardley tells everything he knows about the art and science of the game of poker in The Education of a Poker Player. How good is his advice? Here is what the New York Herald Tribune says about this book. “It should be part of every father's investment portfolio for his son – or for himself. What Goren and Vanderbilt have done for the bridge player, Yardley has now done for that submerged four-fifths of American manhood that plays poker. He has given us dignity, wisdom and philosophy.