Play Poker Like the Pros – Phil Hellmuth Jr.
Play Poker Like the Pros
It’s been a while since I’ve wrote a review. So, this is my attempt to get back into the swing of things. Last summer I spent a lot of time working in the garage and outside. My iPod was always there with me. I decided to down load a few audio books and see if maybe I could expand my mind instead of bomb-barding it with heavy metal lyrics.
My first trial audio book was “The Art of War”. It seemed this story teller approach appealed to the kid in me so I downloaded a few more books. One of these books was Play Poker Like the Pros by Phil Hellmuth Jr.
I’m going to jump all over the place here so try to keep up. The book was first published back in 2003 (or around there). So needless to say its old compared to the number of other books on the market.
I listened to the whole book and my first impression was: this book is just terrible. All Phil did was talk about himself and how he’s an eagle and won all theses bracelets, yadda, yadda, yadda.
In all honesty, I’ve never watched Phil play any poker or heard any other thing about him up until I listen to him recite his book. Needless to say I didn’t think to highly of him.
BUT WAIT!! ISN”T THIS A BOOK REVIEW!??? Sorry, I’m getting there. To give Phil’s book the proper review I had to give you a history of my thoughts on him. Regardless of what any reviewer tells you their personal opinions of an individual affect their reviews.
I started a draft copy of this review and never posted it. In the past several months I managed to watch Phil on several T.V. shows. At first, he seemed just as arrogant as he sounded in his book. However, after a while I finally think I figured him out.
Phil is arrogant because he can be. He is good at poker and has the history, money, and awards to back up his reputation. And, if I was that good, I’d be a little arrogant too.
So, I went back and listened to Phil’s book a few more times to make sure I was giving it a fair shake.
If you are a beginner then Phil’s book is for you. It covers most the hold’em recommendations you’ll find in any hard back poker book or online. However, this book was published pretty much before all the poker websites took off. So, I guess you can say it was ahead of it’s time.
The book covers Phil top 10 hands to play with. While this concept is great for the novice player you will need more in your arsenal.
Phil’s book also covers other forms of poker like Hi-Lo, Razz, etc. I don’t play them so I can’t comment on it. So, in retrospect Phil’s book is pretty good for the beginner.
Read MoreCall of Duty 4 – Part 3 PKs
With the good there is the bad. PKs (player killers) are a bane to the online world. It never fails, that one out of three COD4 games you enter will have a player killer on it. He/She will do there best to kill you while you are trying to kill the enemy.
I was first introduced to PKers when I was playing Ultima Online. I stared playing Ultima a few years after it was out and had no clue about online play. Seems the goal was to make money and then try to move up, buy a house, etc.
One of my first tasks was to escort a NPC (computer player) to another town. I protected this NPC with my life. I warded off bears, wolves, and the such with my trusty bow and arrow.
As we made it to just outside the town gate another online player comes out of the bushes and kills my NPC. I fail at my quest and most importantly I could do nothing about this. The shard (world in Ultima) I was on wouldn’t allow me to attack this fiend or him to attack me. Yet everything else was free game.
Eventually, Ultima opened up a PK shard so you could fight each other. However, I lost my interest in the game.
I started playing Diablo II and they fixed up a system where you had to declare your hostilities toward another player before you can attack them. You could only do this in town. This gave the other player time to exit the game before he was killed.
However, Call of Duty 4 brought the whole PKer issue into a new light for me. I played COD4 online for a while before I ran into my first PKer. I was fascinated by the game because two teams of six would try to dominate the opposing team. Our team spawns and take off to our strategic destinations and *BOOM*!
Seems a PKer in our rank decided to RPG (rocket propelled grenade) the whole team from behind.
We’ve all been there … 6 kill streak about to get our heli when a PKer hits you with C4.
Granted, there are modes in the game where friendly fire will not hurt you. However, I like the hardcore game mode because it’s seems more realistic (like I know real warfare).
The under lying question is why do PKers exist?
Why kill your team? Why not quit and join a different game or play cage match?
I have been involved in my own PK episode too. However, it hasn’t been against a whole team.
My PK experience was simple… I dominated a moron on the BOG map with my noobtube (that is another article in itself). At the menu before the next game started he was talking a lot of shit to me. I talked back of course. However, he started on my team and when we spawned he killed me. Then we took turns through the whole game killing each other.
The other times I did my share of PKing was when I would spot a member on our team killing our people. Then, I’d take him out.
However, I must say 99% of the pking is done at random by senseless morons. The only ‘reasoning’ I can place behind this thinking is they are tired of the game.
Some people when they grow bored of game will do and try just about anything in the game itself before they quit playing it. I’m not sure this why they do it…but it’s the only rational reason I can think of.
One other possibility might be some type of deep underlying psychosis in real life that they try to migrate to their online persona. Who knows for sure? At least Infinity Ward has a slight punishment for PKing. Your spawn time grows longer each time you do it. To me, if you reach -25 in score which is equivalent to killing 2.5 people then you should be booted from the round.
But that’s just me.
Read More
