Will a Poker Book Tell You Everything?

If you think that by reading a poker book you will learn enough winning strategies that could turn you overnight from a novice to an expert poker player, think again. Books are instruments of learning; they contain the ideas, knowledge and experiences of their authors. Books, teach us everything about history, the sciences, arts, literature, and almost everything that have made our civilization what it is today. Some authors write books so that their ideas will live on for posterity to remember them by long after they are gone. And still, some write books for a living. Scientific and medical researchers write down everything they know in their opus so that the world will benefit from their knowledge, while some writers refrain from sharing in their books "trade secrets" to protect their business interests.

Chefs or gourmets, for instance, sometimes write recipe books to establish a name but tend to keep their own secret special recipes only within the family. The same is true for a poker book. If you think that you could be as good a poker player as an expert simply by reading and knowing by heart a poker book that he has written, you are dead wrong! An expert poker player knows better than to reveal his most treasured gems of knowledge to people who may well be his competitors in a high stakes poker tournament. A poker expert will most likely go up to the point of writing just enough to educate his readers, but he will most certainly not spill all his guts in his poker book so that the whole poker playing world will know his killer strategies. Otherwise, he might as well retire from his poker playing career.

This is not to say that a poker book is an entirely useless learning tool for beginners or average players who are aspiring to better their games. On the contrary, reading a poker book is still a great way for the novice to learn poker quickly and economically. The point is, do not just pin your poker dreams on one book written by one expert. For all you know, a winning strategy withheld by one expert in his book might be revealed in another book written by another author, so it might be a good idea to read other books as well. Compare strategies, research the Internet and observe how the pros play their hands in the gaming table and in tournaments. The road to learning great strategies is never easy as reading a poker book, but the rewards will more than make up for the effort.