Texas Holdem For Dummies

Covers betting, odds, etiquette, and lingo Read your opponents, avoid mistakes, and win the pot! Want to play — and win — poker′s hottest game? This practical, portable guide gives you all the insider tips and tricks you need to play at the table or online. From playing each stage of a hand and reading other players to betting, bluffing, and minding your bankroll, you get everything you need to play smart and maximize your win! Discover how to Make the right bets Bluff your opponents Check, call, raise, and fold Look for tells and dodge traps Read your hand Play in casinos and tournaments

Introduction. Part I: Everything’s Bigger in Texas: Welcome to Texas Hold’em! Chapter 1: A Bird’s–Eye View of Texas Hold’em. Chapter 2: Ranking and Reading a Hand. Chapter 3: Just Tell Me How to Play: Texas Hold’em Basics. Part II: Texas Hold’em: Play by Play. Chapter 4: Beginning with Two. Chapter 5: Flopping ’Til You’re Dropping. Chapter 6: Taking Your Turn. Chapter 7: Dipping in the River. Part III: Movin’ On to Higher Stakes: Advanced Strategies of Hold’em. Chapter 8: Playing the Players. Chapter 9: Bluffing: When Everything Isn’t What It Appears to Be. Chapter 10: Maximizing Your Win: Check–Raising and Trapping. Chapter 11: Camouflaging Your Play and Dodging Traps. Chapter 12: Considering Mathematics. Chapter 13: Advancing Your Knowledge. Part IV: Casinos, Card Rooms, and the Internet: Places to Play Hold’em. Chapter 14: There’s No Place Like Home: Playing in Private Games. Chapter 15: Opting for the Internet: Online Games. Chapter 16: Harrah’s, Here I Come: Playing in Card Rooms. Chapter 17: Competing in Tournaments. Part V: The Part of Tens. Chapter 18: Ten Differences between Online and Real–World Play. Chapter 19: Ten (Or So) Common Mistakes. Chapter 20: Ten Ways to Improve Your Home Game. Chapter 21: Ten Bad Beats. Chapter 22: Ten Things You Can Do to Improve Your Hold’em Game. Glossary. Index.

Mark “The Red” Harlan was born in Rawlins, Wyoming, and has lived exactly the life you’d expect as a result. Armed with a degree in Applied Mathematics (from a university he loathes so much that he refuses to even utter the name), he fell headlong into a 20–year stint in the Silicon Valley’s computer industry. Red’s professional experience includes human–interface work at Apple Computer, development of the bidding schema used by eBay, overseeing application development at Danger (makers of the T–Mobile Sidekick), as well as co–founding CyberArts Licensing (suppliers of the poker software seen on the MANSION and GamesGrid sites). At the tender age of 8, he won a pinewood derby competition in the Cub Scouts, giving him his first heavy swig of victory that would forever warp his oh–so–soft–and–pliable mind. Under the influence of this experience, he started playing poker that same year (“might as well win money if you’re going to win”) and became good enough by 2005 to be a net money winner in that year’s World Series of Poker. Red is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and has an extensive writing background ranging from penning InfoWorld’s Notes from the Fringe during the heyday of the Internet, to being lead author of the book he thinks everyone should own (his mom does): Winning at Internet Poker For Dummies (Wiley). Red maintains a Web site of poker articles at www.redsdeal.com and welcomes non–spam e–mail at RedsDeal+HEFD@gmail.com (be sure to include the +).