Review of Life is a Game of Poker

Title:

Life is a Game of Poker

Author:

Jim "Cowboy" Childers

Publisher:

Jim "Cowboy" Childers

Date:

1999

ISBN:

-

Pages:

102

Price:

$19.95

Reviewed by Nick Christenson, npc@lvrevealed.com

May 29, 2000

There's a lot more to being a winning poker player than learning correct strategy. In my experience, I've found a large number of people who know what it takes to play correctly, but still don't know what it takes to be a winning poker player. Life is a Game of Poker attempts to help players make the transition from skilled, but losing poker players to long term winners.

First of all, although Life is a Game of Poker looks like a story rather than a how-to book, it is actually neither. As a novel, let's just say that Mark Twain doesn't have anything to worry about, but that's not at all the purpose of this book. It's a parable. It is using a story format to impart lessons to the reader. Therefore, any complaints about it's reasonableness and that it's not great literature are inappropriate. It's not trying to be those things. It's trying to make the reader who understands poker strategy into a winning player, and it does a much better job of that than I expected when I picked up the book.

The true "information content" of the book could probably fit into twenty pages. It deals with lessons regarding reading other players, not playing over one's head, not playing with scared money, etc.. However, I believe that for many players, they would be more likely to learn lessons in this format rather than from a dry list of recommendations. There are certainly a lot of people out there who could really use this information.

Unfortunately, most of them are probably not likely to go out and buy this book. In addition to general inclinations, there are real reasons for that. While the word density per page is fairly high for a poker book, paying twenty dollars for a 100 page book still seems steep. A large part of this is due to the fact that the book is self published and is doubtless on a very limited press run. Despite the fact that twenty dollars is a small price to pay to break through to being a winning player, this isn't a foregone conclusion that this will occur, so it would be much easier to recommend if Life is a Game of Poker cost less than ten bucks.

Nonetheless, the player who thinks they're doing everything right but can't seem to make it as a poker player might want to give Jim Childers' book a shot. It just might make the difference. Recreational players and established pros can probably afford to pass on it, but the latter may want to make the investment as a relatively cheap refresher course.

The book is available through the Gambler's Book Club.

Capsule:

While no great work of literature, Life is a Game of Poker is a parable which contains information one needs to make the leap from understanding correct poker strategy to becoming a winning player. While the book carries a fairly hefty price for the number of words and the number of ideas it contains, they are important ones, and a player having problems bridging this gap might find this book worthwhile.

Note: I received a free review copy of this book from the author. I have no other interest, financial or otherwise, in the success of this book.

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