Review: ‘More Hold’Em Wisdom for all Players’ by Daniel Negreanu

Daniel Negreanu has been authoring a weekly poker column, “Playing Poker with Daniel Negreanu” that is syndicated in newspapers across the US and Canada as well as appearing online in places like the Poker Players Alliance as an offering to its membership.  The column has had great success due to the fact that Daniel gives general instruction on poker for a wide audience typically focusing on hold’em cash games and tourneys.  He covers a wide swath of the fundamental concepts in easy to understand and brief blurbs.

Negreanu’s first book, Hold’em Wisdom for All Players, which debuted in early 2007, brought together many of his columns to create a list of ‘50 powerful tips to make you a winning player’.  His newly released sequel follows the same format, giving readers fifty additional columns from Negreanu though this time arranged into four areas: ‘Winning Tournaments with Smart Play’, ‘Playing Your Players, Your Position and (Oh, Yes) Your Cards’, Betting and Bluffing with No Fear’, and lastly ‘What’s the Best Play Using Poker Wisdom as Your Guide’. The columns from Negreanu’s second edition were originally published between the summer of 2006 and fall 2007.

This edition is unlike the first where some of the chapters focused on general tops of psychology, theory or even non-specific poker issues but in the second book all but a few of the chapters focus on outlining strategic advice.  Despite the claim in the title of both books that they are for all players, its clear that they are more appropriate for the novice player since most of the concepts would be familiar to a more experienced player.  For those seasoned poker players who have read many poker books, the abbreviated chapters may leave the reader wanting more since the books are a compilation of Negreanu’s columns which are limited to 600 words give or take.

Additionally, in More Hold’em Wisdom for All Players some of the advice offered tends to be a duplicate of pointers already offered in the first volume to the point of one chapter ‘Calling with the Worst Hand’ being an exact copy in both books.  On the positive side, Negreanu delivers his advice in an easy to understand manner and as we have all come to expect, has the ability to explain difficult concepts in simple ways.