Card Games Books

This is the best engagement calendar according to my mother-in-law. We gave her one last year and she liked it so much she wanted another one!!! Great gift for those who love bridge!!!

"To play outstanding bridge, you need the insouciance of a jewel thief, a CPA's head for numbers, and a psychic's talent for divination. Perhaps you have to be born with those personal characteristics, but this handsome calendar will give you a better grasp of the game.

"Bridge presents fifty-three extraordinary hands, with remarks by one of the world's best bridge writers. Alan Truscott has recorded, influenced, and excelled in the world of bridge for half a century; he has been bridge editor for The New York Times since 1964. Here he brings profound understanding and casually lucid prose to his analyses of the hands. Equally interesting are his speculations about alternative ways that the games could have gone.

"This would make an ideal gift for a bridge-playing friend or loved one."
--Brent Manley, ACBL Bridge Bulletin

"112 page, spiral-bound weekly engagement calendar with 53 world-class hands of bridge, and clear plastic covers. Size: 6 5/8 by 8". Calendar features 53 weekly grids and full-page 2006 and 2007 yearly grids. Includes international holidays and a page for notes. ISBN 0-7649-2999-2. Click on the small picture to see an inside page. Additional publications available on our New York Times page."--© Pomegranate

This game is absolutely fantastic. I've got a pair of buddies at work that I've conscripted into playing on lunch breaks, and we've all become addicted.

The humor just keeps us laughing, and the "But you must explain how" conditions on some cards always create good times. I would highly recommend also purchasing the Sumo Size Me addition pack as the money and honor counters alone are worth it, not to mention the awesome new cards.

While I have been a fan of Steve Jackson for quite some time, my love is now firmly cememted after playing several of his newer games this weekend.

Picture the bad kung-fu movies of the 70's, now adopt one of those personas and deliver delicious hamburgers in 30 minutes or less, without being seen! Very tongue in cheek, and loads of fun. After selecting a persona, you get Fortune cards that can help you out on your mission, or hurt someone else's mission.

Then there are the missions. The mission cards have a set of dice rolls you must make, compared to your persona's abilities. If you succeed, you gain honor; if you fail, you lose honor. The player with the most honor gets the promotion to store manager, and wins.

Example - Ski Lift.
Man enters ski lift at bottom of hill hungry. When he reaches top, he is full of hot delcious Ninja Burger!

You must make a stealth roll at -2 because uniform contrasts with bright white snow. Next, you must make a climb roll at -1 to scale icy ski lift tower. If you win, you gain 1 honor.

I have taught a multi-age class, grades 1,2, and 3 for 10 years and have found Number Jugglers to be the most popular and useful math game in my class's math program. Children who do not feel successful in other ways in math, find a place of comfort with Number Jugglers. Children are thinking, manipulating numbers, problem solving, and practicing math facts while having a great deal of fun. Number Jugglers is solid in current good teaching practices. I found Number Jugglers easy to understand and use. Kids love to leave school with Number Jugglers as their homework. I think Number Jugglers should be on every classroom shelf and in every home.

This book works for every kid, and adults enjoy playing the games, too! I have never seen a child try a Number Jugglers game without getting enthusiastic about math. It must be the feeling of success that comes with getting it right in Number Jugglers.

Whatever it is, Ruth Alexander has developed a truly great approach to math learning that works. And it's enjoyable enough to have at home, too. It has all the right elements of game play--adjustable for many age and skill levels, and for single or multiple users.

I really enjoyed this book. The story was very entertaining. A perfect summer afternoon novel. I really liked Darcy Lou's relationship with her mother. I also liked Lizzie's comments all throughout the book and the introduction and the info about the 'author' were very funny too. I liked this book very much. I would definitly recomend it!!

This book is awesome. It shows that mother's and daughters not only fight but get along too. Although Darcy Lou may seam to have a "perfect" relationship with her mother, the rest of the book is quite solid. It shows that kids aren't the only ones who make mistakes and somethimes the thing you need most is right under your nose. It also shows that you don't have to have lots of money to be absolutly rich. A group of people who care about is worth much more. Unlike money, they'll always be there and they are unreplacable. You must read this sweet little book!

This is an ultimate compendium of card games of every kind; it is ideal for learning new games or referring to when unsure of the rules. I like the way the games are divided into categories. However, some of the rules are a little ambiguous, and it could do with a few more solitares. Overall, though, it is excellent.

I've bought a dozen of the best-known card books and this is the "best of the best." It contains clear, concise descriptions of hundreds of card games.

Its author, Mr. Parlett, is considered one of today's highest authorities on cards. This book shows why. You can look up just about any card game, widely-played or obscure, and find rules sufficient to play the game. The explanations are simple and readable -- but also complete and authoritative.

For those who only play certain games, this is a great source for finding alternatives. Look up any game, and you'll find descriptions of related games to try. For those who get their card game rules from the web, it's really nice to own a single, comprehensive sourcebook you can carry anywhere and read without your laptop.

I highly recommend this book to any card player, from novice to advanced. It's well worth the money and something you'll use for years to come.

This is an excellent book, full of practical advice as to how to maximize strengths and manage weaknesses.

Wow..what a resource for claiming your greatness and stepping into the life you were meant to live. Play to Your Strengths is a bounty of assessments, clear models, practices, and wisdom on how to take a look at you, your vision for yourself and make it a reality. Every chapter had another layer of crucial information that made me see where I wanted to grow while giving me the language and coaching to structure my action plan to hold myself accountable for my ultimate success. What an amazing gift from the authors.

Vicki Halsey, Co-Author, The Hamster Revolution: How to manage your email before it manages you

This book is a great book. You could make your own Pokemon Trading Cards and Trading Card Game. You could sell them and alot of people make money over little peice of paper !! This could be a beginning of our business, mine and yours. I know you will have great sucess. I hope I could make about $9999999 !!!!! I am going to get this book and you should too !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This book lets you make TWENTY different kinds of Pokemon cards. It gives you all kinds of facts about Pokemon, the Elite Four and all of that. I like this the best of their books.

This is the third collection of Malmuth's poker essays, and like the other two is interesting to read and full of valuable information. It is also more recent that the other two volumes (see my reviews) with a copyright date of 2001. Much is the same with the quizzes on hands played, discussions of the differences between hold'em and stud, and strategy considerations in various games, and Malmuth's signature section, "In the Cardrooms" in which he writes about cardroom problems, gives suggestions, etc. Here he delves into possible collusion in the games and gives some advice on how to keep the games honest.

In this respect I recently read Dirty Poker (2006) in which cheating in poker is examined at length, although by a writer (Richard Marcus) who is not a regular player. Here Malmuth with an assist from David Sklansky makes it clear that collusion in the cardrooms he plays in is unlikely and certainly couldn't last long. A good point he and Sklansky make is that it is not all that easy for two players to successfully scam a game, and more players working together would be fairly obvious to the regulars. I believe they are correct, and my experience over the years has been about the same as Malmuth's who says he has never encountered collusion in the clubs. I believe I did once, in the early nineties at a ten and twenty game at a club in the Los Angeles area. The betting pattern was not just obvious, but glaringly obvious. I got up, and before leaving and never returning, said something to the floorman. I don't know what the result was. Possible collusion on the Internet is another matter, however.

Which brings me to the weakness of this book for the contemporary player, which is the dearth of writing about Internet games. I hope Malmuth is currently playing on the Internet and is writing some essays about that experience that will appear in his next collection.

One of the more interesting essays is "Which Is Bigger?" (stud or hold'em). Malmuth and "an associate" compared records at the $20/$40 level and discovered to their surprise that they had a larger variance at stud. Malmuth's explanation is a bit convoluted but seems essentially right. However, his statement "the bigger the standard deviation, the bigger the game" is true only if the games are the same size. The fact that they had an hourly standard deviation of $280 for the hold'em game and $350 for the stud game is not a reflection of more action at the stud game but is a direct result of the fact that stud and hold'em games with the same betting limits are not equal in size. Because there is an extra betting round (a Big Bet betting round) the stud game is bigger. Malmuth dances around this most salient point when he should make it clear that that extra double bet round is the real difference and not because he and his associate as expert stud players have learned to play looser. (Their relatively small S.D. suggests otherwise!)

The way to figure the standard deviations for comparison purposes is to adjust for the absolute size of the games, which would lower their higher figure for the stud game. If that is done, I believe it will be seen that hold'em is relatively speaking both a bigger and a chancier game.

Personally I believe the expert player has more control at stud, despite the hidden river card than he does at hold'em in games with mixed talent. Quite simply seven card stud requires more skill because in addition to all the skills required at hold'em (which also exist at stud), there are the exposed cards to watch and evaluate. Malmuth has previously argued about which is tougher, stud or hold'em, and if memory serves has come to the conclusion that stud is indeed tougher.

Malmuth might ask himself if he had to play against the best stud players in the world or the best hold'em players, who would he prefer to play against? For myself, even though I am probably a better stud player, I would definitely try to get lucky against the hold'em experts rather than the stud experts.

One other thing. I know Malmuth was a math major but there is no excuse for a sentence like this: "That is only the person for whom they are intended for should have knowledge of them." (p. 161) The second "for" should be "that," I presume, but it's still ugly. Also on page 159 there is this, "You must be able to work successfully with your fellow dealers...and the players to whom you deal the cards to." (Cut "the cards to" or at least the dangling "to" on the end.) Additionally, Malmuth habitually uses the word "less" in such constructions as "This not only slows down the game...but it reduces the house drop since less hands are dealt." (p. 163) "Fewer" is the correct word when you're talking about things that can be counted rather than, say, weighed or measured.

But these are small matters. What really counts here is the value of the book to the serious poker player, and that is considerable because Malmuth is an accomplished professional who has a deep and abiding love for the game. For many readers, because of the increase in the number of quizzes and the thorough hand discussions, this collection may be his best.

I got this book two days ago, and have already read it twice. It came highly recommended by a winning player in my ...10/20 stud game, and I haven't been disappointed.

The essays are taken from Malmuth's writings in Poker Digest and other magazines over the past few years, as with the first two volumes. I thought the first volume was excellent, and the second was very good. This is by far the best.

Poker Essays III, in my opinion, now joins "The Theory of Poker", "Super System", and the "for Advanced Players" series on the list of the most important poker books.

As usual, Malmuth succeeds admirably in forcing the reader to think about many aspects of their game most players are usually unaware of. He discusses, for example, specific flaws in many average players who overrate their own abilities. And the last two sections are wonderful additions to this volume: "Hands to Talk About", and then quizzes. The "Hands" section discusses specific hands/situations in depth, to try to bring together all poker ideas into making a decision. The quizzes section includes two of his own, one hold'em and one stud, and one previously published by Bob Ciaffone (whose book "Improve Your Poker" is also on my short list of great poker books). There are 50+ essays in the book, and I found all of them interesting, thought-provoking and relevant. One of the things I like best about Malmuth is that he finds topics to write about that are completely ignored or forgotten by most players but that are either directly or indirectly relevant to winning play.

As with Poker Essays I and II, I'm sure I'll be rereading this book several times over the years.

If you are looking for a book for the home poker game that is more than just hold'em this is the one. Has great tips, such as how to set up your bank to the best way to deal and bet. Has a large amount of games to keep the home poker party fun for hours. So if your looking for a guide to set up a home poker party this is it.

Scott Tharler knows how to make us think. He has written a handbook for people who want to understand. Tharler presents the full spectrum of poker playing. Poker Nights is fun, humorous, and tremendously helpful. I recommend this book to all who are involved or interested in poker. It spells out what you need to know. Read this book and learn.

I bought this as a gift for my brother and he loved it! He's a poker fanatic and, even though he probably knew all the words in this illustrated poker dictionary, he really enjoyed it. It's a great gift for poker lovers and the cartoons are very funny. Cheap too!

When I saw this book on the shelf, the cover interested me. Looking inside, I found a dictionary of the colorful poker language. I just recently bought the book for a buddy of mine, though I guess it just came out, who is a poker fanatic and he absolutely loves it. The illustrations go with the definitions and make it a fun book to read, not just a boring old dictionary. I intend to buy at least two more for my other poker buddies. It's such a great gift and pretty cheap!