This part of the web site is supposed to tell you something about me and why on earth you should listen to anything I have to say about poker. So in respect of that tradition, sit down, grab a snack or a warm beverage and let me tell you who I am and how I became interested in poker, and anyway who on earth am I to tell you how to play poker?

Well let me tell you first who I am not. I am not, at least as I write this, a poker world champion, nor have I won a succession of large tournaments, nor have I been playing poker for fifty years. In fact I am pretty much like you. You see, the last person you want to teach you poker is a world champion or someone who has played for fifty years. Why? Well, because their experiences are so different from yours, playing as you will in small low-limit cash games, that they might as well be on a different planet.

Top poker players are normally playing in tournaments against other top players, where they stand to make hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of dollars, or they are playing cash games for sums equal to what many of us earn in a year. They live in a different world. Most of us will never have the experience of pushing $100,000 dollars into a pot to see the Turn of a card. Most of us do not have the emotional make up or mental skill to play in this world, although many of us might fantasize about it, in the same way that we may have wished to play in a World Series or represent our country at the Olympics.

Now what we want to do is play in game for fairly modest stakes, win more than we lose, and have some fun. This is what this web site is about, and here I can claim some expertise because for three years I made a part of my income playing in these types of games and beating them week in week out, month after month, year after year and I still beat these games today.

I began playing poker because I needed the money. I needed to supplement my income and I needed to learn and learn fast, how to beat the low-limit game consistently. The low-limit game is not, like the high-limit game. Not at all. It is as different from high-limit as college baseball is from major league baseball. Players in high-limit games often do badly in low-limit games. When watching the World Series of Poker, I happened to see on TV someone that I used to play with in New York. I beat him regularly, even though he was, and is, a better player than I! How? He never understood the low-limit game. He would try to make complex plays against poor players. He would get frustrated and emotional about others' bad play. He does very well at higher limits, and his game and temperament is much more suited to the roller-coaster world of high limit and tournament play than the low-limit world, where his opportunity to make daring and sophisticated plays is very limited.

So here is the primary reason you should pay attention to my advice: It's because I have played thousands of hours of low-limit Texas Hold 'Em, both live and over the Internet, and consistently beaten the games I have played in.

When it comes to this game, quite simply, I know what I am talking about. You will have to take nothing on faith in this book. I will explain to you exactly why I recommend each move and play. I know, not because I am a genius or an original thinker, but because I have studied, played, thought, reflected, sought advice from experts and studied and played, played and played. In low-limit Hold 'Em, for thousands of hours, I have distilled the essentials and presented them here, for you edification and enjoyment. So you can play poker, learn it quickly and easily and have fun. I am no more intelligent or special than you are. You, can become an excellent Hold 'Em player if you stand on the shoulders of good players and take their advice. It's all in my books, articles and DVDs. With far less time and study than was necessary for me, you can quickly become a very strong player and many of you will become better players than I am. Think of me as your poker coach, whose job is to help you build solid foundations for your game. But please don't call me "Coach": it makes me feel like a bus.

So how did I begin this poker odyssey? Well, from the time of my late teens, I was intrigued by gambling. When I was seventeen, I ran across the writings of the French philosopher René Descartes. I was fascinated to discover that not only was he a philosopher and soldier, but that he made a goodly part of his income from games of chance. Being a brilliant mathematician, he worked out that certain games in his day were very beatable, if you understood the mathematics of the game. He played in them and seemed to have won enough to philosophize about life at some leisure. His gambling buddies must have found that a real pain, but he had his mind on higher things. He made money beating beatable games. That sounded fun.

At about this time I discovered that one Richard Nixon, who some of you may know, played poker as a young naval officer, well enough to win a substantial stake, which he used to partially fund his first political campaign. Several other former presidents seemed to know how to play, a decent hand of poker too. I found this fascinating.

In London (I am a Brit), when I was eighteen, I determined to see if there were beatable casino games. My conclusions were depressing: Whilst there were many system peddlers, none seemed capable of beating the games of chance, because the house always stacked the odds, in its favor. Roulette was unbeatable, unless you could find a biased table, despite the innumerable number of "system" players who seemed to lose their money trying to prove otherwise. Punto Banco or Baccarat seemed possibly beatable, but nobody knew for sure. Sports handicapping was beatable, but demanded lots of study, great information, and a bankroll sufficient to withstand large swings. Craps was fun but not beatable long term and not played too much in the United Kingdom.

That left Blackjack. Definitely beatable, as at times the odds favored the player, and so I experimented with card counting. I won a little money but what hard work. You had to have immense concentration and the multi-deck games with shallow penetration shuffles and unfavorable rules made the game unbeatable for all intents and purpose. No good poker games in the United Kingdom, and anyway how would I learn that stuff?

Move forward twelve years. I find myself in New York working as a visa slave. That is being sponsored by a company to work in the USA, but for a wage far less that a U.S. citizen would make for the same job. How to supplement my meager income, with a fun activity and be able to pay New York prices? I looked again at Blackjack. Atlantic City casinos were big but offered rules almost as unfavorable as the United Kingdom. Then I remembered Nixon (who can ever forget him?) and started to look for poker books. I found my first. Knowing nothing about the game, I taught myself. My first learning volume was hopelessly out of date and talked mostly about five card draw like it was the only game in town. I persevered. I organized a nickel-and-dime poker night for a few friends and found I did quite well. I think I won two bucks! Could the game be beaten? Could I make some money on the side? Yes and yes. Poker is essentially a game of skill. I just had to become good at it and find players worse than me who would play for money!

Now as my wife will tell you, much to her annoyance sometimes, when I really want to know something I become obsessed with it for as long as I feel it takes to get it down, or to at least satisfy my curiosity; and so it became with poker. I searched for books. Poker books, unlike today, were scarce. I went to a specialist gambling shop in Manhattan seeking advice on poker books. The assistant sagely pointed out a few volumes, which I later learned were pretty rotten books. Sensing I was a complete beginner, one assistant waxed lyrical about how his best casino game was Five-Card Stud that he played in "AC" just last week. What a crock! When he was telling me this, no casino in Atlantic City had probably spread five-card stud for twenty years.

Then I discovered Hold 'Em. The game of the world champions. The "Cadillac" of poker, as Doyle Brunson once referred to the no-limit game. I owe a great debt to writers like Lee Jones, David Sklansky, Mason Malmuth, and Ray Zee. Their books opened my eyes to real poker and its possibilities. I read everything they wrote, voraciously. I bought a poker program from Wilson software and played against it for hours and hours and hours, until I was following the correct play actions almost reflexively. I was beating the computer players all the time. I was ready for the casino! I thought.

A short while later I find myself in the palace of gaudiness; The Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. Overcome by it size and over-the-top splendor, I find my way to the poker room and after a long wait and a perusal of the tables, buy into a $2-$4 Hold 'em game for $100. The game seems to move fast. All the players seem confident and know what they are doing. Perhaps I am not as good as I thought. I fold hand after hand. At last, pocket kings, and almost by reflex I say "raise." My English accent is mildly mocked, but I care not. Then there are two callers, a raise, and a re-raise. My goodness I think, they must both have pocket kings, but slightly afraid, I call. The Flop, I do not remember, but I remember my kings look good. I bet out, and I am raised again! I nervously call. Three players left. The Turn comes, I check. One player bets, one folds, I call. The River brings a jack. I am confused. I check, the other player betters confidently and stares at me. Does he have two pair? An overpair? My heart is beating faster. I call, expecting the worst, but feeling somehow I should call, as there is no ace out. He proudly turns over a jack and nine. Still confused, I turn over my kings. Have I missed something? "Good hand," he barks, and I realize I have won all those chips in the middle. I quickly drag them in and start to pile them up. I have begun playing casino poker.

I remember what it was like to be confused and nervous in a casino. Like you, I know what it is like to learn a card game from books as a adult, not playing as a kid or in dorm rooms or on the road as a professional card player. I remember thinking that everyone was better than I was and that I could probably never play well. I was wrong. Good books, computer play, and playing against opposition that were at about my standard turned me into a good player. After a few months a realized that years of experience did not, in itself make players any good if they did not study or were not "naturals."

I continued to play each weekend and then in some of the semi-legal poker clubs of New York. I did not win all the time, but I slowly and steadily increased my poker bankroll as my skills improved. Finally, I was playing poker in clubs in New York most evening, and in Atlantic City on the weekends. I was not making a lot at poker but I was playing over thirty hours a week and averaging about $12-$15 an hour, in $4-$8 and =$5-$10 games, sometimes $10-$20. Those monthly boosts of $1,000 to $1,800 or so were not a fortune, but they provided a nice chunk of pocket money and payed some bills. I did not feel the need to move up. I was doing quite nicely, and poker became my second job. I ran into some interesting and bizarre characters around the tables, some nasty and some very personable and interesting. I played some tournaments. I did quite well, winning a couple and getting placed. I had become a poker player.

Today, I still play in the casinos and on the Internet. You might see me around the tables, and who knows, I might get lucky in one of those televised tournaments. Essentially though, I now play poker for fun, knowing that I could still make a modest living at the low-limit and mid-limit games if I choose, but preferring instead to play poker for fun and a little money and make my living doing other things.

So there is a little about me. Not very mysterious and no great heroics. Just an ordinary guy, fascinated by poker and wanting to have some fun. Read my book and articles, watch my DVDs, follow their suggestions, have a good time, and maybe win some money too. Go get 'em, tiger!