Book Review: Moorman’s Book of Poker by Chris Moorman with Byron Jacobs

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Chris Moorman is arguably the most successful online tournament poker player in the history of the game. At over $10 million, he has more earnings than any other player and it’s not even close. These results are a testament to his understanding of the game. In his first book, Moorman’s Book of Poker, he shows how he does it and how you can do the same.

The structure of this book was much different than I’d expected it to be. Typical poker books take a paragraph or two to explain a key concept and follow up with examples of the concept to show how it’s done. This book is not typical. Co-author Byron Jacobs provides some hands he played along with his analysis of the decisions he made. Moorman then reviews Jacob’s thought processes and tells what he would have done differently. Lastly, Jacobs tells the reader what he learned from Moorman’s critique.

I was initially skeptical of this approach and I imagine other readers will feel the same. I have learned a lot from traditionally written poker books and expected a similar experience. Instead, this book read more like being a fly on the wall as Moorman conducted a coaching session with Jacobs. Granted, this provided a lot for me to think about, but it did not present the material in an organized way that would have made it easier to learn.

Most of the hands Jacobs presented in the book are from midstakes tournaments. This is good for those of you who play these stakes because his thoughts (and mistakes) are probably very similar to your own. If so, the cost of the book is a small price to pay to have Moorman explain why those thoughts are either right or wrong. However, the authors both understand enough about poker that they often used intermediate level poker terms with each other without defining them. This could cause the book to be a bit confusing for beginning players.

Intermediate players can learn a lot from the book despite it’s nontraditional structure. The approach I used was to read the hand titles and skip to the ones that sounded like spots I’ve had trouble with in the past. Then, I would read Jacob’s conclusion. If it sounded like something I was not already aware of, I’d go back and read Moorman’s analysis to see what caused him to reach that conclusion. This method allowed me to focus on the topics that were most beneficial to me. I can honestly say that I learned a lot. My biggest take away from the book was to try and give the same attention to detail as Moorman does.

My biggest criticism of the book is that there should have been an easier way to find specific concepts to study for those of us who prefer a more focused approach. One idea would have been to include an index of key concepts. Sure, reading the titles as I did helped me to find what I was looking for, but I would have preferred the ability to turn to the back of the book to find all the spots where something like say light 4-betting was discussed. Instead, the book just abruptly ends after the final hand is analyzed. This came as somewhat of a shock to me. There clearly should have been some type of wrap up to the discussion.

In the end, once I’d gotten over my skepticism of the structure, Moorman’s Book of Poker did not disappoint. His expert analysis more than made up for the other shortcomings. I highly recommend this book for the intermediate poker player in your life this holiday shopping season.