The Myth of Poker Talent: Why Anyone Can Be a Great Poker Player

by Alexander Fitzgerald

"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. - Thomas Edison The Myth of Poker Talent is a unique book and is the culmination of renowned poker trainer Alex Fitzgerald's work with over 1000 students over a 10 year period. Alex has discovered what makes a winning poker player and here's the good news.. It has nothing to do with poker talent. If you want to excel at the game you'll need to buy this book, study Alex's method and work hard - but you don't need talent. Alex's method focuses on understanding generic poker situations and not specific hands. As a highly experienced teacher, he expresses his ideas in simple, easy-to-understand language. The Myth of Poker Talent will teach you: - A "model of poker" built from scratch- An understanding of every poker tool- Why much of what experienced players think they know is actually wrong... and much, much more.

Genres: Games, Nonfiction

328 pages, Paperback

Published September 26, 2016

About the author

I write about card playing and some people seem to enjoy that.

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall this was a good book. I like the concepts he presents, but unless you're primarily an online player, much of the analysis he goes into with the various software tools will be very limited in usefulness. The calculations will be difficult to apply with much precision if you're a live player and have to ballpark your opponents' stats. That being said, you could certainly adapt them, but by and large this book is geared toward online players. I do like his overall point though: that it doesn't take any special natural-born talent to excel at poker, and anyone can learn if they put in the time and effort. And if you are an online player, then the analyses he goes through will much more useful.

Also, if you're annoyed by grammatical errors, you will definitely find many in this book. It doesn't seem to have gone through an editor.

[Jared McDonald · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really great resource for aspiring online poker players as it takes you through the various poker tools in depth that you will need to improve. Historically, I have been a live player but have been transitioning to online due to the quarantine and have found this book quite helpful in that regard. Even if you are not primarily an online player I find there are definitely some helpful bouts of information that could improve anyone's game overall. The author is a true grinder who has put the work into his game over the years and offers valuable insights that I'm sure most poker players were not even aware existed. I'm looking forward to improving my online game as his other book has already greatly improved my live game.

[Clare · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a review copy of Alexander "Assassinato" Fitzgerald's The Myth of Poker Talent: Why Anyone Can Be a Great Poker Player back in September when it was first published. Despite my best intentions to get through it quickly and write a review in a timely manner, I quickly discovered that sitting down and trying to rip through it in one sitting is just about the most useless possible way to approach the book.

Read the rest of the review at The Casino City Times.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

A common scam in the book world: make two lousy books and than combine them into one. Is it a bad biography? Sure, but you can say it's more of a Poker guide. Is it a crap Poker guide? Sure, but it is more of a biography. And the rest is the so common rags to riches story of any prosperity gospel evangelist. See how bad he was living? Three SWAT raids in the last month in that very neighborhood, no heating in Washington! And now he's well off because of his skills, not because of his consulting business.

As for the results, apart from giving Fitzgerald a much comfortable life than that of a daily worker in the Fishing industry, are hard to see. Google won't tell me any of his students ever reaching something higher than constant wins over the frat boy poker game on dimes.