You can rely on Lady Luck. You can

cheat.You can pray. But ifyou want to

win at poker, you have to face the odds.

Programmed Poker is designed to give

the novice, the casual player, even the

old hand, a knowledge of the basic rules

that underlie the game. No one wins all

the time, but you can learn to do better

than most players by refining your expec-

tations and learning to deceive and con-

found-your opponents.

The programmed approach has

never before been applied to poker, and,

by introducing odds and step-by-step

play that follows the evolution of actual

hands, the system makes this book far

more useful than other poker guides.

The introductory chapter covers the

history of poker and lays out important

terminology, rank of hands, stakes, and

general betting strategy. The following

chapters explain the basic games with

supplementary information on each game s

high-low and Io-ball variants. Because of

its recent vogue in high-stakes games, a chapter is devoted to hold em. Over 20

hands are broken down and program-

med, dividing the play into successive

steps with a follow-up analysis of the

reader s play decision in each new

circumstance.

The final chapter deals with the kinds

of players you re likely to face: sleepers,

grinders, rocks, and runners. The appen-

dices cover wild-card and "funny"

games, unusual stakes, cheating and

suspicious play, etiquette, and experi-

mentation. There is also a glossary of

common poker terms.

About the author

Jim Glenn, writer, classical guitarist, and

classical poker player from Texas, has

always considered poker a particularly

sensible exercise of the profit instinct.

His own involvement with the game has

taken him across Texas and into the ca-

sinos of Nevada, where he claims, with

humility, to win an occasional evening s

play.