Doyle Brunson's Super System: A Course in Power Poker!

Mike Caro's tables of statistics are excellent, although their presentation is less than wonderful by today's standards.

My one reservation about the book is that whilst Doyle describes his very aggressive playing style in great detail, the book makes it too easy to adopt the style without understanding it. The explanation is generally there (for example, why Q-Q can be a dangerous hand, or why it's hard to win big pots with A-A), but it's frequently buried in the folksy writing style (I get the feeling this book was probably transcribed from interviews).

The playing style requires you to be very aggressive and have the nerve to put all yout chips in the middle and the confidence to keep on doing it when you get beat. The potential problem for inexperienced players trying to follow Super System is working out whether their losses are down to bad luck or bad play.

This is a book you should read, re-read and keep reading - you'll be rewarded.


Poker Bible! Has Stood the Test of Time?   May 7, 2004
45 out of 46 found this review helpful

Along with David Sklansky's Hold'em Poker, Doyle Brunson's Super/System, originally titled How I Made Over $1,000,000 Playing Poker, heralds the beginning of what I would call the "modern age" of poker. More than anything else, I believe that the rise in poker's popularity over the last 25 years is due to the amount of good information that has been made available about the game, and Super/System is preeminent among the information sources that brought about this surge in popularity. However, it may be asked, how does this classic stand up more than 20 years after its initial publication?

The book begins with some introductory remarks, including an abbreviated history of Brunson's poker career, before the author launches into some general strategies for winning poker. This is all stuff that today's well-read poker player will take for granted: keep emotional control, carefully watch the competition, play patiently, etc., but it's pretty much all good advice. I can't say I completely agree with Brunson's feelings about ESP, but the information he provides isn't damaging.

Then, for the bulk of the book, Brunson has someone he considers to be a true expert in a given poker game lay out their advice on how to be a consistent winner. He assigned draw poker to Mike Caro, 7 card stud to Chip Reese, the various forms of lowball to Joey Hawthorne, 7 card stud high-low split to David Sklansky, and Bobby Baldwin and Brunson himself tackle limit and no-limit Texas hold'em, respectively. This is as solid a lineup of poker players as has ever been assembled. The book concludes with a glossary and a compendium of poker numbers and charts compiled by Mike Caro, explaining the various possibilities of various occurrences in the games covered in the book.

Many of the games considered in Super/System have undergone considerable change since the book was written. When the book was published limit Hold'em structures were quite different than one would typically find today. It would be very difficult to find a draw high game spread in a card room today, and even lowball, once the core of the California poker scene, is rarely spread any more. This limits the applicability of some of the advice given in the book. The section that's probably still most relevant is Brunson's own no-limit advice, and I believe this book is still required reading to play this game at the highest level.

Don't get me wrong, this book is filled with good advice. However, much of it is about games that aren't played any more or are played differently these days. Along with structural changes, the players in these games have changed themselves, and winning strategies have had to adjust to keep up. I believe I can name a better single book on each one of the games covered in Super/System, but by no means does that mean it isn't worth reading. I also don't believe there were any books available that were better references on any of the games covered at the time Super/System was originally published. Moreover, even if the strategies presented in this book were completely outdated, which they're not, the book would still be entertaining to read and have considerable historical value. I still believe that all serious poker players should have this book in their libraries. It's just no longer the bible that it once was.

Good Luck and Play Well,


Still good, no longer great   May 1, 2004
31 out of 35 found this review helpful

This book is satisfyingly large and heavy, with the result that just having it on your bookshelf gives you confidence. And there is a lot in it, with Brunson and his colleagues spilling the beans on top class poker.

The best section, I feel, is Brunson's own section on No-Limit Hold'Em, which really gives you the low-down on his successful style of play. Whether the reader has the guts to adopt such an aggressive system is, of course, another matter.

Bobby Baldwin's section on Limit Hold'Em is OK, but relatively superficial, and I feel it's been superseded by the plethora of specialist Hold'Em books now on the market.

I mainly bought this volume for the section on 7-Card Stud (which I felt could have been more detailed and specific), though I was briefly taken with the idea of trying High-Low Split after reading David Sklansky's excellent explanation of the game here.

On the con side, this book was first published in the late 70s, and is beginning to look a little dated. There is a large section on Draw Poker (seldom played nowadays), and a game called Lowball, which I've never encountered. Some of these games involve 'extra' cards called 'Jokers'. More to the point, there are references to strange systems of 'antes' which are no longer common in Hold'Em. Also, despite the number of poker games covered, there is no mention of Omaha, quite a popular game nowadays.

I hear there is a "Super System 2" in the pipeline, which should render these criticisms irrelevant. And in any case, most of the advice here remains perfectly sound.