Hide in Plain Sight: The Hollywood Blacklistees in Film and Television, 1950-2002

Book Description

Hide in Plain Sight completes Buhle and Wagner's seminal trilogy on the Hollywood blacklist. When the blacklistees were hounded out of Hollywood, some left for television where many worked on children's shows like Rocky and Bullwinkle. A number wrote adult sitcoms such as The Donna Reed Show and M*A*S*H, while some of them ultimately returned to Hollywood and made great films like Norma Rae and Mid-night Cowboy. This is a thoughtful look at the aftermath of the horror that was the McCarthy period from two expert historians of the blacklist period.

Customer Reviews:

How Hollywood Survived Those Turbulent Years........2004-09-27

The movie studios RKO, MGM, Paramount, Warner Brothers, and Twentieth Century Fox (all familiar to the movie-goers of the Fab Fifties) struggled for survival by focusing on large-budget blockbusters. Later Universal, United Artists, Columbia Pictures and others found life different after the Cold War mania in which writers, producers and directors (some actors) were blacklisted by McCarthy as pro-Communism in this country.

McCarthy ruined reputations and stunted careers in Hollywood in a grand style, but at what a cost -- he was the one to die early. It's a proven fact that hurting others in any way (even by neglect) hurts the tormentor more, usually in physical health. "Tough things can kill. They kill the spirit, hopes, dreams, vision and even desire (to live). Excessive pressure can make you explode or make you learn new ways to constructively vent." (Mtn. Wings #4271)

The wild McCarthyrite charges of conspiracy were as common in the Fifties as they were devastating. Some of those blacklisted by 30's radicalism had been unfairly smeared and even damaged in the McCarthy Era. The Hollywood screenwriters were infiltrated by former Communists for the congressional investigators for the FBI. It is sad that producers testified against some of their best writers and best friends.

But they continued to work on films without credit for their work at lower wages than they deserved. In fact, they contributed immensely to the creation of the 1950's Golden Age of Television, to the dramas and sitcoms. Some moved to New York and were productive on the stage.

Technology in the form of CinemaScope, camera innovations such as the zoom lens, location shooting, and color film saved the industry. The Arbitron surveys killed off some special programs. I'd forgotten about those; as we were never chosen to keep track of what we watched. Today, they are used for radio also and I took one myself in 2001 -- gave Nick Clooney lots of play time in the early hours of each morning.

These historians explain all you'd ever want to know (also some better not known) about every movie you might have seen or just heard about. There is quite a listing throughout this volume.

Some brought back pleasant memories included were the Armstrong Circle Theater, Philco Television Playhouse, Studio One, Four Star Playhouse, NBC Television Theater, Alcoa Aluminum Hour, (also Alcoa/Goodyear Theater) and Ray Bradbury's Science Fiction Theater. The best drama series of this "Golden Age" was one of my favorites, TWILIGHT ZONE. Reruns are still on the tube today.

The cowboys listed were Hopalong Cassidy, Andy Devine, Roy Rogers, but not Lash LaRue (why not?) as he was great. One year he came to our Fair and silly me, just a wisp of a girl, volunteered to stand on stage while he tore a piece of paper out of my mouth with his whip. He was something!

Of course, the music shows to which I was partial and played a big part in my young life. Bing Crosby Productions used blacklisted talents in their shows, BREAKING POINT, HOGAN'S HEROES, and BEN CASEY later in 1959. The mini-studios brought out the detectives we all loved. And who could forget Loretto Young and her beautiful costumes or Dinah Shore and her downhome shows to show the world that we Southerners do know a thing or two.

This would make a good reference book for movie buffs.

Tracking Down the Artistic Contributions of the Blacklisted!.......2004-03-15

While many books, essays, television shows and movies have made us all more sensitive to the dangers of McCarthyism, most of us don't quite know what happened to those who were blacklisted after the HUAC meetings in the early 50s. Hide in Plain Sight filled that void for me, and expanded my understanding of both the event's consequences for society and of the artists involved.

The book uses a variety of methods for capturing the subsequent history of those who were blacklisted. Some chapters focus on particular forms of artistic expression, while other sections look at individual producers, directors, writers and actors. As a result, there's some redundancy . . . so the book often feels like a series of essays rather than one seamless nonfiction book. That quality, however, makes the book easier to use for those who just want to read about a single person or genre.

I was very surprised to learn that almost every adult television show that I liked during the 1950s and 1960s involved blacklisted writers. Perhaps it's just because my tastes run to history, underdogs, unusual approaches and conflict, but what was interesting about television then (and often isn't now) came from those with a strong ideological bent toward Marxist or antifascist thought. This book forms an important document in helping all Americans to understand how dialogue in our society needs to be maintained through providing free access to all media. Much great work would have been lost if these blacklisted writers, directors and performers had lost their artistic lives.

I found one aspect of the book to be tedious though. Every person was characterized by her or his political beliefs. In most cases, this was done with a simple label (antifascist, Marxist, liberal, etc.). That way of characterizing people seemed to me to make the book overly political. As a result, the book constantly displays a battle between left and right . . . and almost leaves the audience out in the process.

I did not know many of the films that were described, especially those that were done in Europe. I appreciated the care with which the films were described. In several cases, I learned important back stories about the meaning of metaphors that added to my understanding of the films.

A real strength of the book is showing how the careers of individual blacklisted people were affected. The analyses of how their subsequent works developed (especially those of Joseph Losey) were quite extensive and intriguing to think about.

The final paragraph is unusually eloquent:

"Hollywood was always about money. It still is. But at its best it was and eventually might once again be something a great deal more--a glimmering of a democratic art form returning the embrace of its vast audience with equality sncerity and the sense of a common fate."

As I finished the book, I was reminded of John Donne's famous poem. "Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee." As badly as individual lives were harmed by the blacklisting, our democracy and culture were harmed even more. In realizing the full depths of that loss, we are all the losers.

Gerald McBoing Boing and the radical movement!.......2003-10-24

"Hide in Plain Sight" is the latest book co-authored by Paul Buhle on the Hollywood blacklist and its impact. As is the case with the previous books, this is as much a celebration of what radicals in the entertainment accomplished as it is about the terrible loss when they were purged.

For people who came of age in the 1950s, the book is an exceptional treat. Who knew that many of our favorite television shows drew upon the talents of writers, directors and actors hounded out of the Hollywood film industry? Covering the period from 1950 to 2002, it proves dramatically that the radical politics of the 1930s never really disappeared but found ways to express itself through popular culture. The television shows and Hollywood movies of this period were just as important a link to the New Left as the folk music revival and leftwing beat poetry.

As is the case with every book in this series, the index can provide a kind of shortcut into the treats within its pages. For example, a reference to "You Are There" reveals that some of the 1953-1955 teleplays were written by Walter Bernstein, Arnold Manoff and Abraham Polonsky--3 blacklistees. Each show was pegged to a real historical event. The central drama of such shows involved heroic efforts by figures such as John Peter Zenger to stand up for democratic principles against a repressive government. Such messages were not lost on baby boomers, including myself.

While it is not too difficult in retrospect to detect the footprints of radicals in such a show, there were others that were more cleverly subversive at camouflaging their true intent. For example, the children's cartoon show "Gerald McBoing Boing" was a product of United Productions of America, which was launched by John Hubley, a New Deal era radical. Fellow UPA'er Dave Hilberman had been fingered by Walt Disney for the sin of having "spent considerable time at the Moscow Art Theater".

Not that Gerald McBoing Boing was about socialist tractors and the struggle against fascism. Instead it is about a child who speaks entirely in sound effects. The real inspiration for this cartoon was not Marxism, but the playful inventive spirit of the Hollywood left going back to Charlie Chaplin and a host of others open to surrealism.

Amazon.com

This lively compendium is the catalog for the second half of the Whitney Museum of American Art's nine-month, two-part exhibition on American culture of the last 100 years. The author, Lisa Phillips, is now director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, but she spent 20 years at the Whitney overseeing many of its famous (or infamous) biennials and producing a number of exhibitions about American culture in fields beyond the museum. Like the first, this volume pulls together an array of cultural icons, defined inclusively. This being the Whitney's gig, the visual arts are appropriately dominant. The book's six sections cover every development from abstract expressionism through pop and minimalism to "Questioning the Canon," and "Market Power." Oddly, however, it is the insertions of short sidebars on Hollywood, theater, realism in the novel, modern dance, the nonfiction novel, feminist literature, hip-hop, and the like that give the book (and the exhibition) its special resonance. Pictures of Bob Dylan, Diana Ross and the Supremes, one of Robert Morris's disarrayed installations, and a bedroom at the Hog Farm community are spread across two facing pages, for example. The whole effect--a feel for the late '60s--is greater than the sum of its parts. And this happens throughout The American Century. Oddly, the art is less well evoked than the cultural iconography. The book's designer has sometimes enlarged a smallish painting or reduced an immense one, giving a distorted view both of the works in relation to one another and of their place in cultural history. With that quibble, however, this jam-packed tome records a notable exhibition as well as the long, strange trip the second half of the century has been. --Peggy Moorman

Book Description

A compelling panorama of art in America during the second half of this century. Shortly after the Second World War a group of American artists moved away from representation and realism toward a completely nonrepresentational style which became known as abstract expressionism. Led by Jackson Pollock, Willem De Kooning, and others, it was the first truly American painting style, and it quickly moved the United States into the forefront of innovation. A succession of other movements followed, including Pop Art, with adherents like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein; the performance art of John Cage and others; video art, led by Nam Juin Paik; and installation art of grand proportions.

In this expansive volume Lisa Phillips explains the excitement and inventiveness of American artists in the context of the varied and sometimes turbulent social environment as well as the expanding economy of postwar America. Essays by experts in related fields illuminate parallel and diverse developments in architecture, dance, music, literature, painting, sculpture, cinema, and design. With over 700 color and duotone illustrations, this volume is a companion to Barbara Haskell's The American Century: 1900-1950. Published in association with the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Customer Reviews:

A Cup Half Full.......1999-12-29

I strongly recomend this book for someone who wants a "Who's Who" of the American fine arts scene. I have spent many hours scanning the names and pictures, aborbing the exciting 50 years of American contempoary arts.

I cannot recommend this book as an especially well-written commentary on that scene, however. Some sentences contain refrences to handfulls of artists with little direction or explanation. Of course the authors were required to give fair coverage to thousands of artists who had their 15 minutes of fame in US art galleries. I follow this scene pretty closely professionally. I can report that I did not find any glaring ommissions from their collection of artists. As you might expect, regional artists received barely a nod and little is said about "outside" art.

If you are looking for a great explanation of "modern" art, try "The Shock of the New" by Robert Hughes, which Amazon indicates is still in print (and rated 5 stars, almost).

But if you are interested in the "Sears Catalog" of the fine arts in the past 50 years, this is the book you want.

Average customer rating:
The Korean War in American art & culture: Fifty years later : Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY, October 21, 2000-January 7, 2001
Simon Taylor
Manufacturer: Guild Hall Museum
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Korean War | Military | History | Subjects | Books
General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0933793529

Average customer rating:
AMERICAN CENTURY ART AND CULTURE 1950-2000
PHILLIPS
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000N58W3E

Customer Reviews:

The Best Advice to Being Your Own Carrie.......2006-05-31

This is a fun read ... especially if you want a summer of free dinners even though all they ever get is a handshake. But seriously, this is the ideal book to read if you are single, never married, no kids, and want to extend your adolescence another decade in the dating arena. Best advice: Have professional pictures taken and post them on your online ads in the online dating world... and catch yourself plenty of fish in the dating sea.

Book Description

In these autobiographical writings, one of the twentieth century's most influential musicians describes his own life and relates anecdotes of his dealings with such notable figures as George Gershwin, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, and Fats Waller. Shilkret's writing also discloses an insider's view of the 1930's radio broadcasting scene and the burgeoning corporations that sponsored it. Appendixes list Shilkret compositions, tracks of commercially-available Shilkret recordings, motion pictures in whose production Shilkret was involved, and more. An extensive discography, bibliography, and index make the work useful to researchers and historians. A selected sample of never-before commercially-available recordings by Nathaniel Silkret and the Symphonic Pops is included on the audio CD packaged with the book.

Customer Reviews:

Amazing book.......2006-05-16

This is one of the best books written from the "insider" perspective. If you are a fan of Nathaniel Shilkret, I suggest you read this book not only for the great tips and insights about the music industry, but for the personal look at Shilkret's life. However if you want a more modern guide to the industry, check out "The Music Business Bundle" from Ty Cohen.

Invaluable memories!.......2006-04-08

Today if Nat Shilkret is remembered at all, it's probably only by collectors of old 78s who will know his name from his many dance band and semi-classical records on the Victor label. But Nat Shilkret was so much more than a band leader: he was an A&R man, composer (of popular, classical, and film music), arrranger, and musician (he played clarinet and piano). As someone who had his foot in just about every corner of the music business in the 1910s-1950s, he encountered virtually everybody who was anybody in music of the era. This book is as much about Shilkret's memories of these other luminaries as it is about his own life.

The book contains hundreds of anecdotes, vividly recounting his meetings with all sorts of people: Victor Herbert, Gustav Mahler, Enrico Caruso, Al Jolson, Arturo Toscanini, Gene Austin, Paul Whiteman, George Olsen, Mischa Elman, Oscar Levant, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Bix Beiderbecke, Red Nichols, Fats Waller, Gene Autry, Henry Busse, Jascha Heifetz, Artie Shaw, Arnold Schoenberg, Leopold Stokowski, and literally hundreds of others. Who else could ever have claimed to met all of these? Through his recollections, Shilkret introduces us personally to each one with stories that are sometimes sad, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes embarassing, and not always entirely complimentary! Shilkret seems to have had a high opinion of most of the people he writes about, but in those instances where he disliked a person, he lets that be known also.

Shilkret's writing style is generally quite clear and concise, and above all, to-the-point. These aren't flowery memories with overly-long descriptions. Shilkret writes as if he's talking directly to you. Half-way through the book, I came to feel as if I knew Shilkret personally. The book is essentially many short stories stitched together in roughly chronological order. Occasionally, transitions from one to the next are rather rough or simply nonexistent, so the book feels "choppy." However, these short episodes make this a great book for picking up and reading a few pages at a time. Unfortuantely, Shilkret does not always explain himself fully, so that in a few cases, I was left slightly confused by a story he had just related. At times, the book gives the impression that it was published from an incomplete or unfinished manuscript. Editors Niel Shell and Barbara Shilkret, however, have wisely avoided tampering with Nat Shilkret's words, but have filled in some holes with footnotes.

The last 120 pages of the book contain some very valuable appendices. One lists Shilkret's compositions and arrangements; another contains a selected discography of original 78s (by no means complete), another contains a discography of Shilkret recordings on CD, another lists important radio broadcasts, and there are several more appendices. The book also includes a full CD of Shilkret "Symphonic Pops" transcription recordings. A photo section is also included in the book.

The hardcover edition is beautifully and durably bound, which is wonderful since this is a book I can see myself pulling from the shelf frequently to relive Shilkret's memories or refer to the appendices. This book should appeal to popular and classical 78 rpm record collectors alike, or anyone interested in American music of the early 20th century. Although I collect 78s, I've recommended this book to several non-collector friends already who have enjoyed it immensely. Grab it before it goes out of print!

Nathaniel Shilkret: Sixty Years in the Music Business.......2005-12-21

This is the best insider's view of the music business since Charles O'Connell's "The Other Side of the Record". It is a fascinating picture of the popular/light classical music scene of the 20s and 30s by Nat Shilkret, the era's biggest name in recording and broadcasting music, told in the voice of a working musician - conductor, arranger, composer, film music director, and A&R executive. You'll read personal anecdotes of just about every major New York and Hollywood musical star of the era. Encounters are presented with candor and a sly wit that bring to life scenes of that glorious time. Everybody who has any interest in music from the first half of the 20th century should have this book.

Review by Jack Bethards, former Executive Director, Paramount Theatre, Oakland, California

Victor's Nathaniel Shilkret Remembers...........2005-07-04

This is a fine collection of personal reminiscences, some brief and others extended, of the subject's extraordinary and varied musical life. Born in 1889, he was a prodigy whose career began in the 1890s and continued into the second half of the twentieth century. Although there is some discussion of his childhood and personal relationships, the book is basically a series of interesting anecdotes, well told, and intelligently edited with a scholar's eye by his grandson (Niel Shell). The array of celebrities cited and discussed dazzles.

Shilkret was musician, conductor,and executive at the Victor Talking Machine Company (later RCA Victor) for several decades beginning in 1915. He shaped, along with others, the catalogues of the foreign, export, domestic, hillbilly, "race", and red-seal divisions. He chose artists and repertory, created and conducted the Victor Salon Orchestra and various choruses (e.g., The Victor Light Opera Company). As conductor of a dance orchestra during the later 1920s he became a rival of the label's star, Paul Whiteman. He wrote successful popular songs (e.g., "Lonesome Road", "Jeannine, I Dream of Lilac Time") and instrumental pieces in traditional classical forms. After years as a busy radio conductor he went to Hollywood and composed and conducted motion picture scores.

This book will be appreciated by both casual readers interested in sound recordings and scholars assembling details of the era's musical life --- a life governed not only by aesthetic concerns but also by businessmen, budgets, and unions.

Average customer rating:

Great for Learning the Cash Game

How Beginners Should Play Low-Stakes Cash Games

Bad writing and worse advice

Greatly Needed.

middle of the road...

Mastering No-Limit Hold'em
Russell Fox , and Scott T. Harker
Manufacturer: Conjelco
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Card Games | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
Poker | Card Games | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
General | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
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No Limit Hold 'em: Theory and Practice

Phil Gordon's Little Green Book: Lessons and Teachings in No Limit Texas Hold'em

Harrington on Hold 'em: Expert Strategies for No Limit Tournaments, Vol. III--The Workbook (Harrington on Hold'em)

Pot-Limit & No-Limit Poker

Why You Lose at Poker

ASIN: 1886070210
Release Date: 2005-05-01

Book Description

Because of television, the game of choice for most new poker players is no-limit Hold'em. This has led to changes in the game. With so many players trying to emulate their TV heroes, they tend to play too many weak hands, call too many bets with marginal to poor holdings, and try to make too many big bluffs. Today's skilled player must learn to adapt to these changes in this complex game.

This book covers all aspects of the smaller, fixed buy-in, no-limit hold'em games from understanding your opponents to learning about pot odds. Included are topics seldom written about such as finding the proper amount to bet, how to manage your mental game, bankroll considerations, and how to beat the rake. Also introduced is "The Matrix Theory: " a unique tool for understanding just what hands you should play and how they should be played depending on a matrix of considerations few think about.

If you are looking for the most comprehensive guide to fixed buy-in cash games, you need this book!

Customer Reviews:

Great for Learning the Cash Game.......2007-09-08

Great Book that centers on the Low Blind No Limit Cash Game. I have learned alot. Thanks

How Beginners Should Play Low-Stakes Cash Games.......2007-06-02

"Mastering No-Limit Hold'em" is targeted at beginning no limit cash game players, and this title hits its mark perfectly. While I agree with J. Rubino below that this book's focus is somewhat narrow, cash game play is nevertheless fundamental: while tournaments lure in big audiences with dreams of millions, most professional poker players earn their bread and butter in ring game play. Yes, these games can be a "grind", but a good cash game is the easiest way to avoid losing money at poker (although I will grant that some phenomenal tournament players can certainly earn money on that end exclusively).

What I like so much about this book is that Russell Fox doesn't get very fancy: he knows his audience is not advanced players in 1k/2k blind games needing a custom-tailored strategy. Fox advocates a straight-forward, conservative game that will serve new players quite well in no limit cash games. Quite simply, if you try too many fancy tournament plays in a cash game you're liable to win a lot of small pots and lose one huge pot that makes your three hour session into a loser. Fox understands this and advises his readers on how to survive the grind and eke out consistent returns over time.

This book is excellent for its core audience of new no limit cash game players, and judged by that standard (rather than its discussion of no limit hold em theory in the abstract), I would have to give it five stars. If new readers buy this book and employ its principles in their next cash game, they will reduce their risk of losing money foolishly and increase their chance of having a profitable session. I don't think a poker book can do any more to recommend itself.

Bad writing and worse advice.......2007-04-23

I play poker for a living and online no-limit cash games between 2/4 and 5/10 are currently my games of choice. I have read probably 15 poker books and this one (MNLHE) is far and away the worst. I think the only reason it ever got decent ratings is that for a long time there were very few books on no-limit on the market. This has changed. No Limit Holdem: Theory And Practice (NLHE:TAP) by Sklansky and Miller is now the Bible on cash no-limit, and Phil Gordon's Little Green Book and Little Blue Book are also very good.

As other reviewers have noted, this book endorses the bizarre idea that a short stack is an inherent disadvantage (as opposed to simply a less profitable choice than a deep stack) in a cash game. This commonly believed idea was debunked once and for all in NLHE:TAP.

MNLHE's problems get much worse than that, though. You only have to reach page 18 before this stunning advice appears. You're sitting in a $2/$3 NL game with $60, having just lost a pot, and:

"You look down at 9d7h in the cut-off position. An early position player raises to $7 and 4 players call. Normally you would fold this hand but in this situation you might elect to call. It is likely your cards are live. If you hit the flop you can win a large pot."

If you haven't played much no-limit you'll have to take my word for it that this is unbelievably bad advice. I feel silly even explaining why, but: with a deep stack of say $300, a call could be justified, but with a stack as small as 20 big blinds, your payoff when you hit the flop in a big way is far too small. You have good position, but that is worth a lot less when you're short stacked. The pot is going to be something like $40 on the flop and you only have $53, so your choices are going to be limited to allin or fold. It's also worth noting that in a loose game there's absolutely no reason to believe that "your cards are probably live".

Wander over to page 21 and we see the authors endorse the idea that having a stack of $400 facing two players with stacks of $70 and $125 is any different than having a stack of $125 in the same situation. See NLHE:TAP if you don't understand why this is wrong.

Turning to the quiz on page 161, the authors ask:

"You hold QQ in the cutoff seat. There are two limpers to you, you raise to $20, and only one of the limpers calls you. The flop doesn't appear threatening: 7h7c3s. However, to your surprise, the preflop limper bets $30 (he has you outchipped). It's your turn to act; what is your action?" (You began the hand with $150 in a $2/$3 game)

This is an utterly trivial hand, but the authors start their answer:

"What does your opponent hold? Is he bluffing? Hands like this are why some of us get grey hair!"

Um, really? You guys must be easily stressed.

"If your opponent is tight and solid, a fold is probably correct; he likely has one of the hands that beats you."

Are you serious? What is a "tight and solid" player doing splashing around preflop for over 1/8th of the effective stacks, out of position, with 33 or a hand that includes a 7? And if he does have one of those hands (or is slowplaying aces or kings) why is he betting straight out at me instead of checking and giving me a chance to put more money in the pot if I have something like AQ? Folding here is just ridiculous. The pot is $48 and your stack is $130 - there's no way you're doing anything on a flop like this except getting the money in. You should either raise or call here depending on the tendencies of the opponent, but in either case your focus is squarely on getting all the money in the middle.

Those are some of the more egregious examples; I could go on, but my point should be made.

The writing is terrible, both in terms of correct use of English and in terms of clarity and readability. There are grade-school grammatical mistakes like "not that great of a situation" (rather than "not that great a situation"). The narrative is tangled and often wanders off on little tangents of questionable relevance. It is frequently anecdotal rather than dealing with underlying theoretical context. This adds up to a very confused presentation of ideas which the authors (given some of the jaw-dropping advice) probably don't have much of a grasp on in the first place.

I felt compelled to write this lengthy review after ordering MNLHE from Amazon on the strength of the reviews. I learnt nothing from this book and its presence on my bookshelf is nothing but an irritation. I'm not one of those people who trawl Amazon looking for things they can give one star to, but I really do think that is what the book deserves. Buy NLHE:TAP instead, or if you already have that, save your money and reread it.

Greatly Needed. .......2006-04-05

This book really fits into a void within the poker literature because there are a million books about limit and no limit tournaments but a scare few address no limit cash games. The irony is that NL ring games are the types in which most of us play. What Fox and Harker do in these pages is discuss various elements and strategies necessary for play in the 10, 25, 50, 100, and 200 dollar NL games. However, it obviously won't help you deal with Juanda and Matusow at NL 10,000 because the authors' views are fairly conservative. The tactics showcased here are not ones that are going to appeal to loose-aggressive players. Theirs is a tighter game which becomes classically aggressive in moments of strength. Appendix A contains a play-by-play analysis of an 8 hour NL session at the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles. By offering this, readers get an opportunity to "sweat out" a game with the authors which is an absolutely wonderful idea. It really allows you an opportunity to plug up some of the leaks in your own game by seeing the right and wrong way to do things. Personally, I'd give anything for Dan Harrington to provide us with a 400 pages sweat-now that would be worth about $500. Anyway, the real live play example was helpful and I'd like to see more authors make use of this technique. Overall, this shouldn't be the first book you buy on No Limit, especially since Ed Miller will be coming out with one in a month or so, but Fox and Harker have given us something valuable, so, if you're having any trouble in the small to mid-range NL games, this one's a must read.

middle of the road..........2006-03-07

This is a fairly straightforward book for no limit; however it is a niche book. This book discusses the small buy-in no limit cash games found mostly in the LA clubs and Las Vegas casinos. While I think it provides an adequate overview for these specific games it is short on the underelying theory of no limit holdem and almost completely void of the psychology which is the main thrust of no limit holdem. The book is for the casual to intermediate player who wants to play at these smaller games. My main complaints are that there is much basic material that is more common sense than anything and the authors never take you to a place of elevating your game. If you are still learning the basics and don't understand things like position and how to read holdem flops it may be okay but personally I didn't feel I got much value out of it. Do an honest assessment of your own game-if you would consider yourself a beginner or struggling intermediate player you will learn enough to make the read worthwhile otherwise it is very middle of the road and you might find better value in "Super System" or "Harrington on Holdem". While "Harrington on Holdem" is written to be a tournament no limit book most players will find tremendous value learning from a truly great player like Harrington and you will learn underlying theory of no limit holdem that can be applied to cash or tournament games.

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