Review: Peak Performance Poker

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Dimat Publishing (Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time; The Poker Mindset; Advanced PLO) has a new title, and this one takes a different route to improving your poker game. While other books focus on strategy and tactics, Peak Performance Poker instead trains its eye on the physical and mental preparation necessary to excel at poker.

Overview
That’s right, I said physical. At its core, Peak Performance Poker is basically a training manual for poker players looking to improve their nutritional and exercise regimens with the goal of translating that physical improvement into better results at the poker table.

You won’t find a lick of poker strategy in this book. Instead, what you’ll get is chapter after chapter of advice on conditioning, diet, exercise plans and poker-specific physical and psychological tactics. The book also draws heavily on interviews with a few top players for insight on how they employ similar routines as part of their overall strategy for succeeding at poker.

Pros
The topic is a strong pro, as there isn’t a whole lot of coverage devoted to these increasingly important aspects of a modern poker player’s game. It’s also in the favor of the book that the author – Travis Steffen – is a guy with all the right letters after his name (MA, CSCS), as opposed to a random poker player looking to develop a book with a new angle.

The advice is relatively solid, if not groundbreaking – everything’s explained clearly and articulated well, and while the advice is general, Steffen makes a game attempt at assembling it into a format that will be useful for poker players. You’ll find plans that are specific to MTT players, plans that are specific to cash game players, advice for live play versus online play and so on.

Steffen’s material is backed up by extensive footnoting, and the information is presented with frequent calls to action, which is a plus – he doesn’t just tell you what you should do, but also provides tips and tricks for starting to do it right away.

Cons
While it’s good that Steffen isn’t a poker player in some regards, the book does suffer a bit as a result – it’s generic in places and may be difficult for poker players to relate to in others, as it doesn’t speak to the poker playing experience from a first-hand perspective. It’s also a bit of a shame that the interviews with players like Negreanu and Benefield aren’t employed for much other than opening chapters – some more, specific insight from those players would have really provided a nice balance to the book.

I also would have liked more of the studies, etc that were relegated to the footnotes to be woven into the text – it would have helped to boost the credibility and readability of the advice.

My only other complaint is that the writing is, at times, a bit over-the-top; it feels like you’re attending a self-help seminar on some pages. That sort of aggressive motivational language might work for some readers, but I found it off-putting – not to the point where I stopped reading, but it did make me enjoy the book less.

Conclusion
If you know you need to get in better shape for poker but aren’t sure how, or if you doubt the importance of physical preparation for what many view as a mental sport, this book is worth a read.

Focus: 9/10
Mostly solid, a but repetitive in places.

Quality of advice: 8/10
Steffen’s advice is largely quality, but the generic nature of it might lessen the value poker players get out of the book.

Readability: 7/10
The sales-pitchy tone gets old in places.

Overall (not an average): 8.5/10
While it has flaws, it’s the first book of its kind and deserves some slack as a result.

VERDICT: Poker players who ignore Steffen’s advice are missing what will become an increasingly critical edge. For that reason, if no other, you should consider this book.

Buy Peak Performance Poker at ITH

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