The Badass Girl's Guide to Poker: All You Need to Beat the Boys

I'm very glad I purchased this book with a gift certificate. I'd be quite annoyed had I used my own money. There are a few useful chapters in the book (none of which includes anything that couldn't be found online -- for free), but they are completely overshadowed by chapters with names such as "Playing the Dumb Blond: Using Being Female to Your Advantage," "Lucky at Cards, Lucky at Love: Meeting Men Through Poker," and "Queen of Hearts: Improved Relationships Through Poker." Bochan tries; I give her that. She, however, spends too much time painfully attempting to compare poker playing with "feminine" things that "badass girls" can relate to (I do hope that was her editor's idea, not her own.). Examples: 1. When explaining a round of betting: "One way to indicate that you're checking is to tap your fingers on the table. So there's a perfectly good reason why you need to paint those pretty nails before the game. You don't want something as superficial as chipped polish to chip away at your confidence." 2. On poker etiquette: "Just as you wouldn't dare to show up at a dinner party without a nice bottle of wine or flowers, you shouldn't sit down at a poker table without mastering the basic etiquette." 3. On following the rules: "[Following the rules] keeps the game running smoothly as your fresh-shaven legs and lets everyone concentrate on the action at hand."
Let's not forget the entire chapter dedicated to setting up a girls' poker night. A fun way to add "femme flair" to the night, according to Bochan, is to "[p]ass around a tiara instead of a dealer button to show who's dealing." Wait... I've a better idea. Why not invest in a red dealer button and call it a "period"? "Look!" you and the rest of the girls could exclaim (in between giggles) when it's Tiffani's turn to deal. "Tiffani's got her period!" If I were interviewing Donald Trump about business strategies, I wouldn't ask him how he felt when he made a huge business deal on Ivanka's first day of preschool. Nor would I ask him if he'd ever thought about not wearing pink ties in the board room on "The Apprentice." I'd ask him about, well, his business strategies. In the chapter entitled "Chicks with Chips: Tips, Tricks, and Girl Talk with Two Pros," Bochan interviews two female professional poker players. Here are two questions Bochan asks Annie Duke, one of only three women who "won the coveted gold bracelets at open events at the World Series of Poker" in 2025: "[Y]ou were almost full-term with Lucy during the 2000 World Series of Poker, where you finished tenth -- can you talk a little about how it was to play?" and "[D]o you ever consider dressing more sexy or differently to use that to your advantage?" The two hours I spent with this book weren't all for naught, however. Bochan does spend four pages on Texas Hold `Em Strategy which have proved quite helpful to me. If you're looking for books on actual poker strategy, I suggest you go with the classics. Bochan's acknowledgments page says it all: "I hope I never again have to write a book in as short a time as I wrote this one[.]"