Harrington on Hold 'em Expert Strategy for No Limit To...

Amazon Review: Top notch; very pleasantly surprised. No limit hold'em, obviously, is a complex game. So complex that there has never been a good comprehensive treatment in a book form; I had thought that this was because it involves more "table feel", experience and intuition that can't be easily taught or expressed in a useful format.

Harrington and Robertie have done just that. Harrington is the 1995 world champion, and the only player to make the final table in both 2003 and 2004, overcoming the two biggest fields in World Series history (839 and 2,576 players, respectively). Robertie is a top backgammon player and author of several excellent books on that game.

Among the top players, there are drastically different styles of play, from conservative to super-aggressive. One problem I expected was that given Harrington's solid, fairly conservative style, he wouldn't be able to give much useful information on playing at the other end of the end of the spectrum, styles such as those employed by Daniel Negreanu and Gus Hansen.

I was wrong. The book does a fine job addressing the relative merits of various styles, playing against each type of opponent, and even choosing one for yourself. This makes sense; no matter his own style, to be successful he has to have spent a lot of time thinking about, observing, and combatting all different types of players. Further, a playing style isn't cast in stone; even the most conservative players have to switch gears and become much more aggressive at times, and vice versa.

A few more notes on this idea: first, Harrington's own play as described isn't as conservative and cautious as many think. Second, a fairly conservative approach is demonstrably the more sound one for the student, and anyone without many years of experience. Hyper-aggressive play would be much harder to teach well, and also much harder to pull off successfully. The players who thrive playing these aggressive, gambling styles have exceptional talent as well as lots of experience and a great feel for the game and their opponents, and are faced with difficult decisions under lots of pressure much more often. For those who insist on trying, it probably still makes more sense to learn a fundamentally sounder style first and then proceed from there.

The book is laid out well for learning. Each chapter starts with a discussion of the topic, touching on the theory. There are several example situations with the authors' answers and detailed reasoning, as well as the merits of alternative plays. Following each chapter there are problems, mostly from real hands. It provides a diagram of the table, the chip counts for each player, your knowledge of the opponents, etc... all the relevant information. The problems usually provide all this information even when some of it is irrelevant to the problem, which is a strength. A big part of the decision-making process in poker (as well as lots of other things) is recognizing and eliminating extraneous details to make analysis more managable.

This is the first in a two volume set. I thought this was odd, as this is first for 2+2 poker books, but the first volume is bigger than most of their others already. The book is self-contained; there are no partial answers or information that tell you to buy the second volume for the details. I don't think there has been an official announcement on when Volume 2 will be released, but I've heard sometime this spring.

The book is geared specifically toward tournaments, and especially toward those with well-defined formats, such as major casino/cardroom events and those on the Internet. For cash game players, a solid understanding of tournament and poker theory would be necessary to make the appropriate adjustments to cash play. Most of the book would still apply, but some situations would change drastically in a side game, where simply getting your money in with an advantage, rather than survival, is the main goal.

For those newer to poker, to get the most out of this book, I would recommend a few others be read either first or at the same time: "The Theory of Poker" by David Sklansky, "Small Stakes Hold'em" by Miller, Sklansky and Malmuth, and "Winning Low Limit Hold'em" by Lee Jones, especially for the newest players.

The Theory of Poker

Amazon Review: Poker's best textbook for general concepts: "Every time you play a hand differently than you would have played it if you could see all your opponents' cards, they gain; every time you play a hand the same as you would have if you could see all their cards, they lose." [This is an excerpt from what Sklansky humbly termed the fundamental theorem of poker.]

Statements like these will probably leave the average player, new to reading about his or her game, somewhat puzzled, but this is the main value of this book. It gives you a set of terms to describe conditions and actions in a poker game, and then tries to make you think about what you do and why. In the beginning, Sklansky says that this book does not try to answer, "What do you do in this particular situation?," but "What do you consider in this particular situation before determining what to do?"

It uses examples from every form of poker found in a casino, but it does not deal with any one form in particular. For this, a few good choices include the 'Advanced Players' series from Two Plus Two Publishing, and 'Super/System' by 1976-1977 World Series of Poker Champion Doyle Brunson and his collaborators. Sklansky's object is to show that winning poker comes down to correct determination of your odds given cards seen and unseen, the size of the pot in play and the effect of less tangible, psychological factors on the odds set by the first two elements.

It's not the easiest reading, but the language therein will be used by most serious players of the game in discussions away from the table. Get 'Poker for Dummies' by Lou Krieger and Richard Harroch first, as well as a basic text for your favorite game, like 'Winning Low-Limit Hold'Em' by Lee Jones. After a few months of play, open this book to reevaluate your game and what you thought you understood about poker.

Phil Gordon's Little Green Book

Amazon Review: Essential Reading. The Phil Gordon's Little Green Book is, in my view, the second or third best book on no-limit. In my view, nothing beats the Harrington books, which are more comprehensive, particularly on tournament strategy (although they are useful for cash games too), and Doyle's chapter in Super System is still must reading. But having said that, Phil Gordon's book is right up there with these classics--heady company. It is conversational in tone and easy reading, but not unsophisticated. The sections of the book dealing with post-flop play are excellent, and somewhat reminiscent of the approach used in Super System, as Phil analyzes how he would play some commonly-occurring post-flop situations. The sections on pot-odds, implied odds and hand match-ups is clear and surprisingly comprehensive--he really gives you everything you need to know. Phil gives some useful starting hand charts and includes a useful and insightful discussion of some common pre-flop situations. I wish Phil had spent a little more time discussing how he plays hands when he is not first in the pot (and expanded on the starting-hand charts at the back of the book), as well as more time discussing how he views the tactic of raising (or calling a raise) with small pairs and connectors (based on an implied odds argument)--he does mention the tactic, but I think there is more to be said on the topic. His discussion of play from the small blind and button is excellent, as is his discussion of blind-stealing. I was fascinated by his discussion of maintaining an appropriate ratio between steal raises (which you would generally have to fold to a reraise) and raises with a real hand in order to maintain a profit (i.e., winning enough when you have a real hand to compensate for your losses when you have to fold to a reraise)--I have not seen that kind of discussion elsewhere, and the calculation can be fine-tuned to match table conditions as well as applied to a variety of other situations when you are contemplating a move.

Phil says that he is not the best player in the world, but notes that he is a profitable player. I would add that he is a generous player and author also--Phil is generous in sharing his knowledge, and does not appear to be holding much back (too bad Barrry Greenstein didn't right a book like this rather than the non-substantive coffee table book on poker that he actually wrote--talk about holding back!). Based on listening to Phil's Podcasts on the WSOP, watching his DVD and reading this book, it is apparent to me that Phil enjoys sharing his knowledge of, and enthusiasm for, the game with others. He is a natural expositor and gifted teacher.

Championship No Limit & Pot Limit Hold 'Em

Amazon Review: Please don't read this book. I bought this book. The book is written in a very informal style. However, the first day after I read it I finished 6th out of 1600 in one tournement in which I never finished higher than 400 in before. This guy knows his stuff, but do you have the discipline and patience to follow his advice? This is not a formula book, as in play this way, and this way only. TJ goes into the real aspect of NL tourny play, as in playing the player, and not making mistakes. I would rather you not read this book because I don't want anyone who follows it to play against me. But if you do read it pay attention, TJ's style is understated to say the least, but he lays out a system that will win you tournaments.