Poker Books You Must Own

Please post books you have read in this thread that you would recommend everyone should read (Cash or Tourneys)

I'll start:

#1 Harrington On Holdem Series

For tournament players i can recommend:

"Kill Everyone" and "Kil Phil" (by Lee Nelson)

"Winning Poker Tournaments" Vol. 1+2 (by Rizen / Apestyles / Pearljammer)

For live poker i recommend the great book "Every Hand Revealed" by Gus Hansen.

The three Harrington Books are slightly outdated, but still good stuff for beginners...

Just search the forums, this has been done like 1000 times before...

Check here, My Poker Library (updated)

Sklansky's Theory Of Poker (sp?)

That is a good book Pokerman27 I just go it. Here another one Randy Burgess Ultimate Guide To Poker Tells. Its a good book for a person ready to get to that next level of poker play where they start playing the player not just the cards.

Iv recently just bought the Harrington hold em books and read the first one and half way through the second one and must say it's been very helpful for me.

Iv heard the "Theory of poker" is a good one and think thats the next one i will be buying.

I'm not sure about how many books I'm going to read though..as i think there is so many you could read with taking one specific route in poker. I think to many would just overwhelm you so im not sure what approach to take with how many books to read or how much to study. People say get as much information as you can, which is indeed what i have been doing, HOWEVER i'v noticed most are different views on how they play poker and how it should be played so it's kind of difficult.. Ideas?

Ive read a few, and some I liked and some I thought were so-so. None I have read so far were useless, but I will list the books I found really good. I play STT and MTT, so my books were searched with this in mind, although not all are directly related to these games. But I found these books great, not hard to follow since all are very highly rated books.

Little Green Book Phil Gordon
Harrington on Holdem - all 3
SnG strategy - Collin Moshman
Theory of Poker - Sklanski
Winning tournaments - one hand at a time - Lynch, Turner, Van Fleet
look at abbsolutehamms link, I have some books from there as well, many out there. Just read......

Outdated?
dont agree with this.
So which books are the ones to read instead of these?

I assume you mean the HoH series....

Both of these books are probably going to be way too advanced for the majority of players. If you are playing anything under like 100NL for cash or $50 buy-in tourneys(not being specific on levels, just mainly stating not the micro/low levels) and not winning consistently then there are dozens of other books that you should be reading before these. Sklansky's Theory of Poker deals with a lot of the maths that go into playing poker and the high level thinking that you will never see at the micro limits, so it will be of very little use to you until you learn a lot of the more basic concepts.

As for Burgess's book, or any other book relating to physical tells, once again skip that until you know how to play the game first. Who cares if you think you know that when someone looks to his left after looking at their hole cards that he might have a big pair when you could pay attention to their bet sizings and find out a ton more information every time. Or what your bet sizes need to be to throw them off a hand. The metaphysical game should be something that you don't read into for quite a while.

Since I don't think many of you(except fletchdad) even bothered to click on the link I posted, I'm going to copy/paste the books you should probably be reading...

Beginners Books
Getting Started in Hold’em by Ed Miller
Winning Low Limit Hold’em by Lee Jones
The Badass Girl’s Guide to Poker by Toby Leah Bochan
Online Ace, by Scott Fischman
Hold’em Wisdom for All Players by Daniel Negreanu
The Only Poker Book You’ll Ever Need by Johnny Quads Wenzel
Online Poker by Doyle Brunson
Starting Out in Poker by Stewart Reuben
Hold’em Excellence by Lou Krieger [limit]
More Hold’em Excellence by Lou Krieger [limit]
Fundamentals of Poker by Malmuth and Loomis
Low Limit Texas Hold’em Poker by Abulencia and Abulencia [limit]
Get the Edge at Low Limit Texas Hold’em by Bill Burton [limit]
Little Green Book by Phil Gordon
Little Blue Book by Phil Gordon
Little Black Book by Phil Gordon


Edit:
They are pretty outdated to today's standards of MTT play. They take a very conservative approach to the game, whereas since 2004 when the books started to be published, the game has become much much more aggressive, so as if you were following a lot of the advice in there, you would be getting trampled over. They are good for beginners to learn some of the concepts, but not to follow word for word(not that any book should be in the first place though)

I was told on here Sklansky's book is the first book you should read.

[quote=absoluthamm;1545908
They are pretty outdated to today's standards of MTT play. They take a very conservative approach to the game, whereas since 2004 when the books started to be published, the game has become much much more aggressive, so as if you were following a lot of the advice in there, you would be getting trampled over. They are good for beginners to learn some of the concepts, but not to follow word for word(not that any book should be in the first place though)[/quote]


Fair enough. I am over 50 so I may be living in the past....lol But just re-read the first 2, so I still like em. But for MTT players, what books would you say are more geared toward the tournys being played now?

And I agree that the ultra-conservative approach may not correlate to today's games, but I still find loads of useful info in these books. I am not a very advanced player, but I am not a beginner either, and I really got a lot even tho I have read these books a few times. But I read and re-read books I like, so that is just my way.

The Kama Sutra



Ohhhh.. You said POKER ... not poke-her... my bad.

HoH is much more suited to live play, not online play. Live tourneys tend to be slower and deeper stacked, which requires a different (and generally higher) skillset to play well than typical online tourneys. While Harrington provides useful info, you'll find more modern online-oriented books like the One Hand At A Time series and Snyder's A Poker Tournament Formula Vol I to be better for online play.

This all very helpful thanks. Lots of book I had never heard about.

I have Winning tournaments one hand at a time Vol.1, and need to get vol. 2. I was not aware of the Snyder or his books, and just read about them, and thanks for that, I am getting Vol. 1. It got good reviews from what I have seen so far. I have a couple of SnG books, but Collin Moshmans seems to be the No.1 on everyones list. I also have heard about "Secrets of Sit 'n' Gos: Winning Strategies for Single-table Poker Tournaments." Does anyone here have an opinion on this book?

Yeah it's a bit of a sleeper, I think. Doesn't have the name of a Harrington or Sklansky or the internet phenom du jour behind it, so I guess it doesn't get a lot of attention. I came across it almost by accident and nearly passed over until I read the positive reviews of Vol I, so I snagged both volumes. Vol I is great IMO, but Vol II is once again geared towards slower, live tourneys which I don't often play. I do recommend Vol I if you play fast/online tourneys, but I wouldn't recommend Vol II at this point unless you play a lot of live tourneys (and then I question whether it's any better than HoH).

Haven't read the latter, but Moshman's SnG book is one of the best, if not the best, on the subject of STTs.

You were told that by someone that had like 125 posts, so they are not necessarily the best person to listen to(not saying by any means that post count dictates knowledge.) You should be looking more for what people as a whole are saying or what some of the more respected(not saying that I am either) members of the forum are saying. Later on in the same thread there are these two comments:
Obviously everyone is going to have their own opinions on which books are best given the levels that they are playing and the types of games that they are playing, but when it comes to how technical a book is, they just are not for beginners.


The books that I have been hearing a ton about, but have not yet read myself is Winning Poker Tournaments - One Hand At A Time by Rizen, Apestyles and Pearljammer . The three are very successful online MTT players and really breakdown the different stages of a tournament and how you should adjust. I haven't heard any bad things about these books and they seem to be way more current than Harrington's.

The only "must-own" book on poker is Tommy Angelo's "Elements of Poker." And it's not even close. Most of the others mostly say the same things (some in better ways than others), and whether to get this book or that book is often a toss-up. Maybe read them all. Maybe skip them altogether and get a subscription to a coaching site instead. But not reading Tommy's book is missing out on some really important stuff, besides it being a very pleasant read.

I have the first one and like it a lot (am only about 1/4 into it so far). It is like a hand for hand documentary of the three authors through various stages of tourny play. They share thought process, what they did, why they did it, and a lot more - at least so far.

OK, its on the list of things to get. thanks. I must admit, if you suggested to get "The garbage mans handbook of vermin" I would probably rush out and buy it, since I havent read anything by you yet that didnt reek of "this guy has more than just a clue".....

what do you guys think of doyle brunson's supersystems books? Too old?

Yes. Unless you're trying to get the basics for poker variations, then I wouldn't waste your money on it.

[
They are pretty outdated to today's standards of MTT play. They take a very conservative approach to the game, whereas since 2004 when the books started to be published, the game has become much much more aggressive, so as if you were following a lot of the advice in there, you would be getting trampled over. They are good for beginners to learn some of the concepts, but not to follow word for word(not that any book should be in the first place though)[/quote]

I don't think they're ever outdated as far as covering some basic theory & concepts which are needed as a solid base in which to work from for playing MTT's. If you were to read what the top the Top Online MTT regs. say when asked, "what book most influenced your play".. many of them will answer, "Harrington On Holdem". (< I know because I just recently read a thread that was 20 questions posed to all MTT players with profit above $100k on a forum of MTT & SNG (45's) regs. I was a bit surprised to read that a bunch of them picked HOH.. but I guess when you stop to consider what book most influenced their play... I can see how HOH could be right up there.

The books that I have been hearing a ton about, but have not yet read myself is Winning Poker Tournaments - One Hand At A Time by Rizen, Apestyles and Pearljammer . The three are very successful online MTT players and really breakdown the different stages of a tournament and how you should adjust. I haven't heard any bad things about these books and they seem to be way more current than Harrington's.[/quote]
breakdown the different stages of a tournament < actually.. they're not really about this. Vol.1 is a series of what they'd consider to be 'trouble hands' mostly. Vol.2 is devoted to 'after the bubble'.

Many who recommend the WinningPokerTournament books would strongly advise to read HOH first (actually pretty much anyone I've ever talked to about them).
AND.. for Tournament play (nlhe) they are for sure the shyt! (have read vol.1 maybe 5x now...maybe more, lol.. I've gone cover-to-cover4 or 5x, as well as bookmarking certain hands/pages to review again later on, then next time I go back thru the bookmarked pages.. Vol.2, 3x so far.
Both of these books are excellent. Looking forward to Vol.3
(Vol.1 outshines Vol.2 though for sure... although for many who have big leaks in endgame play, Vol.2 would obv. be good for them.. I just didn't find it personally as appealing as Vol.1).
Looking forward to Vol.3
I could easily see myself reading over a couple thousand handhistories written about by these guys & still never getting bored.

Haven't read Tommy's book.. 'yet' but it has been on the top of my list for awhile now.

Fine if you're picking them up from the Library and want to read something besides the newspaper.
I'm a book junkie though & have pretty much read every book I could get my hands on... even some REALLY shytty ones.. ie. Amarillo Slim.. whoa.

PO, as far as HoH, I wasn't trying to make it sound like it is a terrible book series and that no one should read it, I just meant that for a beginner, I feel like there are some better books to read before it now. I'll admit, HoH was my first poker book right when it came out(in 2004 there really weren't a whole ton of options except for Bruson and Skalnsky) and I myself would list that right at the top for the most influential book series that I've read regarding MTT play, but I started playing MTTs years ago(as I'm sure many of the pros on that forum and you as well) when the approach to them was a lot more how it is projected in those books, and that is much more conservative. So having that base and playing through the adaptations of poker, we were able to transform as well, get what I'm saying?

And as far as Winning Poker Tournaments - One Hand At A Time, thanks for the explanation. Like I said, I've never read those books yet, but they are topping my list, along with Elements of Poker, so I was just summarizing what it seemed to be about based on the reviews I've seen on forums and blogs and such.

ah... ok... btw,.. love the avatar!

i have the book on pdf HowToPlayTexasHoldem.. but i haven't read that book because it is in english and before i must improve my english..