Best Poker Book?

A bit of a vague question initially, but I'll try and scale it down for you.

I've been playing poker a fair while now casually, I play micro stakes cash games (.02-.05), partake in the odd mtt when I've got a fair bit of time to kill, with a bankroll of about $150.

I'm just looking to improve and would like to hear a few views on which book I could get, which would be of greatest benefit to me at the moment.

Cheers.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Professional-No-Limit-Hold-em-I/dp/188068540X"]Amazon.com: Professional No-Limit Hold 'em: Volume I (9781880685402): Matt Flynn, Sunny Mehta, Ed Miller: Books[/ame]

Best book ever and ignore everyone else

Can you tell a little bit more about your opinion why this shall be the one and only book to buy ?

Its just awesome, some of the things in that book brought my game on leaps and bounds, the stack to pot ratio (SPR) stuff, the whole REM process (Range, equity, Maximise) How to put someone on a range, how your equity stands up against that raise, and how to maximise profit vs range etc etc, its just really good!

The only other book I would recommend would be Elements of Poker, brilliant for better understanding the mental game that comes along with the at the tables skill, its helped my tilt issues a ton, also, the author has done a video/audio series on Deucescracked called The Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment.

I would say to read those books, get a training site membership or get hold of some decent video series, get your head into the COTW's on 2p2 and then just play tons and tons of hands, time at the tables is more valuable than time with head in a book imo

Thanks for the info, I was curious on this myself. As a general rule, would you say you are better to get a book written by an active "pro" or would you be better off with a theory book written by a player who mostly probably just deals with mechanics and not necessarily profitable poker playing (meaning he makes his money on instruction, not play)?

A few years ago I read some books (harrington, super system, little green book...), for me ace on the river by greenstein is a very good book and if you are cash game player, you should read it. For tournaments, I really liked the Harringtons ones.
For me is better to chose a book wrote by an active and profitable player, because to became a good player you will need a lot more than only the theory.

I think Thursday the night poker book is best one and interesting as well.

orangepeeleo said:

Amazon.com: Professional No-Limit Hold 'em: Volume I (9781880685402): Matt Flynn, Sunny Mehta, Ed Miller: Books

Best book ever and ignore everyone else

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I bought and read this cause of your post here.

Yep, very good book. Thanks for posting.

I cant find a Volume II. Is it in the works or was the volume I just for grins??

I would recommend Every Hand Revealed by Gus Hansen. It's really good for tournament players and will definately improve your game!

I was going to say the exact same thing as map. Ive read plenty of poker books. i would say that the majority of them are not worth your while...and that instead of buying a poker book for $20, you should spend $30 on a membership at one of the online training websites (cardrunners, deucescracked, or bluefire). If you feel obligated to buy a book, buy Gus Hansen's tournament book where he literally spells out every single hand he played in his win at the WPT. He gives you insight into a pro's mind for every single hand.

The Harrington on Holdem books are the best overall for no limit holdem, especially his first two books (blue and red). TJ Cloutier's How to Win the Championship has the best dissection of final table dynamics. Doyle Brunson's Super System II is great for several different types of poker.

Dingo8 I'm sorry man but those books are all so outdated. To be perfectly honest, I think Dan Harrington is a great player. But his books are outdated, only a few concepts are really worth the time of reading the book, like the M concept, but that is pretty much given knowledge now (everyone understands it). I've read all of his books, and I can honestly say they are outdated, and you will not get much help from them nowadays. You are much better off spending $$ on poker training websites. TJ Cloutier has been playing poker for 50 years, and he's broke. Don't buy his book. Although there may be some good points in there, again it is outdated. He is the biggest laughing stock of poker. Ask anyone in vegas, and you will get the same answer. Doyle is obviously a poker ambassador. But his book again is outdated. These are all books that were published >10 yrs ago. I mean no disrespect to you Dingo, but believe me when I say that this is all true.

Well, if winnings and profit/loss are the gage, than Gus should be avoided.

Anyone can learn how they like, but to advise people (probably mostly inexperienced players, thats who wants to know which books are good) to disregard most books as a waste of time - AND to suggest to the same players to chose a training site instead - is simply bad advice IMO.

There are many good books out there, and even the outdated ones (some of em) have a lot of good basic info for a beginner. A book is a solid investment at 20$, provided it is a recommended one from solid experienced players. It can be re-read and become clearer as time goes on.

A training site will only really benefit a player who is ready to understand what to do with the knowledge. I think training sites are generally a very good thing, but its the walk before you run thing. If you dont have the basics down - starting hands/position, basic player reads, pot odds, implied and reverse implied odds, relative stacks/position, and on and on and on, than a training site will cost you soooooo much money to learn this and a book (or 2) will let you learn and digest as you like.

the theory of poker

Cloutier is broke because he can't hold onto his money, never could. People have told me stories of him panhandling for craps and roulette money at casinos--pathetic. That's why he always has a stakehorse (usually Lyle Berman).

In terms of the 2005-2008 poker books being outdated, Phil Gordon has a new book coming out, the Little Gold Book, that's designed to address issues of how poker has changed since he published the Little Green/Blue books. That could be quite interesting.

orangepeeleo said:

time at the tables is more valuable than time with head in a book imo

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A lot of your advice has been really useful to me, and the CotW is really going to keep me busy for some time to come, because a lot of the advice in there also seems to be good for tournament play. So thanks for that.

However, I must disagree with people saying that what people need is to play millions of hands, or to subscribe to a coaching site. I think a lot of people forget just how far they have progressed down the road since first starting in poker, and are starting to take their winnings for granted a little bit.

If you are starting off you probably need to learn the basics in order to at least become a break-even player, and you probably don't have money to chuck around. Not only are there a lot of FREE resources available online (such as this site, Pokerstove, various videos as well as PokerStars Poker School), but a basics book such as Phil Gordon's Little Green Book was, in my experience, a very worthwhile investment. So was HEM Small Stakes.

Maybe once you have reached BE you can start to think about subscribing to coaching sites, and playing millions of hands. If you play millions of hands BEFORE putting in the effort of learning how to play properly then you could potentially end up giving away a lot of money. Learning to play well takes a lot of effort, we all learn differently so different things suit different people, but for me at least books need to be an ongoing part of educating myself.

Having said that, having read tons and tons of theory it is of course then necessary to go and try to put the theory into practice... as they say, practice makes perfect...

As I spend more time with books in my library (as well as DVDs) I am finding the answer to this question to be pretty much the same answer to, "how do I play this hand?"
It depends.
What game are you playing? Tournament or cash? Deepstack or short stack? What stakes are you playing? Micro, small, mega?
Where are you at as a player? What poker concepts do you understand and practice at the table? Do you at least practice the basics? Are you consistently working to put your opponent on a range? Do you currently have what could be called study habits? Do you practice hand analysis?
No offense, but to say you have been playing poker for a fair while (or even if you said you had been playing nightly for 30 years) does not tell anyone enough to gauge your level and whether or not you should be reading Phil Gordon or Bill Chen. All anyone can offer is the books they liked or learned something from and those endorsements usually come without qualification (no answers to the above questions). I have a bunch of books and DVDs on the shelf and have paid for a few different training sites and I cannot really attribute my profit margin (yes, I actually have one) to any single source. But when I am at the table it has been pretty easy to sort the Negreanuites from the Gordonites and the Harringtonites because I became pretty familiar with their teachings. That in itself is pretty invaluable. So here's my opinion - if you have not been doing a lot of poker books you can't really go wrong just grabbing the mainstream stuff (Gordon, Harrington, Negreanu) because at the very least you are going to have to play against it consistently. Now having said all that... I am currently on an Ed Miller kick - if his name is on it, it must be good But you know, that's just where I am at. YMMV