Good books for me?

[Verdi]

Hello,

I'm browsing Amazon for poker books at the moment and I don't know which one to buy.

Btw, I found a review by Yeltzen there too. That book wasn't for me... (Championship No Limit & Pot Limit Hold 'Em (Championship Series))


I'm mostly playing low stakes so I think this book might be worthwhile for me:

Small Stakes Hold 'em: Winning Big With Expert Play by Sklansky, Malmuth and Miller.

I'm also thinking about Super System II and ... Winning Low-Limit Hold'em (2nd Edition) by Lee Jones.

A bit about me:

I'm new to poker. But not entirely ignorant about fundamental concepts such as counting outs, drawing hands, pot odds, implied odds, I know the basic drawing odds by heart etc... So I'm not out for a beginner's book. I would say I'm a beginner/intermediate player.

What do I want from the book?

Well, I want to improve of course. I want to be more solid and don't make as many bad calls. I want examples that tells me how to act in a given cirumstance. I want advice both for no limit and for limit games. I only play low stakes so it's better if the book is aimed at that and not some crazy 100/200 blinds game for the pros. [/url]

[crack]

But what do you play? Tournament and/or Cash games? Hold'em, Omaha, Stud?

[Verdi]

I play Hold em. I might want to try Omaha as well.

I usually play cash games and SNGs (5 and 10 handed). And the occasional freeroll. Buy in tournaments are too much chance I feel. Sure, when you win, you win a lot. But you won't win so often either...

[yeltzen]

Sorry that my review sucked.
I've read both WLLH and Small Stakes Hold'em. I really liked the former, and really hated the latter. Unless you have an enormous bankroll, Small Stakes Hold'em can't help you. They have you raising a LOT of very marginal hands in big pots when you are 5 or 6 handed at the flop. To them, middle pair with a backdoor flush draw is a hand worth raising. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't have the kind of money where I can do something like this because it will make money over the long term.

WLLH is pretty basic. You'll be able to skim the odds section, but the preflop and postflop sections are pretty well-done, no matter how much Dave Sklansky rips it. There are a decent number of examples and some quizzes with more examples. My main problem with the book is that there is no information on how to read opponent's hands (it's not in Small Stakes Hold'em, either). I've read quite a few books, and the only book I've ever seen that discusses it in-depth is Stepping Up by Randy Burgess. There's like 50 or so pages on it. Also, Middle Limit Hold'em by Ciaffone, while not aimed at low stakes, has 400 hand examples in it, so you might want to check it out.

As for sit'n'gos, you're out of luck, man. Unless you're playing $100 buy-ins, you're playing against morons, and tournament poker writers don't usually write for an audience playing $5 or $10 buy-in tournaments. Therefore, TJ's book and Ciaffone's book and (probably) Harrington's book are all aimed at those who play in tournaments where the opponents actually give a thought to what you might have and what you've done earlier in the tournament. That rarely happens in online sit'n'gos.

I've read TJ and Ciaffone's book, and I feel like they've both helped me a lot for sit'n'gos, mostly in terms of what hands to play against a raise, and what hands not to go broke with. However, in online sit'n'gos, there is usually very little raising (similar to cash games), so it's very difficult to use their concepts because you really can't know what the other guys have. I still think they're worth a read, especially for when you're late in a sit'n'go.

[Verdi]

Don't worry. The review didn't suck. It was just that you wrote that it was aimed at people playing higher limits against skilled opponents. I can't afford to be doing that. At least not yet. Now I have to battle my way through the lunatics.

[yeltzen]

Well, like I said, TJ's book will still help you in these games, but playing his style won't let you run over the competition like you need to do to win these things. If you don't have at least 5000 chips at the final table of a 3 table NL tournament, your chances of winning are pretty slim. To do that, you need to take a lot of chance, and TJ is strictly against that. You'll probably finish in the money a lot more, but probably in 4th or 3rd rather than 1st or 2nd.

Sklansky's tournament book give a couple decent concepts (not worth the price of the book, just do the "search inside this book" thing on Amazon). The Gap Concept is good, folding big hands when you're close to the money is good, and passing up small positive EV now for a bigger EV later is also good.

There's just no clear-cut way to win these things because all of the morons double up the other morons right off the bat, and then they can just run over the table. These book give you a couple of pieces, but there's just no way to master them. Especially the 3 table ones... the single table ones are much easier.

[crack]

I don't know if you play limit or nl at cash game level, but I really enjoyed Internet Texas Holdem by Matt Hilger. That concentrates on limit hold'em.