Best Poker Book U ever Read:

[AaronBrown]

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I understand why so many put TOP on their list. Having started with Livingston, Scarne, Moorehead and Wallace, TOP seemed a better collection of many of the same ideas but didn't quite have the same impact as it might have had I not been exposed to these other authors and titles.

[/ QUOTE ]
That's interesting, I would have said the opposite. I'm old enough to have read TOP when it first came out, and it's impact on serious players was dramatic. It was the first rational exposition of real poker theory. There were plenty of articles by mathematicians about what they thought poker should be, and books by players with accumulated wisdom, but no real theory book. Even if you disagreed with TOP, and there are points to argue, it defined the debate in a way people could make progress.

The ideas were so successful, that they are part of the fabric of poker today, and you can absorb them from many other sources. It's like the joke, "I don't know what's so great about Shakespeare, all he did was string a bunch of old sayings together." I'd have thought a lot of younger players would think TOP just catalogued a lot of stuff everyone knows. It's good to know it still has substance.

[thelyingthief]

i cannot believe anyone would prefer Ace On the River to any of 20 books on poker i might mention off the top of my head.

middle limit hold em by ciaffone is a very good book. supersystem is also a very good book. i know of no other book on the subject that compends together the perceptions of the very best players of the game on their respective games of expertise, nor which cuts to the chase on so many elements of play. in a way, twoplustwo offers books that read like treatises on chess openings, while these two books deal with the more fundamental ways of deploying one's pieces, position, and understanding attack.

although i have read and appreciate the twoplustwo series on poker, they are problematical from several angles, as follows:

1) everyone has read them, so the value of their information is compromised by the breadth of its dissemination. much of my poker playing thought, well, some of my poker playing thought, is devoted to exploring counter attacks against this material. in my experience, the more generally widespread a strategy or belief is, the less useful it proves, and the more vulnerable it becomes to exceptional instances and the development of ideas which contradict it.

2) despite, or because of, the depth of the information, it is presented piecemeal, and its application is, consequently, often difficult to effect. harrington's first work, for instance, strikes me as applicable only to those situations described in it, and not easily adapted to other, less similar circumstances. this maybe the influence of Robertie, whose backgammon works have the same flaw. how the other volumes read, i can't say.

3) much of the play advocated in these works is mechanical in nature, and the living essence of poker seems eradicated. (this is my personal beef, and may not be shared by other readers) they are textbooks, in the fullest sense of the word, dry, didactic, cut and dried.

in their defense, the same and worse can be said of almost all the poker books on the market--and at the very least, they can be said to appeal to mature minds in the presentation of their subject matter.

[amulet]

i think theory of poker is the best poker book ever written.

[chicagoY]

Harrington Volume 1.

[chicagoY]

Thanks, jfk, i just put that one on my wish list. Most of the editions were $. I figure it'll be all about draw and stud but it'll still be interesting.

[NateDog11]

i really like phil gordons little green book. a great addition to poker literature. brunson's wisdom of a poker champ was lacking in many ways. im starting HOH1 now and looking forward to the read after seeing how many people liked it.

[acesover]

This is a tough question.

Reason is that I feel that it depends on what stage you are in your poker playing. The best book for beginners I have read is an oldie Titled "Education of a Poker Player". This book has made me a lot of money in my early years of poker and many of the concepts carry over into the later years. Not sure how old this is but it does not cover Holdem as I do not think it was a game yet.

I very much feel that Harringtons books on Holdem are very enlightening and I have used several concepts and must remember you are going to run into players who have no idea of what is a good or bad call or the least concept of pot odds or drawing odds. All poker means the same thing to them. They know the game is all luck. Also remember that this is gambling and no concept is infalliable. I am sure you have all seen people catch the case card and beat the hand when they should have not been involved in the hand in the first place. That is why they call it gambling. Remember no matter what the odds are if the person catches the odds go out the window...but the correct call , fold raise, reraise will win in the long haul.

[jkamowitz]

Play poker, quit work, and sleep till noon.

The book is filled with psychology and anecdotes from a whole different time of poker.

[uphigh_downlow]

TOP without a doubt.

If i was to read TOP today, i wud never rate it #1, but at the time I read it, and the impact it had, i doubt any other book will ever beat that

[Peter666]

SSHE

But the most influential was "How to Make $100,000 a Year Gambling for a Living".