Which Cash Book To Start With Out Of These?

[Splossy]

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People often recommend Harrington V 1 for cash games. It is a TOURNAMENT book. Yes there are similarities between early tournament and cash games but unless you are expert at determining what those are I'd be very careful with that advice. Yes the hand examples in HoH are far more plentiful which is a little bit of a weakness of Largay, but still he gets at what really makes the money in cash games at this level.

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I could in no way be considered an expert at any aspect of poker. I'm a very slow learner when it comes to poker to be honest. I find pretty much all the advice and examples in HOH1 to be sound and to have helped me greatly at 25NL 6max cash games - obviously could be wrong. HOH2 is admittedly much more tourney specific (although the 1st 1/4 covering Moves is very relavant to cash games too).

I've not really found the Largay book all that useful. Again, I'm a slow learner when it comes to NL so maybe I'm missing the point but with HOH1 I got concrete advice on what to do with what cards in what positions and why. More than half of the Largay book is just covering the basics of poker which I learned from limit books anyway and then the rest of the book seems a bit airy fairy in terms of actually describing a style of play. There are some good tips for a cash player but I couldn't recommend it to someone looking to learn NL from the ground up.

I'd be interested to now which advice in HOH1 you consider to be incorrect for cash games and how difficult it would be for the average person to adjust it.

[JJay1231]

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SuperSystem, after you graduate from that check out upcoming danny ashman's "very advanced high stakes shorthanded NLHE play"

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wow, this looks very interesting indeed. Ive been waiting for a book like this for a while.

When is this due? who's publisher?

[jeffnc]

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I'd be interested to now which advice in HOH1 you consider to be incorrect for cash games and how difficult it would be for the average person to adjust it.

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There's not a lot to adjust necessarily, but it's your opponents' outlook as well as yours. Your opponent might be more willing to gamble if he can easily reload in a cash game and the tournament is important to him. For others, it will be just the opposite. They are willing to take risks to get a big stack in the tournament and go deep where the real money is. If they bust out early, they just go play cash games. In cash games they are less willing to gamble, because they simply have to sit and wait for good hands without worrying about rising blinds.

In a tournament, you might be in Harrington's Green Zone for the play of this hand, but if you lose the hand you'll be with a shorter stack for the next hand. If this happens in cash, you simply reload to the "green zone" immediately.

I understand your point about concrete hand examples. Let me ask you this - have you read Gordon's Blue and Green books, and if so which do you like more?

[Splossy]

I don't remember zones in HOH1 - I think that is HOH2.

I don't say it's optimal cutting edge cashgame strategy, milking every last drop of EV out of the game with scant regards to variance but it's a brilliant intro into NL.

I have Gordon's LGB. I like that. It was my first foray into NL and it was very helpful in that it actually tells you what to do: when you flop top two pair raise by X amount. You even get a starting hand chart. It's rare you get such advice as a beginner in NL because it's so situational. So I found that well useful.

I've not read LBB but I'd like to. I have a lot of good will towards Gordon for some reason.

[phydaux]

I liked LBB but, narutally, 3/4 of the book is focused on tournament hands and situations. I play NL cash games.

I suppose I could say "OMG, nearly 1/4 of the book is cashgames! That's AWESOME!!!"

But I'm a morose fellow.

[br.bm]

start with TAP go on with SS2