TOP or Hold 'Em

[MookieBlaylock]

After playing Hold 'em for a couple of years my regular home game has broken up. When I started I read TOP and Hold 'em poker by Sklansky. Both books helped my game tremendously.

I havent played regularly in over a year. I went to Vegas in December and I got crushed playing 3-6. I attribute that to not only being rusty, but my game currently sucks. I guess I need to go back to square one and re-learn how to play. Should I start with TOP or Hold 'Em? Or does anyone have a better suggestion to read. Thanks.

[deacsoft]

If you mean Hold'em Poker By Sklansky then you might as well read that first since it's so short. If you mean another book like Hold'em Poker for Advanced Players, and you've already read each book I'd suggest reading TOP first. This will help to regain your grasp of the fundamental concepts and the HPFAP (or whatever) can help you with strategy.

[MookieBlaylock]

Yeah, thats what I was wondering. I usually play hold em, so I didnt know if I should start with TOP, since it deals with other types of games.

[Pontus]

Well, theory of poker is not made to make you understand one particular game, more the complete context of poker in general. I though the first 180 pages (the ones to the and including the Bluffing chapter) was quite boring, but I learned a lot. The last pages (Game Theory and Bluffing to the end), in other hand, were really exciting and at least I started to get a complete view of poker that I never had before. The first pages made more sense when I read it all the way through.

I'm going to read it again when I've read about two new books to get the context even better. To start with Theory of Poker, I think that you should have some kind of idea about pot odds, odds in general and "easy" poker concepts, else it could be a hard read.

[Cent]

Read The Little Green Book by Phil Gordon. Best all-around poker book out there hands down. That is, if you want to learn to play NLHE.