"worth the price of...."

[soapstar]

I used to play pool for a living. I quit because there's not enough money in it. Pool players are forced to pay about $25 bucks a video for tapes of professional matches. That may sound like a lot, but when you see and learn from one imaginitive play that you wouldn't see published anywhere, you say "that one play is worth the price of the whole tape".

Can anyone equate this to poker book examples? What are small, key pieces of golden advice that you've read in a poker book that were "worth the price of the book".

I read something in SSHE today that made me go "wow, i never thought of that...that's was worth the $25 right there".

Anyone?

[Gelford]

I really like that you are sharing, what made you go wow while reading SSHE .. let me guess, you do not feel like reading too many book, so you would just like for us to tell you all the golden stuff and be done with it [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Wada]

The entire book, SSHE.

[deacsoft]

That's a good question. It's been a while since a book has "wowed" me. I think for me to get that way the material would have to be something new and/or possibly break-through.

When I first got into poker the whole book of HPFAP wowed me. I couldn't believe I had been playing around with poker and had been making so many mistakes and over looking so much. I then read Caro's Book of Poker Tells and was amazed by the information I was giving away and not taking in from other players. A long while later I was wowed that Phil Gordon wrote LGB and revealed how played and thought. Most recently POP wowed me for the second time. I'm sure there were others and I hope there will be more. It's hard to remember exactly what it was that wowed me and I think that will be different for everyone.

[sp1ke36]

For tournament play other than the HOH books. I'd have to say the KILL PHIL book which details an all-in long ball strategy for amature players. This strategy can be added to your small ball game giving you a second gear.
If you feel your game lacks an aggresive edge this book can help you get that.
I'd say this book along with the HOH books had the most impact on my game.

[Jacob_Gilliam]

7CSFAP

The entire part on third street play.

[MCS]

SSHE's "Two Overpair Hands" section.

[SNOWBALL]

HPFAP fourth street concepts. Both chapters.

[ooinsight]

For live poker specifically there are tons of gems in Caro's book of tells. That book has had a more serious impact on my live play across the board, regardless of specific game types or limits, than most other books I have read. Of course, TOP is key and POP is insightful as well. I just think when I didn't have many hands played relatively and a lot of the concepts in TOP were over my head, the book of tells provided information I could digest and immediately began saving/making me $.

[dStrangefate]

I don't know about little pieces of info exactly, but there were sections in Harrington on Hold 'Em that literally hit me like a brick. "So that's what people who know how to play [tournaments] are thinking about!" Namely how to correctly utilize odds and how to calculate/react to M.

Small Stakes Hold 'Em also made me realize how much of the game I wasn't thinking clearly about.

Sadly, I also have to say Hellmuth's Play Poker Like the Pros gave me some similar moments because it was the first book I read, knowing nothing. "There are certain types of hands I should be playing and shouldn't be playing? Players are lions, and tigers, and..."

Hey, it's all I had.

Oh, and although I don't share the love of the book that many players around here do, the section on "New Style Players" in Kill Phil was eye-opening enough to make me read it twice.