which 1st? POP or ITPM?

[Darth Poker]

I ordered both Psychology of Poker and Inside the Poker Mind, and they're due to be delivered today. Is there and order in which I should read them to extract maximum benefit? If it's of any concern, I play SSNL mainly, but some NL sit n go's and am dabbling in Omaha High and 7 Stud. Thanks guys.

[Gelford]

The books have nothing in common, so there are no particular order ... ITPM is a collection of articles on limit hold'em, most of them of a technical/strategic nature

POP is a highly praised book that introduces different 'stereotype' pokerplayer profiles in a full ring limit B&M prepokerboom setting. (as you can see, I have never been a big fan of this book, but many love it, so it might just be me [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. Among other things, it keeps repeating that only a tag game will bring in the money, which is no longer the only truth in pokergames played today (games are no longer always full ring and limit ))

[deacsoft]

At first I was going to say it doesn't really matter. After stopping and thinking about it for a few minutes I realized that I'd recommend POP be read before nearly every other book. Not so much for how other people play but for how you play and why. So many people just dive into to poker, play on-line every day, read books, post on these forums, and still have no clue why they really play poker. They stumble over the same obsticles and wonder if it's variance. They post in the BBV and Psych forums about bad beats and tilt. They sometimes stop to ask themselves, "Am I playing bad" or "what am I doing wrong". However, they almost never seem to ask "why".

[Darth Poker]

thank you both for your well thought out answers, I appreciate the time you took very much. I decided (before reading deac's post) to start w/POP, and for the same reasons that deac recommended it. gelford, I am only 70 or so pages into POP, and I really feel that you may have missed some significant value there - not saying to insult, more so that you may reconsider and possibly gain from a re-read. thanks again, guys. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Gelford]

I'm sure that I've missed out something ... I tried rereading it but to no avail, but it has a big following, that is why I keep stressing that it properly is a good book but just not to my taste. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]