Poker Books Sitting near my desk............
in another post I said I'd culled 10 year old poker book collection down dramatically (probably 80% gone) keeping a few timeless ones:
Super|System 1 and 2 by Doyle Brunson
All the Harrington Tournament and Cash Play books
Hold'em for Advanced Players by David Skl;ansky AND mASON mALMUTH
Theory of Poker by David Skl;ansky
Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand At A Time (All 3 volumes) by Eric 'Rizen' Lynch, Jon 'Pearljammer' Turner and Jon 'Apestyles' Van Fleet
The Poker Tournament Formula and Poker Tournament Secrets by Arnold Snyder,
Every Hand Reveled by Gus Hansen
Ace On The River by Barry Greenstein for the lovely photography
Phil Gordon's Little Gold Book
The Mathematics of Poker by Bill Chen and Jerrod Ankenman &a few other poker statistics/math
and a couple of books on sngs and h2h play
I've begun reading ( mostly from the library ), or replacing, those I ditched with books by:
Secrets of Professional Tournament poker (all 3 volumes) by Jonathon Little
The 2 most recent Harrington books
No-Limit Hold 'em For Advanced Players and Applications of No-Limit Hold em by Matthew Janda
Advanced Concepts in No Limit Holdem by Hunter Cichy (this one is SERIOUS as hell)
I'm perusing these ( in several cases studying them intently with a marker in hand ) in an effort ( along with hours of practice on APT ) to get myself, relatively, up to date.
Why I'm willing to invest time deliberate practice and ike this is simple (at least it is in my mind). I have a passion for poker as a mental exercise that WILL help keep me mentally engaged as I age.and, in an anthropological sense, I get to interact with people (online and live) far outside my typical circle of acquaintances this encourages a much broader worldview than I'd get any other way. Both very beneficial to me.....................
If there are other books that I should be checking out please let me know.
Next I'm going to delve into some poker simulations software just not sure which one(s) I should acquire yet. Thoughts on this please?
Warm regards,
Corey "synthesist" Gimbel
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Comments
I want to get and start using Flopzilla, which is the tool I see used a lot in articles, videos, and podcasts.
Flopzilla is good.
Have you tried our new tools that have a number of similar types of features? We have a winning odds tool, a chop tool, and a shove/fold tool here: https://www.advancedpokertraining.com/poker/member.php#trainingGames
Also, there is the "show range" button within the advice that is very similar to flopzilla.
Thanks for pointing these out. I saw the announcement on the new tools, but I haven't really played with them. (Time is also the reason I haven't gotten Flopzilla yet either.) I do use the range button quite a bit in the simulator and find it VERY useful.
I need to take some time to peruse my shelves - I know I thought of all of Phil Gordon "color" books (blue, green etc.) were nice, accessible, short coverage of various topics - to think about what others I'd add to the list. Synthesist has some good ones and I'd like to echo his list of those 2 Arnold Snyder's books to anyone who plays daily small buy-in daily MTTS, the type that have 20-30 minute blinds and generally last 4-10 hours. When I read those a few years ago, they really changed how I approached every phase of these MTTs and how I thought through the value of winning or losing any specific hand. I think it made me much more comfortable with risk, especially the kind that still left me with a viable stack size and it also up my aggressiveness in mid and late tournament stages. Now I don't subscribe to all of Synder's advice, but I think his manner of evaluating a tournament's structure and using that evaluation as part of your approach to the tournament is very valuable. Much of the strategy that you might read about from pros who play larger buy-in multi-day structures has some limitations in these shorter format tournaments. Synder does a good job outlining his stance.
pgearan has NAILED something I should have mentioned. In Snyder's 2 books he spends a great deal of time explaining various tournament structures (fast, medium fast, medium, slow) and the effects of those diifferences; things like blinds, antes, time per level, patience factors, rebuy and add-on strategies, etc. Critical but often ignored controls that can, dramatically, affect your approach to the event and, perhaps, your ability to cash in it.
Snyder's books IMHO are a very readable starting point if you haven't dug into any poker literature recently. Lots of hidden gems in these......
Syn
Personally, I'd recommend:
I have a couple of Ed Miller's books in the stack of waiting to be read tomes, I'll have to move them closer to the top of the stack, which is mountainous at this point.
The first book of the stack that I read cover to cover was Gus Hansen's - Every Hand revealed.
I think I'll do a separate review of my thoughts on how that book has held up for me.
Warm regards,
Corey "synthesist" Gimbel
I'm somewhat committed to the idea of trying to go back and reread Annie Duke's book, Dan Harrington's books, and Miller's books and weave them into a unified theory. IMO, Annie Duke and Dan Harrington are probably about 85-90% consistent but Ed Miller seems to be a bit of an interesting outlier.
One of the memorable points from Annie Duke's book is along the lines of "if the one thing you get out of this book is to stop playing small/middle suited connectors in multiway pots (from anywhere other than late position) then this book will more than pay for itself."
In practice, I keep finding that to be very valuable advice.
I know the Moshman book is probably so over stated, but for TAG players really trying to open their game that book really helped me in later stages of tournaments. Raiser's edge and Jonathan little books are really helpful in better understanding how LAGs play and how to exploit their play. Ed Miller's the course is solid blueprint for understanding the need to building balanced hand ranges and winning low stakes cash games I love the older Slansky stuff but have found it too restrictive in terms of playing in the lower stake tables where players are either adopt push/fold mindsets or just look to exploit your nitty hand range
Super/System 1 and 2, Harrington (original tournament and cash games books), Sklansky Theory of Poker and Small Stakes Hold 'Em (limit). I have a whole stack from used bookstores -- they're easy to pick up for $5 or less, so I'll just park, browse, and buy whatever. I have a few I haven't read yet, including some Omaha books.
Blackrain79 Crushing the Micros was the eye-opener. The timeline is, basically: sometime this year, I start goofing off on this site, and maybe keeping even with Phil's Garage level (the free level, by the way). I learned continuation betting and set mining from that book, and I start winning at that level. So I figured, maybe it's worth the price of admission to figure this out, so I got the full membership. But that book was definitely the "gateway drug."
I should mention that the other part of that was finding Hull's pre-flop ranges infographic -- I would keep that in the background and look at it on every hand that was remotely questionable (at first). It was like a magic trick -- follow that range, raise if opening, and c-bet, and watch people (bots) fold. I know it's awfully basic, but it's a revelation the first few times you do it, especially on the computer playing 10 hands a minute (not 30 an hour). The biggest part of the revelation is that it shifts your thinking: instantly it works, and instantly you know why (if you put yourself in the opponent's shoes). Of course, there are countermeasures, but all I knew at that point was that if I showed up in Phil's Garage, I would clean up!
--
I'm well educated, and I can read and absorb details from a dry scientific report or classic prose, or anything in between. I love Doyle's chapter in Super/System, but I tried to read it before Crushing the Micros, and my eyes would glaze over by the time I got to "How to play K-K or A-A." Later on, everything made sense, but it just wasn't workable as a primer. That actually goes for the Phil Hellmuth paperback, too -- I spent a long time basically thinking a "continuation bet" was "something you do on the flop."
I ordered Ed Miller "The Course" over the summer, and it really crystallized a lot of my approach to this point. I know there are leaks (not massive ones). But I have played plenty of $1-2 since (unfortunately having to travel to do it). And my record is good. The few losses I took were suckout draws on all-ins -- I'll take those bets all day. That's when you know you are doing something right (that notion is straight out of Super/System).
So, Let There Be Range is really getting me going right now. The combinatorial analysis, etc., is next level (compared to where I am at), and it seems like the tip of the iceberg as far as some of the concepts the APT designers and pro clients are working on/with. I talked about this a little bit in one of the other posts: there is the potential for a "herd mentality" in this kind of scene/situation. It's like a bunch of 2nd year math or science majors having a chit-chat -- yes, they are more educated in their discipline than 90-95% of people out there. But the Ph.D. candidates are having to push the boundaries of that knowledge. So, is it an intelligent conversation (between the undergrads?). Yes. But they may be solving problems that are fundamental in the scheme of things. APT doesn't need to be all things to all people. It's definitely been a perfect stepping stone for me, and if the site keeps growing, I don't see myself ever outgrowing it. But you get a peek at this thought process in Steve's hand reviews. I know that's the next horizon for me.
And this site does cast a wide net, in a good way. The fact that it is a paid site (not even that much) keeps out people who are not terribly serious, which makes the forums and tournaments a good proving ground for ideas. But anyone at any point on the ladder can benefit by being here, I think. Some folks want to beat their buddies, some folks associate being able to beat low-stakes with potential for financial gain in their lives, and some people (like me) are intrigued by the game and the probabilities/math, etc. and maybe notice that being able to apply the concepts has beneficial side effects. But also, I am sure there are those who just want to throw a few bucks at a fantasy of being able to show up at a casino and be cool enough to "expect" to win some money. It shows up a little bit in the forum posts, so I am sure it is something that the APT designers deal with often: people pay to be here and want the product to be what "they" imagine it to be, for them. That is one of the good parts of the forum: post a hand, and get your comments. But it also gives people license to "not see the forest for the trees:" some of these posts...I (or they) could re-read a chapter of Harrington or whatever, watch a video, or play 500 bot hands in the time it takes someone to point out a (perceived) flaw in this system. I can relate to wanting to post, but I just wouldn't want to be that person getting frustrated by the big picture stuff and then taking out that frustration on a book, or a video, or a website. That's a hard place to be. Frankly, putting live play aside, I think most "aware" human beings should be able to print out a few hand charts, read something like The Course, and at least play a respectable game -- if they don't get lost in the weeds and try to out-think the game with unfounded ideas/concepts/heuristics that they "invent" or "read somewhere."
And then, from there, maybe the details will fill themselves in.
When Steve posted that hand of mine (99 3-bet) and started discussing opponent ranges and possible betting lines...proper play of middle hands and incorporating real, combinatorial analysis of hand ranges -- these are leaks in my play, right now, and here is a video that takes one hand and addresses it.
So, I don't know. Would there be such a thing as "Advanced Advanced Poker Training?" That sounds like fun, although I am not sure I am quite ready yet...