Best poker book?

If you are interested in no limit cash games, read the Fox and Harker book first (I forget the title), and then read Sklansky's No Limit Holdem Theory and Practice.

If you are interested in tourneys, Harrington is the bible.

If you want to play limit, there are tons of books that are all good. No one cares about limit anymore.

 

Limit is a science, based on mathematical probabilities and mastery of implied odds, as well as pot odds. No limit is pure art, baby.

 

funny we've all assumed he's talking about no limit hold em, tho he never says so.

presuming you understand the math and feel pretty good about hand ranges, i'd say pick up phil gordon's books -- pick one, (they're modeled after harvey penick's books) and read it. he'll go through calculating outs (rule of four is close enough) and demonstrate with particular hands.

OP also doesn't mention whether his house games are cash games or tournaments. assuming he means cash games, my advice after 13 years of profitable playing in LA (bike, HP, hustler) is this: you MUST know the math, but understand it can often be useless because of the way games are structured with capped buy-ins. in other words, expect other players to make plays completely contradictory to the math. you CAN make money in those games, but MUST be prepared for huge variance swings in any particular session/s.

for my 2 cents i certainly agree with everyone who's mentioned sklansky/harrington, impenetrable tho some of that stuff is. my live experience is, your opponents will generally be ignorant of concepts like taking one off or floating, AND you will often not have a big enough stack to beat them into submission -- so, in other words, be VERY careful when you bluff.

and cheap[ tournaments are a WHOLE other thing.

great discussion.

 

I learnt a lot from Full Tilt's online lessons. It deals with all games and different aspects of playing and they usually update a new one each week.

http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/pro-tips-archive.php

 

I would also recommend a couple of message boards: 2+2 forums are great and I like flopturnriver.com.

Key to live cash games: Value-bet the hell out of hands when you're against bad players, proceed cautiously against good players. You don't have to be good to win money, you just have to take money from the players worse than you.

maberger's advice is good. Only bluff against players who can be bluffed. By the same token, don't even bother slowplaying if you have a monster hand against terrible players.

 

For limit holdem, it has to be Small Stakes Hold Em by Sklansky/Ed Miller/Mason Malmuth.

For no-limit, Super System, and although I haven't read any of Harrington's books, I've heard overwhelmingly positive things.

 

As the saying goes, you don't have to even be one of the top players at the table. All you need is to not be the worst and to recognize who is.

 

And I don't know if Gavin Smith has a book, but as I watch him on Poker After Dark right now against Ivey, all I can say is, I wouldn't take a lick of advice from that POS. Oh my god, that fucker is annoying. And, apparently, Canadian. I'm sure it's all a coincidence.

 

He's also drunk -- and $120,000 richer.

 

A good rule of thumb for no-limit is the worse the player the less likely your bluff is to work.

Bad player: "I got four diamonds I might get the fifth."

Good player: "I have four to a flush, but I'm only getting 2-to-1 odds, better lay it down."

In limit, don't even bother bluffing because pot odds almost always dictate a call even with a marginal hand.

 

Bingo ... Though sometimes with a bad player you can take advantage of a guy who hopes to look good by "making a big laydown." You have to find the right guy to do it, but there are plenty of people who will show you they just laid down a set when you're sitting there with top pair/top kicker and they are pleased as hell with themselves for making the big laydown, sure that you had them beat. I usually encourage those guys. I just let them think it was the right move and try to make it easier for them to fold to me in the future.







Not that we haven't all made bad laydowns. Don't want to sound like I'm some kind of pro over here.

 

Personally I would avoid 2+2. Yes, there are a lot of good players there and a lot of good information, but it is surrounded by so much garbage. Many threads disolve into insults from some of these know-it-all players. Of course, that's similar to some other message boards you may frequent

My favorite message board -- on any topic, not just poker -- is http://www.internettexasholdem.com. The name comes from a book, but it's not only about online poker.

Another point I'd make about live poker is that, as stated here, a lot of the players are so bad that you should not try to outwit them. In other words, don't get too smart. At most live no-limit games, you can essentially sit back and wait for cards and play straightforward when you get them. The money you make will be the money you save by not losing all your chips with one pair and not drawing without the price.