Best Books To Learn Poker

Posted on 7/31/2022 by admin

Best Books To Learn Poker 7,6/10 8774 votes

The 1995 World Series of Poker Main Event champion’s first Harrington on Hold’em volume is the best-selling poker book in history, and it is easy to see why. The judges were given a list of 129 of the most popular poker books of all time and were asked to rate a maximum of 10 books: classics that cover everything from the maths to the mental side, the strategy to the psychology. 888 presents: the top 86 poker books of all time!

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There are a lot of poker books out there in the world. Sometimes it feels like we have read them all, but we know that we couldn’t if we tried. New poker books come out every year, often espousing new strategies or approaches to the game. Additionally, there are books on Omaha, Stud, Razz, HORSE, and a variety of other poker variants. These are not included in our list (but may be in the future!). Below we share the best poker books for strategy and overall approach, in our chosen game, No Limit Hold’Em.

Best Poker Book For Beginners

Starting from the top, David Sklansky’s The Theory of Poker covers concepts relevant to almost any poker setting or game. The book covers basic fundamental concepts and includes advice on a variety of strategies. Sklansky addresses bluffing, raising, slow-playing, position, implied odds, and more. Once you know the basics, Sklansky is a pretty good first step in your poker education.

Best Poker Mindset Book

Once you have some basic strategy, securing a winning mindset is critical. Jonathan Little and Patricia Cardner’s Peak Poker Performance is an ideal resource. This book addresses the psychological aspects of poker. It teaches you what you need to know about motivation, emotion, and your physical well-being. If you follow its advice, you’ll be in the right frame of mind when you arrive at the poker table.

Best General Strategy Book

With six WSOP bracelets and 2 WPT titles, Daniel Negreanu has been one of the world’s best players for a long time. For his book, Power Hold’Em Strategy, Daniel gathered some of the greatest current players, theorists, and world champions to present professional secrets and winning strategies. There are chapters by Erick Lindgren, Todd Brunson, David Williams, Negreanu himself, and others. Among topics covered are online play, high limit cash games, and Negreanu’s famous small ball strategy. This is a good general strategy book that covers a lot of bases.

What Is The Best Poker Book For Beginners

Arnold Snyder’s The Poker Tournament Formula can’t be beat for overall tournament approach. It also offers excellent advice on important aspects of strategic play. Snyder’s book is aimed at players who enter small buy-in poker tournaments (in other words, us). He discusses your three main poker weapons – cards, position, and chip stack – and how to use each to best effect. He also covers fundamentals such as opponent player types, bluffing, and when to show (and not show) your cards. Finally, he talks about how to deal with tournament specific factors such as re-buys, add ons, and bounties.

Snyder’s The Poker Tournament Formula 2 introduces the incredibly important concept of the “Patience Factor” in tournaments. The patience factor measures how “slow” or “fast” (given starting chip stacks, blind level times, and level increases) a tournament plays. Given a specific patience factor, you can then determine the optimal approach to that tournament. Snyder also addresses how to approach each tournament phase and when you need to ramp up or down aggression to suit the situation.

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Gus Hansen’s Every Hand Revealed takes you through his experience at the 2007 Aussie Millions poker championship, where he won the top prize. Hansen walks you through the hands he encountered and his thinking as he played each one. It is a fascinating peek into the mind of a champion player. This book is notable for the unprecedented, detailed insight into a poker master’s hand-by-hand approach in an actual tournament.

A more recent book with a similar approach, Steve Blay and Qui Nguyen’s From Vietnam to Vegas covers similar ground in that it analyzes over 100 hands from the final table of the 2016 WSOP Main Event Final Table (which was ultimately won by Nguyen). Nguyen offers his personal experience with each hand. Meanwhile, Blay offers the strategic and mathematical underpinnings of Nguyen’s moves in key hands. However, as we assisted in that book’s creation, we will admit to possible bias in our positive attitude!

Best Poker Books for Cash Games

Dan Harrington’s book Cash Games Volume 1 is a classic. Originally published in 2008, this book teaches key concepts in deep-stack cash game play. Harrington addresses starting hand selection, bluffing, implied odds, and the concept of pot commitment. He also addresses post-flop strategy and how you need to vary your approach in multi-way pots. Harrington is more of an old school classic player (read less aggressive) than many of the poker theorist of today. Nonetheless, his fundamentals are sound. He does present a very important caveat as he gets into higher strategy concepts. In $1/$2 cash games, other players are likely not playing in a strategic, consistent manner. Thus, anything pretty much goes… Harrington followed up with Cash Games Volume 2, further expanding upon his thoughts on cash game strategy.

Summary

We have read all of these books multiple times, and go back to them whenever we need to brush up. Of all of the above, the Snyder books have gotten the greatest number of re-reads in our household. But then, we are tournament players above all. In any case, we strongly recommend all of these books for anyone who is looking to improve their poker game. If there is a title not listed that you believe deserves a spot among the best poker books, let us know!

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The rules of poker might be easy, but it is a game which can take a lifetime to master. From live cash games to large-field tournaments, there are a whole host of strategies and psychological nuances to consider – and that’s even before you’ve sat down at the felt.

Fortunately, many of poker’s most successful players have scribbled down their wisdom in book form, giving us mere mortals the chance to learn and perfect their time-tested strategies. “But where to start?” we hear you cry. Don’t worry, we’ve cherry-picked six of the very best poker books to set you on your way…Just don’t forget us when you hit the big time!

1. Harrington on Hold’em, Dan Harrington

Best known for winning the Main Event at the 1995 World Series of Poker, Dan Harrington is a veteran of the game, having amassed nearly $7 million in career earnings over the last 40 years. His book, Harrington on Hold’Em, is the first of three books many pros cite as one of the most influential poker guides ever written.

Taking readers away from the cameras and, instead, into the nitty-gritty world of tournament poker, Harrington shares his time-tested strategies, including how to optimise betting patterns and respond to re-raises. In a nutshell, Hold’em helps you to not only play better but think better as a poker player.

2. Elements of Poker, Tommy Angelo

Every now and again, someone comes along and rips up the rule book. In the case of Tommy Angelo, this manifested itself in the form of Elements of Poker: a 266-page compendium of invaluable poker takeaways. Funny yet stern, light yet weighty, Angelo takes the reader into uncharted territory and asks them to think about things they had perhaps not considered before. Indeed, this isn’t a book about pot odds, hand ranges or percentages: this is a guide to considering professionalism, mindfulness and, what Angelo calls, lopping off the “C-game.”

If you’re looking to battle the psychological and physiological stresses of poker, look no further than this book.

3. Caro’s Book of Poker Tells, Mike Caro

Mike Caro’s Book of Tells is the most influential and highest-ranked volume on the psychology of body language. And for good reason. This tell-all and show-all paperback emphasises how, if poker players want to win consistently, they need to acknowledge, understand and interpret the movements of their opponents.

Caro perhaps explains this best when he says:

“A player gains an advantage if he observes and understands the meaning of another player’s tell, particularly if the poker tell is unconscious and reliable. Sometimes a player may even fake a tell, hoping to induce his opponents to make poor judgments in response to the false poker tell. After all, poker is a game of deception.

The general rule is that weakness usually means strength, and strength usually means weakness. But, you must decide how much weight to give a tell at any given moment. If you make learning tells fun, it will be an ever-changing, exciting part of your poker arsenal.”

From shrugs to eyebrow raises, this book will give you everything you need to interpret body language at the table.

4. Super System, Doyle Brunson

It wouldn’t be a proper list without mentioning the “Godfather of Poker,” now would it? Doyle Brunson’s first book, Super System, is just as legendary as the man who wrote it. Published in 1978, many players consider this book to be the holy grail of poker strategy.

And it’s not just Texas Dolly who gives away his secrets; this book is brimming with expert advice from poker luminaries like Mike Caro, David Reese, Bobby Baldwin, David Sklansky and Joey Hawthorne.

As a two-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event champion and a Poker Hall of Fame inductee, there is no one more qualified than Doyle Brunson to take your game to the next level.

5. Every Hand Revealed, Gus Hansen

Best Book To Learn Poker

You need only look as far as Gus Hansen’s total career earnings (more than $10 million!) and three World Poker Tour open titles to know that this is a man with some of the best experience and knowledge in the game.

His book Every Hand Revealed takes you deep into the mind of a loose aggressive player, giving readers an insight into how “The Madman” thinks at the poker table. Some of the topics include: making smart bluffs, raising out of position with bad holdings and how prize structures influence play. It also covers the 300+ hands he played at the Aussie Millions in 2007, where he beat a field of 747 players to win a whopping $1,192,919.

This is a must-read for any players who prefer the entertainment side of poker. If you’re looking for an instructional guide, look to other books.

6. Play Poker Like the Pros, Phil Hellmuth

Where do we even start with Phil Hellmuth? Though he may be one of the most polarising figures in the poker world, there is no denying the “Poker Brat’s” amazing success. In 2015, for instance, Hellmuth captured his record 14th World Series of Poker gold bracelet – a feat no one else has come close to claiming. While that alone should be enough to invest in his book, there’s more.

Play Poker Like the Pros will not only teach you how to play poker games like Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Seven-Card Stud and Razz, but you will be given unprecedented access to Hellmuth’s tournament-tested strategies. You will learn how to play against every type of player: from the crazy and unpredictable “Jackal” through to the skilled and meticulous “Lion.”

These “million dollar winning strategies,” as Hellmuth so modestly puts it, are for every level of poker player: whether you’re an online poker newbie or a seasoned tournament pro. Love him or loathe him, Play Poker Like the Pros should feature on any serious poker players’ bookshelf.

Ready to test out your newfound knowledge? Head over to Grosvenor Poker.

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