Hold Em Authority - Texas Hold Em Strategy and advice for all levels of players

This is the next review in a line of books I hope to review in the future. This time around, it’s Harrington on Hold Em Volume 2. I raved about volume 1 of this book, and I’m not going to stop with Volume 2. I think this is a must have a for a serious NL Holdem tournament player. I’ll try to give just a wee bit of insight on each chapter, but I don’t want to give away too much, because you need to read this book cover to cover at least 14 times.

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Alright, topic 1, making moves…..
Harrington talks about a plethora, yes, plethora of things in the making moves section. Bluffing, continuation bets, defending against the continuation bet, probe bets, the squeeze play, the no-limit semi-bluff, the back alley mugging, the dark tunnel bluff, slowplaying, massaging the pot, the check-raise bluff, the post-oak bluff, and the BSB play. If you don’t know what some of these things are, might I suggest buying the book? As tight as you might think Harrington is, he’s got a TON of weapons in his arsenal, and this chapter gives a great in-depth look at what he does to become a winner. Read this section carefully, as it will help you understand the complexities that the next chapters have to offer.

Topic 2: Inflection Points

This section was the most helpful to me, because it addressed the issue of going all-in late in a tournament and when the time was right to do so. The bulk of this chapter was dedicated to a player’s ‘M’, a number found by taking chip stack divided by blinds + antes. For example, if my stack was 1500, and the blinds were 150/300 with a 25 ante at a 10 person table, my M would be just over 2 (1500/(150+300+25(10))). Harrington goes into detail about the range of M’s in which you can play your normal game, where you should be concerned, etc.

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Topic 3: Multiple Inflection Points

Harrington gets more in detail about the previous chapter, citing specific scenarios.

Topic 4: Short Tables

My shorthanded game sucks, so this chapter really helped me out. Harrington taught me to be a bit more aggressive in these situation. Harringtonalso discusses strategies to eliminate short stacks so your overall winnings increase. Harrington also suggests in this chapter that when you’re on the fence about a decision, to just let the pot odds dictate your answer.

Topic 5: Heads-Up Play

I’m a huge heads-up guy, so this chapter didn’t help me a ton, but gave me some confirmation that I’m playing correctly, or at least the way a world champion does. Harrington goes into great detail in some of his examples in this chapter. It’s a really good read for anyone, regardless of your heads up skill level.This really is the whole book in a very very condensed nutshell. As in the first volume, Harrington gives fantastic examples, and those help just as much as his strategy advice does. I HIGHLY recommend this book, because it will not only teach you some new tricks, it will give you more confidence!

Championship No-Limit and Pot-Limit Hold’Em was one of my first purchases, as I recognized one of the authors of the book from TV. TJ Cloutier and Tom McEvoy team up to write this book on No Limit and Pot Limit hold em, focusing on tournament play.******

This is a great book for beginning online players, because the descriptions and the explanations are designed to keep you out of trouble. For example, TJ suggests multiple ways to get away from AK in many situations. If the pot has been raised and reraised, dump it. If you miss the flop, check and fold. Things like this will keep a beginner playing solid poker and retaining more chips.

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As you progress in your online poker, you’ll get a better feel for the game and will feel more comfortable playing hands that don’t exactly fit in with the style of this book. So, if you’re an advanced online player, I don’t know if this is the book for you because of it’s lack of aggressive tactics.

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If you’re playing in the WSOP, however, I think this is a great book. It really does teach discipline, and with the extremely slow blind increase and the large number of chips one starts with in a tournament like this, the style this book has to offer fits perfectly.

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This book contains a lot of practice hands that allow you to decide what to do in what situation. It also has some neat stories at the end of the book from TJ’s poker experiences throughout his life. Those were a fun read.

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Overall, I’d say this is a worthwhile read, especially for beginners. TJ Cloutier isn’t a horrible poker player, so he must know what he’s talking about.

The Tao of Poker isn’t as well-known as some of the other poker books, but it caught my attention and kept it throughout my reading. Although this book is very small and cost me under $10, it has honestly become my favorite book. At this point in my poker career, I know what to do in almost every situation when it comes to my cards, but handling my emotions and paying attention to the other players is where I lack. This book gets to the heart of controlling your emotions while at the table, hence the title.

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I love this book because it states some of the most obvious points, 285 of them to be exact, yet they really make you think. For example, “don’t pick the best hands to play - pick your spots.” Simple, yet so truthful, and sometimes when the cards are running bad, we never think to just pick a good spot, we feel like we have to have a good hand in order to succeed. I would list all the chapters, but there are 27 of them, dealing with various topics. While the book does talk a lot about you as a poker player, it talks about poker itself a great deal as well.
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This is a book that you should not only read; it’s a book you should study, and study when you’re running bad. It’s a $10 book, and it’s worth it’s money ten times over. Click the link at the beginning of the article and buy it at amazon, or get in your car and drive to the bookstore and buy the damn thing. Trust me, it’s worth it, give it a chance.

I just recently finished volume 1 of Harrington on Hold Em. Maybe it’s because I am a better poker player than I was when I read other poker books, but I feel like this is the best poker book out there right now for intermediate to advanced hold ‘em players. Sample hands at the end of every chapter (except for Chapter 1) really help apply the knowledge learned in the previous portion of the chapter.Harrington divides the book into seven sections/parts/chapters, and I’ll give you some of the highlights from each.

1. The game of no limit hold em - More or less an overview chapter, touches on the elements of a hand. I like this blurb, because eleven different elements are mentioned, and the very last element reads, “what are your cards?” I think this shows that cards are a part of the game, but not as important as some people may think. He also touches on the “hidden luck factor” in hold em, good luck you may have without realizing it, such as a reraise from another player that makes you fold your JJ, saving you a lot of chips.

2. Playing Styles and Starting Requirements - Harrington discusses three types of play, conservative, aggressive, and super aggressive. He shows how to manage your tournament game with all three styles, but also notes that mixing up styles every once in awhile is a solid idea. Discussion of the different types of tournaments can be found in this section as well.

3. Reading the Table - At a live tournament, it is possible to see physical tells, but as we all know, it’s near impossible to get a good look at your opponent online. As a result, Harrington includes a subsection devoted to observing betting patterns not only of your opponents, but of yourself as well. Again, Harrington advises mixing up styles, always giving yourself that element of unpredictability.

4. Pot Odds and Hand Analysis - Harrington discusses pot, expressed, and implied odds in this chapter, and also gives tips on how to analyze a hand. Harrington gives percentages to all possibilities an opponent may be holding, for example, there’s a %50 chance he’s holding an overpair, 30% chance I’m in a coinflip, etc. He also mentions “Harrington’s Law of Bluffing,” which assigns a 10% value to an opponent bluffing, every hand.

5. Betting before the flop - I don’t want to give away too much in these next 3 sections, but they are all full of very valuable information on how to approach your betting at different points in the hand. Harrington analyzes the Gap Concept, the Sandwich Concept, and the Squeeze play, three valuable concepts to understand in order to improve your No limit tournament play. Harrington also gives suggestions as to how to play certain hands in certain positions, for example, how should you play 88 in middle position if you’re the first one to enter the pot.

6. Betting on the flop - Harrington discusses different types of bets that can be made if you’re the initial raiser or just a caller. Specific bets he discusses are value bets, continuation bets, and probe bets.

7. Betting after the flop - This is the last section, and Harrington does a good job of covering a multitude of scenarios, particularly how to handle someone that you feel is on a drawing hand. An excellent point that Harrington makes is that extracting the most money out of your hand is often an overlooked factor. The small bets on the river that you get your opponent to call can really add up, and can be the difference between a final table appearance and a tournament victory.

I’m really looking forward to reading Volume II, where Harrington will discuss making moves, inflection points, and playing at short-handed tables.

This book is a classic. period. What makes this book even more classic is the fact that every picture in this book looks like it came from the seventies. Caro’s Book of Poker Tells is obviously a book to read if you plan on playing live poker as opposed to internet poker, but it’s a great read to get your mind thinking about something other than the cards themselves.

In the book, Caro talks about what it means when an opponent shares a hand with another player or an observer, what shuffling a hand means, nervousness, double checking, fearlessness, glancing at chips, sudden interest, tough decisions, instant reaction, and protecting a hand.

Something else that Caro also addresses is acting strong when weak, and vice versa. If a player slams his/her chips into the middle with lots of force, he/she appears to be strong, but in fact, it’s very possible that (s)he’s weak. I think that this can apply not only to the way he/she puts the chips in the middle, but how many chips go into the middle. That being said, I think it becomes obvious that Caro’s book can be applied to many more situations than the ones covered in this book; this book will give you a good foundation for future tells that you may be able to uncover.

Obviously only you, and not Mike Caro, can decide if your opponent really has tells, and it’s up to you to go with your gut and take a chance on exploiting those possible tells. However, after reading this book, you’ll at least have a bit of guidance as to what to look for when trying to gain an edge on your opponent.

This was the first poker book I ever bought, and I think you will find that’s it’s worth an hour or two of your paycheck to invest in it.