Starting over: beginner book recommendation (1 Viewer)

aaronroch

aaronroch

3 of a Kind
Joined
Jul 16, 2019
Messages
561
Reaction score
978
Location
Rochester, NY
I was never great at poker, but I used to be okay. Competent enough to regularly cash at the local 8-table St. Pats Day tournament or to easily hold my own at a 1/2 table the few times I went to a casino.

I started playing online after a many year hiatus and I’m getting simply crushed at 0.10 / 0.25. I’m not getting unlucky, I’m getting outplayed. I feel like it is time to go back and review the basics.

Can somebody recommend a good beginner book written with full-table NLHE in mind? Just basic ABC tight-aggressive poker. Pretend I know the rules but nothing else.
Thanks in advance!
 
Jonathan Little's Excelling at No Limit Hold 'Em is great, as is his Strategies for Beating Small Stakes Cash Games. If you plan on playing live I highly recommend Crush Live Poker's training material, the podcasts alone are chocked full of info. If you plan on playing primarily online Upswing Poker's material might suit you better.
 
Be careful with playing online. There are several issues with online play in 2019. The idea of collusion and bots has had plenty of time to proliferate. The idea of 2 people colluding even at low stakes is just so easy and I would be surprised if it wasn't prevalent.

Secondly, many online players use HUDs which scrape the data of everyone's action at the table and aggregate that information into useful on screen stats.

If you are not interested in investing in a HUD then playing online might not be for you. Online is a totally different animal and people have brought TAG play to a whole new dimension. In this day and age I recommend reading/podcasts and then just play live. There is too much bullshit with online play.
 
“Poker Tournament Formula” is great if you aren’t looking for a book heavy on mathematics. Changed my way of thinking during tournaments.
 
Thank you!
This sounds like some good stuff to pick from. Mr. Little in particular has been quite busy writing and I like how he has workbooks and quizzes too.

@Lemonzest i do remember HUDs from “the old days”, I’ve been playing on ignition which does things anonymously: my understanding is that severely limits HUDs effectiveness. BUT it never crossed my mind that I’d run into sophisticated bots & collusion at those stakes... now that you bring it up I realize I’m probably being naive.

Hmmm. Maybe you are right and modern online play is a tank full of sharks. I wish my opportunities for live play were not so limited: I’m reluctant to drive >1hr to play at higher stakes than I’m comfortable with and a big rake.
 
I routinely drive 2 hours to play in live games. I would have much less of a drive if I was content to only play NLHE, but I'm not.
 
I agree with what’s been suggested so far. Crush Live Poker has great videos. Harrington on Holdem is perfect for what you seem to be looking for. I’m no scrub at the table and I re-read Harrington anytime I have a few bad sessions in a row. His books are the best starting point if you’re looking to play live low-stakes.
 
Lemonzest said:
Yea honestly running or attending a home game is 100x better than online.
Click to expand...

+1million... but hard to do on random nights after my daughter and wife go to bed.

Plus, I’m not that popular. :p The only games I know of are sloppy drunken gamble-fests. Guys buy in for $40 and try to play 1/2 NL. I could probably clean up, but not my idea of fun.
I host the occasional low-stakes social game myself, but that’s all my friends are up for.

Oh, well.:(
 
1569019048526.png
 
I second the Ed miller book. The first few rule of play changed my perspective players and the game.
 
I have never read The Course, but I consider Easy Game to be the best book ever written on poker. Basically every sentence is a revelation. Highly suggested, unless you're gonna be at a meetup I'll be attending. :D
 
Joe Harris said:
I have never read The Course, but I consider Easy Game to be the best book ever written on poker. Basically every sentence is a revelation. Highly suggested, unless you're gonna be at a meetup I'll be attending. :D
Click to expand...
Went to look at it and was shocked by the price, only to find out I already owned it in my library :D. Guess I’m due for a re-read!
 
I was shocked by the price of both of those recommendations. No electronic discount it seems.
 
The book I liked most for ABC NLHE strategy was No Limit Hold’em Theory and Practice by David Sklansky.

That’s a nice introduction to NLHE strategy imho.

For tournament strategy, I liked from the same author Poker Tournament for Advanced Players but it does not only focus on NLHE.
 
Following this as I would like to do some new reading as well!

As for online poker I think it's not as bad as you guys put it. I play regularly on several different clients and there are still plenty of fish and wierd players at least in the lower stakes. Partypoker and unibet are my main places to play, but I also have some money on some other clients for when there are good value tournaments with some added value once in a while. I play mainly huge field tournaments on partypoker and Omaha cashgames on unibet. Haven't played on pokerstars for a few years, but did a lot earlier and I assume it's still good as well, especially for tournaments with lots of players.

I know online poker in the US is pretty bad though, and I guess the sites I play on are banned there? Hope for your sake the government will open up for it again, and regulate it properly.

As for HUDs I think it's banned on most sites now, as a way to help the recreational players.

Definitely still money to be made and fun to be had playing online though, and hopefully the future will be even brighter once the US government gets their shit together, lol.

I do agree that a well run home game or a poker club will probably be softer and more fun, but it can be a struggle finding this for everyone I guess. Not everybody is lucky enough to live near some or PCFs epic chippers!

I say online poker is still super viable, at least over here. Hopefully it will get better in the US soon as well!

Sorry for derailing

Sorry for the derail
 
Sprinsd said:
“Poker Tournament Formula” is great if you aren’t looking for a book heavy on mathematics. Changed my way of thinking during tournaments.
Click to expand...
FiveThous said:
I couldn't agree more, this is a must read if you want to improve your MTT game.
Click to expand...

I was looking into the book and found an old two plus two thread criticizing the book. I'm not able to judge who has the better of the argument, but it does sound like a thought provoking book.
 
HobokenNJ said:
I was looking into the book and found an old two plus two thread criticizing the book. I'm not able to judge who has the better of the argument, but it does sound like a thought provoking book.
Click to expand...
That's part of why I liked it l, it was so different from most of what I read at the time. I also think he has a point in loosening up with a big stack while others are tightening up as their stacks tend to get smaller.
 
Marius L said:
As for HUDs I think it's banned on most sites now, as a way to help the recreational players.
Click to expand...

From Poker Tracker 4 website:

PT4 Supported Sites
From Holdem Manager 3 website:

HM3 supports more than 12 major poker networks including Poker Stars, Microgaming, Ipoker, Merge Network, Pacific/888, Boss Network, Winning Poker Network, Peoples Poker, Winamax, Bovada/Ignition/Bodog, PPPoker and Poker Kingdom.

Less sites than in the past, or so I have read, but still some major sites allow/encourage HUD's. You can also buy player histories at several sites online, so you don't even have to have played against a person to know their betting tendencies.

Home games seem so much better.
 

Create an account or login to comment

You must be a member in order to leave a comment

Create account

Create an account and join our community. It's easy!

Register

Log in

Already have an account? Log in here.

Similar threads

NotRealNameNoSir
Zachary Elwood's Poker Tells Trilogy
Replies
8
Views
725
l33tf0b
l33tf0b
thegioserg
My Dice Chip Set: Help me work it out
Replies
2
Views
380
springbox
springbox
RagahRagah
Modern poker book recommendations?
2
Replies
41
Views
2K
Chanceman
Chanceman
3
How do you explain to someone why they weren't invited to a game?
2 3 4
Replies
112
Views
4K
doctorchips
D
Nate_
Hosting First Home Game! - Looking For Tips
2
Replies
44
Views
2K
Machine
Machine
Back
Top Bottom