CardSharp

Author: David Sklansky

Publisher: 2+2 Publishing

Sklansky on Poker is a little known 2+2 book. It started life as Sklansky on Razz. Only one problem - no one plays razz anymore except for the occasional HORSE game and a few medium stakes online games. So what 2+2 did is take the orginal text, tack some essays by Sklansky on the front, take razz out of the title, and voila - a new book for the 21st century.

You’ll notice that I gave this book two different star ratings. That’s not a mistake. The 5-star rating is for the essays. The 3-star rating is for the old Sklansky on Razz text.

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Subtitle: How to Win at No-Limit Hold’em Money Games

Author: Dan Harrington & Bill Robertie

Publisher: 2+2

Finally. Two plus two has put out two books on NL holdem cash games in the last few years. Sklansky & Miller’s No Limit Holdem - Theory and Practice was marginal. Profesional No Limit Holdem Volume 1 was a complete turd. Both were far inferior to what Doyle wrote in Supersystem. This created the absurd situation where the most popular poker game today had only one chapter in one book addressing it in a decent manner. Enter Dan Harrington to rectify the problem. As anyone who doesn’t live under a rock knows, Harrington was responsible for a wildly (and deservedly) popular series of book on NL tournament play. He’s the only author reviewed on CardSharp who has consistently achieved a 5-star rating for his books - not an easy feat since I tend to be stingy with top ratings. Needless to say I was thrilled to hear he was tackling cash game NL.

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Author: Bob Ciaffone

Publisher: Self Published

There’s something very weird about Omaha players, and especially authors of Omaha books. They seem to be unable to view their game in the context of what’s really going on in the poker world. I have yet to read an Omaha book that doesn’t claim Omaha is “The Game Of The Future!” and “The Action Game!” or some very similar nonsense. I’m beginning to suspect the guys who write Omaha books just copy eachother’s introductions.

The reality is somewhat different. You’ll find 50 mid-stakes holdem games in Vegas for every one Omaha game. Omaha is the game of the future in the same way flying cars are the commuter vehicle of the future.

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Authors: Matt Flynn, Sunny Mehta, Ed Miller

Publisher: 2+2

Professional No-Limit Hold ‘Em was a widely anticipated book. The literature on NL holdem is very sparse, which is somewhat odd given that it is currently the most widely played form of casino poker. Over the last couple of years, 2+2 publishing has put a number of books and series in the pipeline to try to fill that gap. The first was Sklansky’s No Limit Holdem: Theory and Practice which I found interesting but problematic in many areas. Next up is the Flynn/Mehta “Professional” series starting with this book, and announced but as of yet unavailable are a series of Dan Harrington cash game books.

Sadly, this book really disappointed me on a number of levels.

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Author: Anonymous

Publisher: Lyle Stuart/Kensington

Given the hordes of formulaic books published on poker in the last decade, it’s nice to see the occasional book that breaks out of the mold and goes a different directions. Such books have a tendency to be either very insightful or steaming piles of crap. This one happens to be both at once.

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Author: Roy Cooke

Publisher: ConJelCo

Real Poker II is a collection of Roy Cooke’s Card Player columns focusing on the play of middle limit holdem hands taken from his play in Las Vegas.  In each hand, Roy describes the situation and one or more key decisions, and then tells the reader what he believes is the correct course of action and why.

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Author: Doyle Brunson + numerous collaborators

Publisher: Cardoza

Part update to the original Supersystem and part add-on, Super System 2 follows the same structure as the previous book.  Doyle recruited a groups of fellow high-stakes pros to write about various games while he tackled NL holdem.  The games covered are NL holdem, limit holdem, Omaha 8, pot limit Omaha, Stud 8, and lowball triple draw. In addition, there is some general material provided by Mike Caro & others that replaces the general poker section of Super System 1.  I didn’t find this additional material particularly valuable, but most of it wasn’t bad.  The exception is the internet poker material, which is out of date and essentially a sales pitch for Doyle’s site.  Annoying to say the least, but easily avoided.  The real important stuff is the game-specific chapters

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Author: Dan Harrington & Bill Robertie

Publisher: 2+2

These two volumes round out the excellent Harrington on Holdem series.  Like the previous volume, the cover no limit holdem tournament play exclusively.  Volume 2 begins with a section on making moves and bluffing that belonged in Volume 1 but was moved for space constraints.  Then it moves on to the heart of the series - Harrington’s system for handling rising blinds and antes and shorthanded tables.  Those are the conditions found in the later stages of a tournament, and are the place where many players fall down.

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Author: Mason Malmuth

Publisher: 2+2

In a similar vein to his previous Poker Essays, Poker Essays Volume 2 is a collection of columns that Mason Malmuth wrote for Card Player magazine.  Indeed, you might confuse them for the same columns found in the original Poker Essays, because many of the topics are the same and a small amount of the material is even directly reprinted from the previous work.

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Author: Barry Greenstein

Publisher: Last Knight

There’s a lot of debate on the internet as to the value of this book. The Amazon reviews, for example, are less positive than for most poker books. However, I feel this book is more valuable than it initially appears for the audience that it targets, as I’ll explain shortly. Ace On The River contains an odd mix of material - a short memoir of Barry Greenstein’s playing career, discussion of a large number of poker topics outside the play of actual hands, and some example hands from a variety of games with commentary from Barry about why he played them the way he did. There is also substantial filler material - full color glossy pictures of various Vegas landmarks (without captions) and some tables in the back that appear correct, but not necessarily that useful. The book, if published in a more conventional format and with only the main text, would be about 150 pages long instead of 300+. The price of the book is also somewhat inflated by the expensive printing.

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Author: Mason Malmuth

Publisher: 2+2

Poker essays is a book that I like very much in concept. Mason’s introduction is to my mind spot on: the most important thing a serious player should do is think about the game. Poker Essays consists of a series of short to medium length essays by Malmuth that encourage the reader to do just that, namely think about areas of the game they may not have considered. These essays cover a broad range of topics and are connected in only the loosest fashion, so the reader is free to read in chunks or out of order.

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Author: John Feeney

Publisher: 2+2

This book is pretty good. It may surprise a lot of readers, however, because despite the fact that Feeney is a degreed psychologist he takes an approach to poker psychology that more poker and less psychology. The book is a collection of essays by Feeney with only limited connections between them.

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Author: Stewart Ruben & Bob Ciaffone

Publisher: self published

This is an interesting book. For a long time it was the second most recommended NL book after Supersystem. Of late, it’s fallen into obscurity somewhat, but I believe it’s still worth talking about.

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Author: Larry W. Phillips (if you have website/contact info for Larry, please let me know)

Publisher Plume/Penguin

Ok, I’ll admit I was more than a little suspicious when I saw the title of this book. It certainly smacks of a quickly written attempt to cash in. So I was somewhat relieved to find that the author did in fact put substantial effort into trying to draw a prallel between Zen philosophy and poker play. However, I don’t believe he was particularly successful from the poker perspective. I have no idea what the zen guys think of this book. It would be unfair to the author to wholly criticize him for this, however, because he does point out that there are substantial limits to the parallel, but i feel that there are problems even in the areas he felt were harmonious.

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Author: Alan Schoonmaker

Publisher: 2+2

This is a book likely to surprise a lot of readers. I wouldn’t say title is misleading per se, but the book might be better titled The Self-Psychology of Poker because the book’s entire approach is essentially self-help in nature.

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Author: Bob Ciaffone

Publisher: Self Published

Authors of poker manuals face a bit of a conundrum. The readers are presumably reading poker books because their poker game is not what it should be. In other words, the readers have some misconceptions about the game that need to be fixed. This makes it very hard to write an advanced poker book, because to do so you have to assume your readers already know basic material (or else write a monster book that contains everything) yet you KNOW that the readers are confused on some points. Perhaps parts of the basic material you’re assuming they know.

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Authors: David Sklansky & Mason Malmuth

Publisher: 2+2

Hold’em Poker for Advanced Players has been the single most recommended book for mid-stakes limit holdem play since it came out. It has substantial strengths and weaknesses, and the prospective buyer needs to take these into account before deciding whether to purchase it.

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Author: Bill Chen & Jerrod Ankenman

Publisher: Conjelco

This book attempts a fundamental methodological shift in the way scholarly players approach the game of poker.

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Author: Mark Blade

Publisher: Brownfield Publishing

This is the best starting point in the poker literature for the aspiring poker pro. I don’t mean amateur. I mean aspiring pro. It lays out, in very direct fashion, how to go about getting a long lasting, stable poker career. This book could be considered a much-needed compilation and reorganization of the career related information from various 2+2 and Caro books plus additional insights from the author’s career. While much of the information could be found elsewhere, you would have to pay 10x the cover price to get it in pieces. So this book provides a very reasonable service.

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Author: Doyle Brunson

Publisher: Cardoza

This book is a collection of Doyle’s writings about life on the road playing poker, written over a quarter century ago. They have an autobiographical bent, but this is not a memoir. The stories are entertaining and well written (not in the bizarre style of Super System, I smell ghost writer…) and I got some entertainment value out of them solely as stories.

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Author: Arnold Snyder (beware this site contains quite a bit of misinformation)

Publisher: Cardoza

Sadly this book contains a lot of misinformation in terms of the poker strategies presented.

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Author: Dan Harrington & Bill Robertie

Publisher: 2+2

This book focuses on the fundamentals of playing no limit holdem in a tournament setting (although much of the information is also applicable to cash games). The book covers starting hand selection & various topics in postflop play at a full table. It doesn’t assume the reader has a particularly deep poker background. Those who have more experience with the game may find the book a little “beginnerish” but it sets a solid foundation for the more advanced material in the next two volumes.

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Author: Mike Caro

Publisher: Cardoza

This book has been the definitive work on poker tells (physical and vocal mannerisms that indicate the strength of a player’s hand) since in came out. It catalogs numerous tells, provides pictures of players exhibiting the tell, and discusses strategies to exploit a given tell when it appears. In addition, Caro develops a more general theory of tells, explaining why players exhibit tells and classifying them into categories.

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Author: Doyle Brunson + numerous collaborators

Publisher: Cardoza

Doyle Brunson and a group of fellow high limit pros wrote “Super/System” in the late 70’s after Doyle won his second world series of poker main event title. The book contains general poker advice from Doyle followed by specific strategies for all the games commonly played a the time. It was a complete revelation when it came out - far and away the best poker book ever published up to that point on each of those games. For years it retained its status as the “bible” for casino poker play.

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Author: David Sklansky & Ed Miller

Publisher: 2 + 2

There aren’t a lot of books written about cash game no limit holdem. For a long time, the Supersystem chapter has been the definitive source of information on the subject. This book is the first meaningful publication on the topic in several years. However, it’s a real mixed bag.

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Author: David Sklansky

Publisher: 2+2 Publishing

The Theory of Poker is far and away the best of the 2+2 poker books, and indeed is likely the best poker book ever published. Instead of providing instruction on a particular poker game, it explains the mathematics and logic behind all forms of poker. It teaches you how to think about poker, so that when you encounter a new situation you haven’t previously studied, you can reason out the right play on the spot. It’s the “why” to every other book’s “how”.

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