Poker books are a great way to become a better poker player. This page shows some of the best poker books to get and help you improve your poker game. We list several poker books reviews. We show you what to read when you look for playing a specific type of holdem.
Combine studying with analysing and add some experience and you will be on the right track!
Study poker by using poker books
Do you want to become a poker pro? Or do you want to beat your friends at your poker home game? In both cases you need to study poker as much as possible! Reading books is a great way to start improving your game. You get a much better understanding of the game of poker which should help to improve your play and make better decisions.
Poker book reviews
The online poker boom has created a overload of information about poker and new poker books are published every day. Therefore we have put together this review to guide you in your choice of books. I had trouble finding out what to read when I started out playing poker and everyone was screaming to read the super system. But was that the right way? No, I don’t think so. I was looking for something else and I found it later on. What books to read depends upon what you want to play. Is it al kinds of poker, only NL Texas hold’em tournaments or fixed limit cash games? Well under the headlines below you will find the books we still think are good enough to read graded with a scale from 1 to 5. Where 5 means great and 1 means don’t rush to get this one…
General poker books
If you looking for books that can help you to improve your poker skills in general these are the books for you.
The Theory of Poker – David Sklansky
A very interesting book that really helps you to get inside the poker games different aspects. This book is a bit old but the foundations of poker are still valid. It explains expected value, when to bluff and other topics in a pedagogic way. This book really helps you to get a better understanding of the game and its psychology.
Super system II – Doyle Brunson (et al)
The updated poker bible! It’s a good book that covers a lot of different variations of poker. The best part of the book I believe is the Mike Caro university tips. It’s a slideshow that tells you what to watch out for and what to do. The fixed limit chapter is also good and written by Jennifer Hartman. It’s a great book to start of with, but you will soon find that you want more information about the specific game you want to play and if its only Texas Hold’em you want to play maybe you should pick another book more concentrated on your game!
Super System – Doyle Brunson (et al)
This book is ranked down just because of the fact that it’s the old version. The old version actually has some sections that the new one doesn’t provide. For example there is nice statistic pages as an appendix and those can be worth studying for a while. But if you only want to by one of the super system books, I would put my money on the super system II
Play Poker like the Pros – Phil Hellmuth, jr
As all great poker player Phil wanted to be remembered so he had to write a book. Its not the best poker book I have read but some pieces are great. One of the downsides with this specific poker book is that it tries to cover al kind of different Hold’em games together with Omaha and other games. I don’t think that you learn to play like a pro by studying this book, but you will learn a lot about poker. The chapters about the animals, the mouse and the lion and so on is great. Its an easy way to try to read your opponents. If you are looking for one book that teaches you poker in general go with Sklansky instead. But also read this one.
Tournament Poker books
Harrington on hold’em volume 1 strategic play – Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie
This book is really a great tournament book. It’s simple to read and have great tips and really put the tournament specific problems in focus. The book has good examples. Harrington takes hands from both big tournaments as World series of poker, WSOP, and online tournaments and describes why the players did like they did and what they should have done. I believe it covers what a tournament player need to know. It is written by Harrington who is one of the best tournament players there is. He plays tight and he teaches a playing stile that I believe over time will make a profitable tournament poker player. If you should say something negative about this book that would be that it’s only focusing on No Limit Texas holdem, but on the other hand that’s the game of the big tournaments.
Harrington on hold’em volume 2 the endgame – Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie
The second book is just as good as the first one. Great examples and this book focus on the later rounds in the tournaments. They also show you how to survive, how to steal some blinds and when to act so you don’t wait to long. This book also teaches you how to calculate to keep track of how you are doing in the tournament. For me this book put words and specified what I used to “feel”. It gave me structure to my tournament play and made me more confident in taking the right decisions at the right time.
Tournament theory for advanced players – David Sklansky
This book is something for players that are used to play normal cash games. The focus is to show what the differences between cash games and tournaments so you could adjust to the tournaments specific nature. He explains the basics in a great way so you will get familiar with the fact that if you get brooke you are out of the tournament, the gap-concept and some other interesting topics. One example is the system which for a theoretical authority as Sklansky is so beautiful, but the artists of the game of poker fears. The system could be something to have as an weapon if you get caught in a game where you feel that the other players are better than you. The book is quit simple and I think it should be a part of every tournament player’s library.
Pot Limit Poker books
Championship No-Limit and Pot Limit Holdem – T.J Coultier and Tom McEvoy
First I have to say that I didn’t really know where to file this book. I could have put it under the tournament chapter above, but then I think that I would have been forced to give it grade 1. Well I did put it under the headline “pot limit” instead because this book actually describes this and I believe this is unusual and therefore the ranking goes up to a 2. T.J. is the greatest poker player ever and of course he has to write a book. Unfortunately I do not believe that most players can reach his ability to read people, and in this book he explains how important that is. This book I believe is written mostly for people playing live and not that much for people playing online poker. Besides handling pot limit this book have two edges. It’s funny to read, and packed with wonderful stories about how TJ make these amazing plays, and old stories about the good old days. The other thing that ads value to this book is that they write down how Tom (who also is a world class poker player) would have played. And this shows that poker is not only mathematical and that is different ways to approach the art of poker!
Fixed limit Poker Books
Small stakes hold’em – winning big with excellent play – Ed miller, David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth.
A nice book about Fixed Limit that really shows you how to be aggressive in fixed limit. Ed Miller is an expert on low limit fixed games and is living of playing limit hold’em on not to high levels. They show you some of the basics of poker and give you two different sets of starting hands, one for loose tables and one for more normal games. I really enjoyed this one. A friend of mine, was already winning in low limit games mostly at levels up to 5/10, said he thought that this book was really good. And I think he is right, but the secret to why he thought it was that good I believe lay in the fact that he studied the game from the basic first and then read this book which helped him to improve his game even further. Therefore I would suggest this book as the second book to read if you would like to play fixed limit and are totally new to the game!
Internet texas hold’em – winning strategies from an Internet Pro
Interesting poker book that is good for the beginner poker player. There is a lot of odds and math which is really important if you play fixed limit. I believe this book has an interesting coverage of online poker discussing site and game selection, online tells and other topics that can be very important to know about when you start playing online poker.Posted in Poker Guide