WOW? Poker players saying that Harrington on Cash Games Vol 1 & 2 is not a good book! You are all on Crack! I am a greedy son of a bitch who doesn't like helping anyone especially poker players but if you play a tight style and don't buy this book, then your on Crack!
The best thing about this book is how its format is. It's the best formatted and easy to understand poker book ever written. I am truly shocked! This is how all Poker books should be written. One of Sklanksy's biggest problems when writing books is that he doesn't give enough examples or guidelines like Harrington does. If I put Sklanksy's ideas into Harrington's head and write a book, it would probably be the best poker book ever written. I loved Theory of Poker, but I wish it would have given more Hand examples, how to play those hands, what the situations are, and guidelines, like Harrington's books. For example Sklanksy could have given more Hand examples on when to bluff, semi-bluff, free card, etc. The format, organization, Hand examples, and discussion of the Hand Examples is simply PERFECT! Harrington you are my GOD!
THESE ARE THE BEST POKER BOOKS EVER WRITTEN! I am a 1-2 NL poker player who consistently makes 6000 a month. This coming from me who is a LA (Loose Aggressive style) player. These are also the best organized books for poker I ever read about. He not only tells your preflop guidelines about all the playable hands but postflop as well. If I was playing a TA style I would almost follow Harrington to a Tee! I would suggest this book has an intermediate textbook. There are some advanced concepts but not all of the fancy plays or moves are mentioned (probably for good reason too).
There are so many junk books on poker that actually waste my time and make me stupider! These are diamonds in the rough for any beginner to intermediate player. I say intermediate because no poker player has written advanced books because they don't want to give away all that useful information (as well as their game).
Like I said before I am a LA style player but change gears into a TA style at times too. Harrington gives you guidelines on how you should play a TA style most of the time. If your an excellent hand reader like I am then you know when to apply his guidelines and when not too and how to adjust them. That comes with experience. But If I was trying to teach somebody how to play Poker I would first teach them a TA style and that is exactly what Harrington does! It's to bad his LA comments in vol 2 are a little limited. There's some stuff missing IMHO on how to play a LA style but at least he discusses it for about 50 pages.
What I would like for Vol 3 is for Harrington (perhaps with a professional LA style player like Gus Hanson) to do the exact same book with the same hands (and some more) but from an LA style's perspective. For Vol 4, I would like for him to mention some more fancy plays or advanced concepts that the Pro's use like he did in Vol 1 with Hand examples from that show High stakes poker. There is 1 fundamental flaw of this book but it could not be helped. Now that my opponents have read this book I now know exactly what their thinking most of the time. Although Harrington does use deception and vary's bet sizes and hands throughout the positions, if anybody followed this advice to a tee they would become easily exploitable because somebody like Me would know exactly how their playing. If you find that happening to you then the best thing to do would be to switch to a LA style but more of hand range out of position and deceptive bet-sizing out of position. The fact is most poker players are lazy and they might have read Caro's book of poker tells and 1 other poker book (I just hope they weren't these ones!). That's about it. So against these players (95%) you still have way more useful knowledge directly applicable at the table with these books.
I hope to God nobody else buys these books. That's just more money for me!
Ahh what the hell. I thought I would give you some more advice. 1 book I recommend for playing a LA style is Gus Hansons every hand revealed. You see how a LA style player, plays and thinks. It's format isn't has good as Harringtons but its the best LA style book out there. I've only read it once but now it looks like I will have to read it again 2 more times. This is only if you plan to play a LA style.
There were some other books mentioned previously that must be bought if your an intelligent, serious player. But like I said before I am a greedy son of a bitch and I won't tell you which ones those are. At least now yet!
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