I agree with everyone that has mentioned NLHTAP, PNLv1, and HOCG 1 & 2. After you've worked your way through those, I'd suggest The Poker Blueprint by Slowhabit. It's a fairly pricey e-book that is mostly geared towards online 6-max games, but the sections on math and post-flop play are among the best I've read in any book. You shouldn't blindly try to apply every concept from the book to live games, but there are plenty of nuggets of wisdom that will make you money if applied correctly.

Thank you so much for this.

Forgive me for a moment of self-promotion, although not exactly of my own self. Tommy Angelo and I did a series for DC called The Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment. It was very well-received and we have been told it was helpful to a lot of players. Tommy and I are basically live cash game players who tried to include Internet players as much as possible, but frankly live players will get more out of it. Tommy is the star. I'm just the faithful sidekick.

(If you do sign up, please do so through the link on Tommy's website so we get credit.)

No more spam, I promise, and apologize if anyone is offended, but I really think the series is worthwhile.

I just listened to both of the podcasts with Lymon, and I'm absolutely blown away. I think I will have to listen to both of the casts at least 10 times to get the most out of them. I cannot recommend those links highly enough to all live players.

I always perk up when I see Venice's posts because the strategy and fundamental thoughts are very solid.

Percula has great insight into the flows and ebbs of live games and how to play your opponents.

A lot of other excellent posters too, you just have to find them, look for someone who puts thought into their posts and gives more than 1 word glib answers to posts.

I just tried to listen to the podcast, but it says flash is required. Any way to listen to it on an iPhone?

You can download the podcasts for free through Itunes, just look for the Duecescracked podcasts.

Holy ****, there is a ton of poker stuff on iTunes. Now I just have to get somewhere with wifi so I can download the podcasts. Thanks steamy!

No probs, I very much enjoy the dueces cracked podcasts, makes me sort of want to get a subscription (though I don't play as much as I should/used to so I dunno if it would be worth it). The Limon ones are excellent, as is Bobby Hoff. Very applicable for live play (though the host generally only plays live 5-10 to 10-20 at commerce so he mostly talks live play).

Classic limon... spelled wrong above (or correctly because it was supposed to be from the documentary 'My Brother's Keeper' lol)

Poker books are strange. Nobody can seem to get it all in one book. Prolly never will.

Harringtons book and Professional NL Holdem books are very good, and im sure took a lot of time putting together. But that said, they are both semi outdated. (they still should be read, but just use your own thought for these days instead of using them as a bible without question)

If you dont believe that, then purchase Andrew Seidmans EASY GAME off the internet and you will begin to understand how NL should be viewed from basic level to nosebleed levels.

EASY GAME and Cole Souths book LET THERE BE RANGE are the first two works which finally put into print what online players have been using to excel so quickly at NL. All other books in print dont come close IMO.

Most everything is solved in NL Holdem these days, with only villain range and tendencies being the variables left up to hero to accurately access.

I looked up paradox in the dictionary. It said "someone who plays low limit poker and requires an $1850 book to win."

Mama told me this game wasn't profitable!

thats just it. The vast majority of 2/5 players in the room will be playing 2/5 still 3 years from now. Because the ones who are winners feel that they play well, dont realize how little they actually know about the game, and get comfortable in the fact that they are winners and just go on for years in this state of mind.

Now if an $1850 book (which is 800 i think now), would allow the player to expand his mind/game and rise to 5/10 and be consistent winner there, then the book pays for itself easily within a month, and hero goes on to win huge amounts of cash rather than miring up at 2/5 level for years.

Pretty much you get what you pay for. When you pay 29.95 for one of the usual poker books, thats about what you get IMO. Books unfortunately DO NOT teach a person to think independently well enough. That is why everyone has read some of these poker books several times, yet really dont play very well at the tables. There is a gap there somewhere, (lost in translation) otherwise the games would be MUCH tougher everywhere.

The high priced 'E-Books' are great reads AFTER u read the standard stuff...

Let There be Range, Easy Game, The Poker Puzzle, etc are all fantastic.

this is true. Reading foundational (more basic) books first is a must. I just kinda hate that a person has to read a bunch of stuff which is basically wrong (and i mean 1 part wrong per 20 parts) along with lots of information given which really does not instruct how hero should think on his own, makes it tough.

But, you gotta start somewhere, just realizing that players understand that they will be adjusting what they are learning all the time.

Ain't...

Have u read 'Bobbo's Bible?'

nah, that one i passed on, because i usually cant make it thru any of bobbos videos, lol. AND, i got lessons from him waaaaay back and was not impressed at all. (not to mention totally hated the way he presented himself and conducted himself as well).

He insisted on doing coaching only over AIM, where it was painfully obvious that he copy/pasted material to me live over AIM, but attempted to make it look like he was carrying on a conversation. Obviously he was multi tasking for HIS benefit, rather than speaking to me over skype at same time for MY benefit. So im not a fan of bobbo, nor the material that i received.

Here's another vote for HOC. While it may be a bit conservative, I've found that solid, conservative, position-based poker is what wins most of the time at 1/2 and 1/3. The "randomization" of pre-flop raises that he advocates doesn't really translate well to 1/2 & 1/3 (as few people respect raises in these games to begin with), but his emphasis on "small hand, small pot...big hand, big pot" is one of the keys to winning low limit NL poker.

Will HOC make you the perfect poker player? I doubt it. But will it make you better than 70% of the 1/2 players at the local casino on a Friday night? It will if you study it and understand it--and at least in my case, it has more than paid for itself.

This is an interesting post.
What info do you find is wrong in HoCG or NLHTAP, or PNLv1?

I'd be interested in hearing what people think is wrong in those books?

right off the top of my head, Harrington says A. Never fold KK preflop and B. stuff like raise 80% and call 20% with certain hands to mix things up. 80/20 is useless when you can better serve yourself by raising or calling when the game condition warrants it, (gameflow etc / image) rather than some weird "go by your watch" method of randomizing. And folding KK, lol, sometimes the villains range is only AA, and in this case, we fold KK>

Its just outdated etc quite a bit. Even though overall a good work. Plenty of other stuff, i would have to dig the books out to state it all.

For a breeze read, Phil Gordon's "Little Green Book" was surprisingly useful to me.

He is mostly re-hashing the deeper material from the other recommendations in a lighter style, but it has a lot of good hand examples for different situations.

Have had it for a while.... just getting started... I hate reading but I promised myself I wont play again until both volumes are done. Gonna read thoroughly, but with a little speed.

In addition to most of the books listed above, I highly recommend The Book of Bluffs by Matt Lessinger.

While bluffing cannot be one's core strategy, it's important to know the situations when one should make an attempt.

I also found that

Texas Hold ‘em Odds and Probabilities by Hilger

as well as

Caro’s Most Profitable Hold ‘em Advice by Caro

to be very good too.

(Please note again that this is in addition to many of the 2+2 books listed above.)

I was thinking about taking the plunge and reading Tommy Angelo's book Elements of Poker. Would anybody here recommend it. I seen it mentioned earlier in this thread by some posters I respect so maybe the better question would be, how involved is it? Will I need to start meditating to get all the benefits from this book? (not that meditation would be a bad thing to add to one's life.) Did the book really make anyone a better player? Anything anyone could tell me about the book would be great. I've read Poker Winners are Different (Schoonmaker) and the book was good but about simple things. It didn't tell me anything I didn't know but it really shined the light on simple things and made me consider them more in my play. A lot of big time players have received coaching from Mr. Angelo so he must be on to something. Again, any help here would be appreciated.

I've not read the book, but he has several chapters on his website. Read those to get a flavor of the book as a whole.

As an aside, I'm going to put a link to this thread in the master sticky.