I have been doing a lot of reading and watching. However I get the feeling that I am wasting a good portion of my time on outdated material that won't help me. If any one can give some advice on what to study and/or what to avoid, that would be very helpful.

Look to see if it has a date on it. It depends what format and stake level you're playing, but if the info is from before 2015 (arbitrary date, but you've got to draw the line somewhere), you can pretty much ignore it. Your time would be better spent hunting down something more recent.

As poker a subjective game you need focus on a type of game. Sit and Go, MTT, cash game or other. Each one have your meta. So I recommend you to choose one and looking for a coaching to learn how to play the meta.

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Normally I agree with just about everything Arty says, but this is just wrong.

For beginning players, good advice is good advice, regardless of the date. "The Theory of Poker" has lots of concepts that people present today as "modern" but Sklansky wrote about over 40 years ago. Thin value betting? Balance? They are both there, written a long time ago. I have long lost count of the number of threads made that go, "I raised pf, had TP on the flop, my bet was called, but on the turn when I bet again, I got raised. What do I do?" Sure they could make a thread after a while and get current answers. Or they can just read Beluga Whale's thread from over 10 years ago and see what the Beluga Whale Theorem is really about.

I suggest reading the this forum's FAQ section (dated from 2013). If you tell me that the answer to question 20 is "outdated," "useless" or someone should just ignore it with a straight face, then fine. You're missing a lot of good information.

This is a great question and it's actually very difficult I think to give an easy answer.

I'm not sure you can avoid "wasting time" by looking at a broad range of material unless you get super lucky and just hit on A+ tips every time you read something. Irrespective of the date, there's good advice and bad advice, so even if something is new it doesn't necessarily mean that it's "better".

I think you have to give your attention to a broad range of material and where you find contradictions apply some intelligence in terms of establishing what strategy is likely to be right for you. In other words, there are no short cuts.

Do. you think Applications of No Limit Hold'em is outdated? What about Mathematics of Poker? That book was released more than 10 years ago.

Could you please link to me the FAQ your talking abotu? :-)

Just to balance out a little what Arty said, although there is good advice in older books there is also a ton of out of date stuff which will cost the reader a lot of money wasted. A beginner is not going to know which is which (what still holds true, what is just fit for the dumpster).

For example, there is a lot of guidance in Harrington's cash books that is no doubt valid and true, but as a primer for a beginner in 2017...absolutely no chance.

I think 2015 is a bit too "arbitrary" though

PS

TMOP & Applications of NLHE are not really BQ primers. I would expect anybody attempting them would already have got their act together when it comes to assessing training resources. Indeed the proprietors of this site make that very point on the inside cover of "Applications".

Almost everyone here always says Harrington is outdated, but can you elaborate and explain what exactly is invalid?

Funny that you illustrate that poker strategy never changes with an outdated theorem.

Anything that is based on population reads might be outdated, but the mathematics of the game stays the same.

Disclaimer. It is more than five years since I read a Harrington cash book and I no longer have them to hand. I'm working from memory, so if there are any errors below, please go ahead and flame me.

"Exactly" Nope, not without a wall of text. But I'll give you one quick example. If you follow Harrington's advice on cbetting, you'll end up cbetting at far too high a frequency for modern online NLHE. You might get away with that at nano stakes or during peak fish hours, but if you are battling regs at any meaningful stake, you'll get exploited all day long.

Harrington's advice on cbetting focuses on flop texture and villain tendencies.

A modern text cbet advice will focus on balance and combo selection. Crucially, it will also focus on balancing your check/calling range with stronger hands (hands that Harrington would have you cbetting). So you end with a much lower, but much more balanced cbetting freq.

Just a tiny, simple example to try and be helpful....there are people on here waaayyyy better than me at explaining this sort of technical detail.

Finally, I bolded "online" because this is fundamental. In a low stakes live fish fest balance will be the last thing on your mind.

Finding advice that is geared towards certain stakes is super important as well. Trying to break-even at nl2 and reading certain things seems to hurt your game if you try to put advanced concepts into play when you don't totally get the fundamentals. This is something that I have been struggling with.

The single most important thing to make money from poker is to find the right game to play in. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

There are still plenty of games out there where Baluga's theorem is applicable and c/c flop, c/r turns = nuts.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/32...uncements.html

There's a couple of areas. The biggest today is that the level of play that he describes at nosebleed stakes just doesn't exist anymore. There are almost no 25/50 live games anywhere and the play that is described would be more of what you'd expect at an weak 2/5 or strongish 1/2 game.

Cbetting is the second. Harrington literally introduced it to the masses. Top players at the time thought they were the only ones who were betting on the flop with air, but their opponents were playing straight fit or fold. The wide spread use of hole cameras were just beginning and days of filming a tournament was brand new. Harrington was promoting it hard because people were just folding. The concept of floating a cbet didn't exist.

The third area I never really liked Harrington's arbitrary balance play by using his watch. I think the more modern concepts of balancing ranges rather than play with a single hand is more effective.

If it's posted by that guy sixfour it's pretty much useless apparently

'Applications' is a useful book for range-based theoretical thinking, but as a "tactical cookbook", it was out of date the moment it was published. (No one was opening for 3.5bb in 2013). I have high hopes for Janda's new book (due any second), but it will no doubt have similar problems due to being overtaken by the technology it discusses. Book publishing is slow. Software is fast.
TMoP, by contrast, might be timeless to the same degree that it is useless.

P.S. Here's a review of 'Applications' that was written today:
Who is the mystery reviewer?

Foundational knowledge does not expire.
Folding 72 is just as right today as it was in 1975.

I am always agreeing with Arty, but in this case I think he absolutely nails it. I made a point in another thread about the writing (or editorial) quality of Applications and my biggest single gripe is he just does not make it clear enough that is is a theory book for understanding what optimal balanced play is, given that many people who read it will not have been formally educated in the difference/relationship between the theoretical world and the real world. For all that, I still think it is an important read.

So all this time I spent getting 72 in pre was a mistake?!?!?!?!?

For sure, i agree with this statement.

And yeah at the end of the day our goal is to make money