Title says it all.

Losing player looking to improve. What book would recommend right now?

Ed Miller’s _The Course_

Harrington on cash games is also decent.

+1 “The Course” really brought opening ranges in focus for me. Numerous other fundamental concepts also presented in a very easy to understand manner. IMHO an excellent text.

Yes. Easy for a losing player to understand and will likely make them at least a not losing player, even if it is somewhat basic.

Lord knows I was once a losing player. Harrington helped get me to zero. Also brought me to this site so happy to get him paid.

What are the blind spots in Harrington on cash games?

The samples of Sklansky's new, updated book look pretty good and is the latest out there. Ed Miller writes better than Malmuth and Sklansky, so many find his books a better fit for them.

Harrington's book was published over 10 years ago. The examples he gives aren't realistic at this point for the live game today. If you're able extrapolate the concepts and apply them to today's game, it is valuable. However, most losing players lack that skill and want a "cookbook," not a course in becoming a chef.

If I had to do things over again, I would have bought a lot less books and spent more time here analyzing hand histories.

The big thing is to figure out why you are losing. For many LLSNL players, it comes down to playing too many hands, chasing draws when they don't have the odds to make them pay off and overvaluing TP. Getting those under control will get a player back to breakeven.

My guess is that any book that lays out some fundamentals and gets you thinking about what you should be thinking about would be a great start for a losing player. I've personally read Harrington on Cash, Professional No-Limit Hold'em and No Limit Hold'em Theory and Practice (and in that order). While they all have their pros and cons, if I was forced to choose just one of these, in would likely be PNLHE, mainly due to how it focuses on the importance of how preflop has a profound affect on the rest of the hand plus its SPR concept. But I'm guessing there are lots of other books out there that have good ideas too.

I would just suggest reading, playing, posting and then repeating to help hammer some concepts home.

Ggoodluck!G

What's different about "today's game"? Softer or tougher? In what way?

I'm asking a lot about hoc because I'm in the middle of reading volume 2 right now. It strikes me as very conservative TAG and 5/10+ stakes are probably way tougher now.

Also there's little discussion of concepts I know are ultra relevant for tough limit games which is blind steal, re-steal, and defense

HOC is still good for LLSNL. Dated for 5/10NL+, and even some more aggro 2/5 games. It's easy to digest and explains things clearly though, so would likely turn a losing player around.

It is not designed for limit games at all.

I know it's for NL games. What I meant was I know steal/defense is a very big part of tough limit games but HOC doesn't talk about it much, so either it's not a big deal in NL or it's a blind spot for HOC.

It's a much smaller deal in NL games, especially deep ones. In tournaments it's much more important, and HOH talks about it. In tough NL games, it's a difference maker, but it's way down the list for transforming a losing player into a winning one.

Thanks Garrick!

So, if one reads and digests HOC, PNLHE, and NLHETAP would Janda's books be the next step? (also, I can handle mathematically intense stuff if that changes recommendations)

Edit: sorry for hijacking OP!

Now you're getting past my level of expertise. Miller, Janda and Little all have fans.

Janda's NLHE for advanced players was one I read eventually. It was good too. They all overlap to some degree, really. I don't know how much more I got out of each one as I went forward to be honest.

Now that I've depleted most of the hold 'em poker library out there I still find myself, not reading books, but posting HHs here and with friends, watching pros play on zoom, taking HH quizzes on Little's site. I've transitioned to digital much more than print at this point. I think the online sites are quite valuable to get you from marginal winner to the next level. Crushlivepoker has a good one-month free trial too.

I'm more of a nit. I genuinely don't chase draws, even when I likely should. My biggest losses come from not knowing when I'm beat with an over pair. Us tight players wait so long for a decent had that it's hard to fold QQ+ (not pre flop obviously).

My sample size is probably too small to decipher anything meaningful, but spots like that and AK when I flop TPTK and lose. I just don't know when to fold.

Having said that, I'm sure I'm doing more wrong than just running bad with big hands. Thus, the need to start from the ground up again with a good book.

Reading Ed Miller "The Course" now.

I am a relatively new-ish learning player and I started with The Course. Great book for fundamentals, might have to go back through the hand histories at some point for a refresher. Now I've been reading Grinders Manual which is focused on online 6max but I think it's a fantastic follow up to The Course even for exclusively live players. Specifically, the earlier chapters on ranges, cbetting/fold equity, as well as different types of fish and how to adjust to them has helped a ton in live play for me as well.

There is also a section on limped pots which constitutes the vast majority of live pots and breaks down when to fold/overlimp/isolate and what factors you should consider as well. It's fantastic imo

A good discussion on isoing v overlimping would be awesome.

Do we have anything like that in the digest?

If you're reading V2, you may notice that there are very few "live" examples. Almost everything is online which is where most players were at that time in the US market. The few live examples are at stakes that almost never run today and would be much tougher today than at that time. I agree with Garick that if you ignored the stakes and just assumed it was LLSNL, it isn't too far off. That said, the chapter on low stakes games doesn't really apply today. It would be rare that a game would play that soft.

If that's the case, you don't need "The Course" yet. HOC discusses this in some detail. At the core, Harrington makes the point that TPTK and OP win lots of small pots but loses big pots. They are good hands pf and on the flop. However, if someone is calling pf and on the flop, then takes the lead on the turn, you're often behind in LLSNL. If most of your stack is in the pot on the river, you're behind.

I treat in general TPTK and OP as two street betting hands. I'm not going to b/b/b and win often. So I'm going to check somewhere in the process. It might be the flop, turn or river depending on the board, not on my hand.

So how do you stop calling raises? One way is to say,

"They aren't playing back at me."
"They aren't playing back at me."
"They aren't playing back at me."
"They aren't playing back at me."

Because they aren't. If some raises you on the river, they have a great hand far more often than they are bluffing.

The second area is to realize that your major decision point is on the flop. If you're going to fold to a turn bet, you're better off folding to the flop bet. Money saved is money won.