Hey everyone, I used to grind tournaments online before Black Friday, primarily 45-man SNGs. I'm in the U.S. so I can't do this anymore, but am getting back into poker and want to play live, starting out at 1/2. I have read cover to cover at least three dozen poker books, but almost none of them were useful for 1/2. In fact, if you play like many of these books advocate at 1/2, I expect you would not do well. I got back recently from a trip to Winstar World Casino and found the play was rather bizarre and all my reading wasn't worth a damn, except for the fundamentals like combinatorics, pot odds, effective stack sizes, etc. But other things like bluffing frequency, fold equity, blind stealing, squeezing, isolating fish, etc., these things simply do not work in the games I was in. Typical action is 5 to 7 players seeing the flop, and even faced with a raise of $8 + 2x where x is the number of limpers, most players will call. It reminded me of online .01/.02 to be honest.

I've found two books that were helpful at 1/2, but even these seemed a little off and both advocated different strategies: Steve Selbrede's Donkey Poker Volume I, and Jonathan Little's Strategies for Beating Small Stakes Cash Games. Donkey Poker advocates a "small-ball" and rather tight approach, as well as buying in for 50BB. Little's book advocates a more LAG approach, and buying in as deep as possible. I tended to think Little's book was more applicable while playing, but it is rather short, and doesn't go into much detail in certain very common situations. For instance, it is rare in this game for players to fold and you to be first to act, even if you're in middle position, but Little spends a big chunk of the book talking about how to play when it's folded to you. It's also rare to see one or two limpers, but Little spends a big chunk talking about how to play with one or two limpers in front of you. The most common situation when in position, by far, is 5+ limpers, but the book is not much help here. The second most common situation was when there were several LAGs at the table, nearly every hand would be raised preflop and called by four or five players, making these bloated multiway pots. Again, Little is not much help here.

The other cash game books I've read, if they address small stakes at all, they do so for about 10 pages with very generic advice, generally in the form of "Play tight ABC poker and you will win mounds of cash" followed by a number of unrealistic "examples."

So, with all this in mind, can I get some book recommendations for live 1/2? I'm considering Vol. 2 and Vol. 3 of Selbrede's Donkey Poker, but I'm not sure I trust his approach and don't want to pick up a lot of bad habits. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be much else out there written for live games below 2/5, so I'm a little lost.

Please let me know if you think the Donkey Poker books are worth buying, and also if there are books I may have overlooked. Thank you!

The course by Miller is pretty much a guide for 1-2 and 2-5 and gives you the skills needed to beat those games. I think you'll enjoy it

Thanks. I think that's one of the only recent Ed Miller books I haven't read. I have Professional No Limit Hold 'Em Volume One (Is there a volume 2?), Small Stakes No Limit Hold 'Em, How to Read Hands at No Limit Hold 'Em, and Playing the Player. Oh, he also wrote one called "Poker's 1%" or something like that. Not sure what it's about exactly, but I'm guessing more the mental game aspects. I also see he recently wrote one with James Sweeney called "Poker Workbook: Handreading for Live Players" that sounds possibly useful, but it's $70, so I'd like to hear confirmation of this before buying it. Are you familiar with this one?

Playing tight and buying in for a short stack is the way to go, especially if you're transitioning from sit n gos. I've never heard of the Donkey Poker book but it sounds like it's on the right track

I am an expert with a stack < 25BB but you can't buy in that short around here. The minimum buyin is 50BB I think, and 40 - 60 BB I don't play very well. I think I play 100BB pretty well. Haven't had a chance to play much 200BB+ deep as I've run bad every time I've gotten my stack that high (very small sample size, like 25 hours).

Donkey Poker has a lot of great information--charts and stats about different hands play in multiway pots, but I don't know about this "small ball" buy in short approach. Also, Steve's winrate is good but not "write a book good" IMO, at $14.25/hour, so I think his strategy is probably suboptimal.

I haven't finished the book to be honest. I just have Vol. 1 of 3 and it's almost 300 very dense pages in length, but I'm working on it.

It's kind of amazing how few books there are for small stakes cash games. Pros write books on how to play in the WSOP ME or in 10/20 cash games when 99% of their audience is never going to get past $100 donkaments or 1/2 cash.

@Pocket44s

Oh, and I looked at The Course. Price is almost $50. If it's just Ed Miller rehashing the same concepts as his previous books it would be a waste of time and money. Can you answer if the book is mostly new content or just repackaged and updated old content? Because I already have several of his books.

Personally I don't like buying in short, but to each his own.

I only own one Ed Miller book due to that specific price reason. If I were to guess, it probably rehashes a lot of the same ideas as earlier books. The book actually tells you to purchase "play the player" and "How to read hands" in order to expand on topics in "The Course". Here's some chapter information to see if anything sounds new to you:

Part I: Mainly an introduction on how poker economy works and the various forms of poker available to play.

Part 2: Beating live 1-2 games with a focus on strong preflop play, folding against big turn and river bets, and assessing hand value based on flop.

Part 3: Beating live 2-5 games with a focus on barreling, evaluating board texture, making live reads, and emotional numbing.

Part 4: A small section on how to begin beating 5-10 games. Exploiting aggression, playing deep, and playing tougher opponents. Each section contains hand quizzes and recommended reading (the books I listed prior mainly).

I like the book a lot, my only criticism being that instead of incorporating material from prior books to make the book better rounded, it simply recommends you read other expensive titles to help bring the material together.

I have Playing the Player and How to Read Hands at No Limit Hold 'Em (both very good, especially Playing the Player). Thanks for outlining the chapter information. It actually does look like it contains new content, particularly Part 2. There's nothing aimed at 1/2 in his previous books I've read. I'm not sure there's anything aimed at 2/5 either. Barreling, board texture, and making reads he covers in previous books but I don't know what "emotional numbing" is.

Yeah, that's a common problem in poker books, or instructional books in general I expect. For instance, Jonathan Little's "Strategies for Beating Small Stakes Poker" frequently tells the reader a particular topic is not covered in this book, but see (Previous Work X) for details. Cover to cover, it recommends Jonathan Little on Live No Limit Cash Games Volume I and Volume II, Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker Volume I, II, and III, and Positive Poker, a poker psychology book. Basically, he recommends you buy everything he's ever written. It's ridiculous. Since I have all these books (except Positive Poker) it doesn't bother me much, but I'd be pissed if I bought the book to see all the stuff it left out. It's only 114 pages! Still, it's the best book on 1/2 I've found yet, so for me, definitely worth the buy, but maybe not if you don't have some of the other titles as he glosses over certain very important topics, referencing his other books rather than giving even a brief summary (such as how to play different stack sizes).

I'm going to pull the trigger on buying The Course. Even if it's just Part 2 that's new material, I think it's worth it. Though I still don't understand why Ed Miller charges $50 for his books and everybody else charges $20 - $30. Whatever...ten red chips.

Thanks again