Harrington on Hold 'em: Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments (Strategic Play)

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: A great book on no limit hold em. A must for all beginners and intermediate players. Most advanced players will learn too, and want to know what all the beginners are reading. Lots of sample hands and reasons for plays. The best book on no limit hold em I have read.

Rating:
Summary: entertaining and informative
Review: As other reviews have pointed out, it distills Sklansky's and Brunson's thoughts into digestible form. I thought it stood out from both of those books, though, for 2 reasons: its flexibility and its personal style.

Harrington is of course known for a particular style of play, and he explains its merits in the text. He also explains its disadvantages, though, and presents alternative approaches with a balanced review of their strengths and weaknesses.

Moreover, the book is written in a wry, personal, occasionally very funny tone, and was fun to read. The practice hands are extremely deep and well-explained.

One minor complaint (also noted by another reviewer) is that there are a number of mildly irritating typos and grammar errors; I'm the sort of person who gets annoyed at such things, though, and it didn't hamper my enjoyment of the book.

I eagerly await the second volume.

Rating:
Summary: Best book of its kind on the market!
Review: Harrington's book is so informative and easy to understand. His strategies are worded in such a way that the reader can easily pick them up and put them to use. Also, Harrington keeps his book interesting by throwing in realistic scenarios for you to analyze and then asks the reader, "What would you do?" He'll then go on to explain what you should probably do and why. I give this book five stars only because I couldn't give it six on your rating scale! Bravo, Mr. Harrington! Great book!

Rating:
Summary: Top notch; very pleasantly surprised
Review: No limit hold'em, obviously, is a complex game. So complex that there has never been a good comprehensive treatment in a book form; I had thought that this was because it involves more "table feel", experience and intuition that can't be easily taught or expressed in a useful format.

Harrington and Robertie have done just that. Harrington is the 1995 world champion, and the only player to make the final table in both 2003 and 2004, overcoming the two biggest fields in World Series history (839 and 2,576 players, respectively). Robertie is a top backgammon player and author of several excellent books on that game.

Among the top players, there are drastically different styles of play, from conservative to super-aggressive. One problem I expected was that given Harrington's solid, fairly conservative style, he wouldn't be able to give much useful information on playing at the other end of the end of the spectrum, styles such as those employed by Daniel Negreanu and Gus Hansen.

I was wrong. The book does a fine job addressing the relative merits of various styles, playing against each type of opponent, and even choosing one for yourself. This makes sense; no matter his own style, to be successful he has to have spent a lot of time thinking about, observing, and combatting all different types of players. Further, a playing style isn't cast in stone; even the most conservative players have to switch gears and become much more aggressive at times, and vice versa.

A few more notes on this idea: first, Harrington's own play as described isn't as conservative and cautious as many think. Second, a fairly conservative approach is demonstrably the more sound one for the student, and anyone without many years of experience. Hyper-aggressive play would be much harder to teach well, and also much harder to pull off successfully. The players who thrive playing these aggressive, gambling styles have exceptional talent as well as lots of experience and a great feel for the game and their opponents, and are faced with difficult decisions under lots of pressure much more often. For those who insist on trying, it probably still makes more sense to learn a fundamentally sounder style first and then proceed from there.

The book is laid out well for learning. Each chapter starts with a discussion of the topic, touching on the theory. There are several example situations with the authors' answers and detailed reasoning, as well as the merits of alternative plays. Following each chapter there are problems, mostly from real hands. It provides a diagram of the table, the chip counts for each player, your knowledge of the opponents, etc... all the relevant information. The problems usually provide all this information even when some of it is irrelevant to the problem, which is a strength. A big part of the decision-making process in poker (as well as lots of other things) is recognizing and eliminating extraneous details to make analysis more managable.

This is the first in a two volume set. I thought this was odd, as this is first for 2+2 poker books, but the first volume is bigger than most of their others already. The book is self-contained; there are no partial answers or information that tell you to buy the second volume for the details. I don't think there has been an official announcement on when Volume 2 will be released, but I've heard sometime this spring.

The book is geared specifically toward tournaments, and especially toward those with well-defined formats, such as major casino/cardroom events and those on the Internet. For cash game players, a solid understanding of tournament and poker theory would be necessary to make the appropriate adjustments to cash play. Most of the book would still apply, but some situations would change drastically in a side game, where simply getting your money in with an advantage, rather than survival, is the main goal.

For those newer to poker, to get the most out of this book, I would recommend a few others be read either first or at the same time: "The Theory of Poker" by David Sklansky, "Small Stakes Hold'em" by Miller, Sklansky and Malmuth, and "Winning Low Limit HOld'em" by Lee Jones, especially for the newest players.

Rating:
Summary: Harrington on Hold'em
Review: Read the book at won a 50 man tourney the next night....that's progress!

Rating:
Summary: A pretty good book...
Review: This book wasn't bad at all.

It takes theories found in Sklanskys Tournement Poker for Advanced Players and explains them using simpler language, and many practice hand examples.

In fact, I would say that the most valuable part of this book is the countless practice hands found throughout.

It dumbs down the concepts of pot odds, and implied odds, so that they are a lot more practical and easily applicable to the game. His writings really drive home the importance of calculationg the odds regularly, not by giving complicated mathamatical results over the long term, but by using more easy to understand examples and everyday scenarios.

I would say that this book could be read as a stand alone, how-to book for no-limit Hold em tournements. It does however only deal with the early and middle stages of tournements (He is releasing a volume two that will cover late stages and final table play).

But I would certainly recommend reading Sklansky's book for a more thourough study of the game in general.

Specifically Theory of Poker for a good understanding of, well Poker Theory.

Hold em for advanced players for a solid understanding of how these theories apply to Hold em specifically, and for a good solid grasp of starting requirements and the value of specific hands.

Tournement Poker for Advanced Players for some specialized theories related to tournement play.

Harrington draws from all three of these books and refers to them in this book.

Overall I would say its a good book (even with a few too many typos) and could be valuable to a begining player interested in tournement play, even if he hasn't read any other books. I also feel that even more seasoned players will enjoy it and be able to draw some good insights from it.





Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book on NL Hold 'em Tournament Strategy
Review: This book wildly surpassed my expectations. I have read several poker books and I am a big fan of Sklansky and Malmuth's books in particular. Having read so many books on poker already it is rare that I find one that contains much new information. Mr. Harrington's book was a delightful exception. It seems as though he truly held nothing back and revealed the full spectrum of his tournament strategy for the early rounds (at least as much as possible for such a situation-dependent game).

I highly recommend this book for beginners and experienced players alike (although I recommend the beginners "fill out" their poker knowledge with other books as well). I definitely recommend it over _Pot Limit and No-Limit Poker_ by Ciaffone and Reuben, and _Championship No-Limit and Pot-Limit Hold 'em_ by Cloutier and McEvoy. An aspiring expert should read all of these books eventually, but Mr. Harrington's is definitely the superior treatise on the subject of No-Limit Hold 'em--buy his book first.

I hope this review was helpful to you.

Rating:
Summary: Takes The Place of SuperSystem
Review: This is probably the best poker book I have ever read. The book is a blend of math, stories, strategy, and analysis of actual hands.

The book begins by discussing various popluar styles for NL holdem and their strengths and weaknesses. Moves to starting hand selection by table condition, then on to post flop play.

Hand analysis is a round by round analysis of the way to get the most chips with the least risk from your opponenets. Dan even shows you how to recover from mistakes in the previous round.

Can't wait for VolII.