Harrington on Hold ‘em Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments, Vol. 1: Strategic Play
Harrington on Hold 'em Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments, Vol. 1: Strategic Play
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Product Description
Poker has taken America by storm. But it s not just any form of poker that has people across the country so excited it s No-Limit Hold Em the main event game. And now thanks to televised tournaments tens of thousands of new players are eager to claim their share of poker glory.
Harrington on Hold Em takes you to the part of the game the cameras ignore the tactics required to get through the hundreds and sometimes thousands of hands you must win to make it to the final table. Harrington s sophisticated and time-tested winning strategies, focusing on what it takes to survive the early and middle stages of a No-Limit Hold Em tournament, are appearing here for the first time in print. These are techniques that top players use again and again to get to make it to final tables around the globe.
Now, learn from one of the world s most successful No-Limit Hold Em players how to vary your style, optimize your betting patterns, analyze hands, respond to a re-raise, play to win the most money possible, react when a bad card hits and much, much more.
Dan Harrington won the gold bracelet and the World Champion title at the $10,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold Em Championship at the 1995 World Series of Poker. And he was the only player to make it to the final table in 2003 (field of 839) and 2004 (field of 2576) considered by cognoscenti to be the greatest accomplishment in WSOP history. In Harrington on Hold Em, Harrington and 2-time World Backgammon Champion Bill Robertie have written the definitive book on No-Limit Hold Em for players who want to win ... and win big.
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Rating
Harrington on Hold Em has improved my game tremendously. I’ve never won a Texas Hold Em event. I learned many successful strategies from this book which I put to use at a recent Texas Hold Em game with 11 decent players. I was happy to place second, given my “newbie” status. Maybe Harrington’s Volume II will help me achieve first place next time!
Rating
I added this to my collection recently. Its one of the top books I have read. I haven’t read them all, but have about 9 books. Dan’s book will help keep you out of trouble by limiting the tough decisions you have to go through in a tournament. He has a conservative style, but that is what you need to survive early. I like his hand examples. You really get two for one on most questions. He lays out the situation and goes over the “right” play. After that, he’ll continue through the hand assuming you took the “less than best starting play” and works his way through the hand trying to limit the damage of the novice type play.
I don’t think I have ever recommended a poker book, and I am thinking twice about recommending this one. I want the information all to myself! And I want volume two to come out soon.
I think there should be a pre-req to this book. Get a Sklansky book and learn the game from the math angle. Sometimes when faced with the absolute, “I have no clue what to do here” situation, go to the math and let it decide for you. Harrington does it.
Rating
Seems like everyone loves this book!
I bought it because I had just started playing a weekly tournament where I live and wanted to improve my game. Why do something if you can’t be good at it, and why learn from your own mistakes (at cost) when you can learn from someone else’s (free)?
This book paid for itself immediately. Some of the fundamental concepts in this book seem extremely obvious once they’ve been pointed out to you, but cost real money until you grasp them. Others I already been using somewhat intuitively, but by examining them I apply them better.
His tight pre-flop play, for example, was a sea change. Throwing away cards that I don’t even want to get hit on the river instead of limping in to see the flop not only save me the blind when I miss the flop, but also the subsequent bets trying to defend the second-best hand when my 9 pairs up. Basic stuff, but how many hands/rounds/sessions of losing would it have taken me to figure out that mediocre hands cost more than trash hands? At $20, Harrington’s book was the cheaper choice. How much money would it have cost me to discover the connection between an opponents stack size relative to the blinds and his playable hands? A lot more than $20, that’s for sure!
Furthermore, the book deals very well with the concept of pot odds — something I as a beginner had a hard time grasping and calculating under pressure, but which is helping transform my game from purely intuitive towards odds-based — a good thing when one’s lack of experience makes one’s intuition suspect.
Obviously, there are tricks and stratagems in the book for the advanced player (which I’m studying furiously as well), but it’s the solid presentation of the fundamentals that make this book and it’s follow-up volume.
The problems at the end of the chapters are also extremely valuable, if for no other reason than because they keep you from just skimming through the chapters and recognizing concepts instead of actually learning them. Many times I found myself challenged by the problems and having to go back and review — again, a lesson that would have cost me cash only cost me time.
I’ve already transformed my game and am a noticeably stronger player than before. While it’s been hard to make the style adjustment, the returns are making up for it: I’m no shark yet, but I’m making money in the cash games as well as the tournaments, and against people who have been playing much, much longer than I.
If you play hold-em for any kind of money at all, invest a few dollars and by this and the second book in the series.
Rating
I would just like to say that I have read over 14 books on poker, won tournaments, and I was fortunate to be in the 2003 WSOP.
That said, I read this book and realized that I still have a LOT of holes in my game REGARDLESS of my playing style.
I learned that I haven’t been tracking my opponent’s betting patterns as much as I should be. I learned that I have been giving my opponent’s proper odds to make calls in certain situations because I didn’t pay enough attention to the money in the pot. I learned how to apply some of the lessons in Theory of Poker to NLHE Tournaments (i.e. make your opponents make mistakes) thanks to the examples/problems/exercises in this book. I wasn’t making enough calls pre-flop because I was too focused on staying alive in the tournament (because of Cloutier/McEvoy books which I will discuss next) instead of looking at pre-flop pot odds. I wasn’t paying enough attention to what players thought of me to use that at different stages of the tournament.
I have a lot of the Cloutier/McEvoy books and one of their main points in surviving a tournament is to throw pot odds out the window because you can get busted out of a tournament on any given hand. Basically: Don’t play hands like J-10 suited or 9-8 suited in the blinds or late position in a tournament even if it’s only $20 more to call an early position raiser with $10-$20 blinds because those are chip-burners you’ll need later to double up when you have AA or KK.
Harrington claims that Pot Odds are Paramount. Page 375. And I believe him now. While I have had success playing big hands and big pairs, I have always realized that I need to loosen up my starting requirements, but now I realize HOW to loosen up my starting requirements IF Pot Odds are favorable to me and I won’t be making a “mistake”. (As always, “it depends” on a lot of factors before you play these hands) It’s not that I didn’t play the occasional K-J suited or Q-10 suited for another bet, it’s that I wasn’t even THINKING about how I was getting great odds pre-flop. Poker is a thinking game, and I see that I need to do a lot more thinking when I’m playing.
When I have won tournaments or done well, the stars and planets were pretty much in alignment. The AK beats the pair, the pair beats the AK. But that doesn’t happen often enough to justify entering the number of tournaments I entered in 2003. I had holes in my NLHE Tournament game that I can take care of now thanks to this book.
I’ve read SuperSystem, Theory Of Poker, Championship Series, Tournament Hold ‘Em by Sklansky, and a whole bunch of other books and they all had a lot of great information. I honestly thought this book would be more of the same, but it wasn’t.
I learned in Harrington’s book how to use what I’ve learned in those other books (particularly Theory Of Poker) and how to open up my starting hands quite a bit.
No Limit Tournaments will always be big money tournaments, at least for the next 100 years. If you’re going to play in those tournaments, I recommend that you get this book and hold it in the same esteem as the other poker “classics” because this one holds it own with SuperSystem, Theory Of Poker, and the Championship Series.
Rating
Let me just say this first: These two books are the finest tournament poker books every made.
Doyle Brunson at first wanted to sell his original Super System for $1000 a copy as it was the finest collection of poker strategies ever put on paper. These two books are so good that they could also be sold for $1000 a piece, they are that good
Dan Harrington has earned the nickname “Action Dan” due to his super rockish appearance. His super tight style seems to be a throw back to the early days of tournament poker. When this book first came out I thought it would be another book that wanted to teach you how to become the most masterful laydown artist (not a complement), however this is not the case.
Volume One addresses the nature of tournaments and sound strategies that are benificial to all player style types. The name of the game in the beginning stages of every tournament is survival and Vol. One addresses many problem that may arise. This is not a “if-this-happens-do-this” type book, these books review “situations”. How one handles “situations” is what seperates the winning players from everyone else. After each chapter there are a number of exercises that first set up the hand, how opponents have appeared in previous hands, what your possible table image is, the blind levels, and both your opponents chip count and your own.
The first book will do a great deal of good to players that seem to get knocked out often. Everyone from the tightest rock to the loosest hyper-aggressive players will take away a great deal from this book.
Volume Two addresses many key concepts that are unique to the later stages of tournaments where you may or may not have the luxury of having solid hands and easy decisions. Crazy things happen toward the end of tournaments. The later stages of tournaments are the situations that make the cut in televised poker, they just flat out make good TV!
In volume two, Harrington addresses key problems such as inflection points, making a move on a pot, short handed play and other concepts that you must know to reach final tables regularly.
While these books specialize on tournament poker, the concepts discussed are key to both tournament and cash game play. These books are not beginner books, many concepts are very advanced and require the ability to spot key situations that newer players will not notice. I highly recommend these books to both skilled players hand to players who have advanced past the “Winning Low Limit Holdem” and “Holdem for Dummys” level and are looking for the next step. Both of these books belong in your poker library. The list price is $30, they both can be found on amazon for around $20, again they are worth thier weight in gold.
Rating
I wanted to add to the long list of positive reviews on this book by adding a few facts in which this book has improved my game. I’ve read some other books on No-Limit and I’ve played online for a little over a year and live play at a small poker room for almost 6 months. It wasn’t until I read this book that my play drastically improved. I almost want to write a bad review to keep people from buying it and improving their own game. After finishing the book I went off to my local poker room to play in one of their weekly 100 person max NL tournaments. I have consistently been a 50/50 player at the sit n’ go live tournaments, meaning I win money 50% of the time and lose money 50% of the time. I figured my play would improve from the knowledge in the book but I had no idea how much of an improvement I would have. I won! Yeah thats right, I won my first tournament larger than a sit n’ go at live play after finishing the book. My online play win percentage has increased as well, I consistently finish in the money in major tournaments. I’ve finished in the money 11 of 15 of my last online tournemants with more than 1500 entrants and made 2 final tables. I consider this a drastic improvement and attribute the majority of my success to the knowledge in this book. I can’t wait to finish and absorb volume II as it appears the endgame is where I need to improve at this point. The best part of the book for me is that it made everything “click” in my mind. I highly recommend the book and wish you all the disciplne and patience needed to win ~ luck is for losers
Rating
I have been playing poker for about 6 months. This book is absolutely filled with information about hold em. Probably the most important thing I am learning from it is just how to understand the game. There are so many aspects of this game that need to be looked at. Now I have realized that there are many more factors you need to look at besides tells and the cards in front of you. I am probably going to give this another read-through (maybe of just the real important topics) just so I clearly understand what Dan is trying to teach. This will help apply the new concepts I have learned. Dan teaches you how to interpret your opponents actions and how to act on those interpretations. The best part about this book is probably the examples. From what I have counted, there are about 71 “problems” or examples. These are probably not what you are imagining (this is really great). On each problem you are given a VERY detailed set of circumstances. You can see the actual table on the page, your position, the amount of $$$ each player has, and Dan tells you if certain players are tight, loose, etc. Then Dan goes on with an explanation such as: “Player D in first position is a young, super-aggressive player. Other than that the table seems pretty conservative. Your hand is: King, Queen.” This is just an example I made up, its not in the book. But there are about 70 of these problems and each has an explanation of all the different possibilities that could occur during the hand. Each explanation is a few pages long. The great thing is that you can try to answer these yourself by thinking about the concepts you learned during the chapter. Three of the more helpful chapters for me were the ones on the different types of bets (value bets, continuation bets, probe bets), the chapter on pot odds, and the chapter on the Gap Concept. I think another real virtue is Dan’s writing. Most books I can’t read in a couple of days. But this book is almost 400 pages and I was through it in a few days. Thats mostly because I’m very interested in poker, but Dan has a good writing style which keeps me interested. Also, in the back there is a section for “notes” which is nice because you can study the new concepts taught in the book. I must say, this book has been helpful mostly because my style of play is mostly like Dan’s (very conservative) but I think any hold em player would get a lot out of this book. I can’t wait for volume two to come out! 5 stars out of 5.
Rating
Dan Harrington is one of the premier tournament players in the world. And this is by far the best book on tournament hold ‘em. Some have recommended David Sklansky’s tournament book over this; however, I would personally recommend this over Skalansky’s book.
First and foremost, it is a much better written book. Sklansky is certainly a brilliant theorist, but he does not write in a coherent style. On the other hand, Harrington, with the help of his co-writer, writes in a lucid style. You will not catch yourself re-reading sentences and paragraphs as you will with Sklansky’s book.
Secondly, Dan Harrington is a premier no limit hold ‘em tourney specialist. His back-to-back final table appearances in 2003 and 2004 may be the greatest achievement by a single player in the history of the WSOP Main Event. Why would you not take this man’s advice?
And finally, Action Dan makes you think like a poker pro. He takes you into the thinking processes of championship-caliber poker gods as they make moves that are seemingly absurd to us mere mortals.
Another common failing of most poker books–and this applies to even such classics as Super System–is that they teach you one particular style, whether that be aggressive like Doyle’s or more solid and math-oriented like Sklansky’s. What is special about Harrington’s book is that while its author is known for his tighter than tight “rock” image, it exposes you to all the different styles. So whatever your current style may be, you will be able to apply the advice in this book.
This book transformed me from a poker neophyte to a feared online player. And while I have studied just about all the poker classics, I attribute my rapid poker growth first and foremost to this book. In fact, I just won a seat to the 2005 WSOP Main Event, and if I am fortunate to meet Action Dan in Vegas, I will be sure to thank him for this great gift to us poker amateurs.
Rating
Every time I read a ‘poker book’, my play seems to suffer until I can figure out how to incporate the new thoughts I have with my style of play. Not true with this book – in some instances my style of play felt ‘validated’, and in others, I learned where my style of thinking was differing from a ‘professional’.
This book has a different ‘style’ from other books – it doesn’t start with lame advice like ‘hand rankings’… it runs down the difference between amateur and professional thinking – things like position, bets a multiples of the blinds, etc. it then talks you through scenario after scenario from real poker situations, asks you what you would do, then explains how he would have thought about it. These scenarios are grouped into sections with 3-5 hands designed to ‘teach a lesson’.
This is truly a magnificent book – the first of its kind that I have found that teaches the person who already knows how to ‘play’, really how to PLAY.
Rating
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.
Rating
This is by far the only book you need , if you do not improove your game switch to monopoly or come to party poker and play with me
The books covers the following topics
- The Game of NL Hold ‘em
-Playing Styles and Starting requirements
-reading the table
-Pot Odds and Hand Analysis
-Betting before the flop
_Betting after the flop
-Betting on 4th and 5th st
It starts off with a very brief intro to NL Hold’em and how it has blown up in the past couple years
It went into the different styles :
-The Conservative Approach
-Aggressive Approach
-Super Aggrssive Approach
he does give u a basic strategy that u can follow , it a tight but not so tight approach , not like in Cloutier’s style if u do follow harringtons’s strategy u will have a good stack coming into the final table
he does give basic advice on tells and reading the table but nothing special if you want to go into details you might want to read Claro’s Book of tells
Overall It cant get any better i cant wait for Vol 2
Rating
I set out to buy a book on Poker, specifically on no limit hold ‘em, and started reading the reviews on Amazon to decide which one to buy. After reading the reviews up here on Harrington’s book, I decided to buy it. Boy, am I glad I did. I don’t know why I’m putting this review up, because I’ve made some ok money in the few times I’ve played since reading the bood, and I can’t understand why I would want others to play better, but I guess I owe a debt to those who gave great reviews before me.
This book is very easy to read, I breezed through it in a matter of a couple of days. It has problems at the end of each chapter that test your skills and strategy. I found, as the book went on, that I was able to think more and more like Harrington suggests a good hold ‘em player should. More importantly, I began succeeding in the poker clubs. I’ve used the thoughts from this book to play no limit and limit games at local card clubs, as well as in Las Vegas, where I made final table at a no limit tourney (and played a hand very well pre-flop that almost went my way and would’ve put me in the chip lead at that table had it stayed right).
This book lays out strategy that sound intuitive once you consider it. He recommends a fairly conservative style of play, but when you begin understanding the way the table works, you realize that you can play other styles as well, using the tools he’s equipped you with.
All in all, a great book, and hope that Harrington makes more money from his poker than he does from this book, or it’s trouble for all of us.
Rating
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
i’ve never played a deep stack tournament before.
i’ve watched plenty of no limit on dvd, and i’ve read a few other books which added a little to my game, but i still felt a bit under done. i know this is a poor substitute for actual table experience, but after reading the first 2 volumes of “harrington on hold em”, i felt ready. let me preface this by saying, i had no poker bankroll, this was a one off risk , and if it failed, well, it would be a while before i’d have the money to try again. i have a bankroll for horse racing , which is my main gambling strategy, but i scraped together whatever else i could for this adventure.
$1650 buy in, 2 day tournament, 1st prize $112k, 404 players (including joe hachem), 48 made the money.
i won’t kid you. i was nervous, i was sweating most of the time, but i wasn’t going to lie down. i was going to hang tough and play tight when it was needed, and i was going to loosen up when it was needed, i was ready to change gears whenever i felt i was stuck. when things got rough , i said to myself “what would dan do here?” . there were a few times i was on the canvas, there were a few times i was doing pretty well and well above the average chip stack, but by the start of day 2 i was 55th with 61 players remaining, pretty short stacked and looking likely to bubble out of the money.
i never gave up , and i played hard ball pre flop, not all in, but i always bet heavy. in particluar there was a move dan mentions in volume 2 that i was dying to try and the perfect moment arose.
49 players left, next person out would get nothing. naturally, no one wants to do anything stupid. cashing in my first tournament was very important to me. under the gun raises to 16k (blinds were 2k/4k with a 500ante), next 3 players fold, guy before me calls the 16k, i look down to see QQ. a big hand, sure, but not a powerhouse, and certainly vulnerable if an Ace or King flopped. normally, i’d consider calling, or maybe raising all in. i had about 100k, they both had me well and truly covered. i didn’t really want them to call, epecially with an Ace or a King. remembering a passage in volume 2, a play that dan used in the 2004 WSOP main event against raymer and arieh (although dan did it with 6-2 off suit, i at least had a hand.) i re raised them to 60k, not all in, but more than half my stack, so they knew i was pot committed. under the gun stewed for 2 minutes and folded, guy before me also stewed , but for about 30 seconds, and then folded. i added the 102k pot to my remaining 40k and breathed easy.
i later found out under the gun had pocket 10′s, and the other guy had AK , exactly the hand i didn’t want calling me. if i went all in (like i probably would have prior to reading vol. 2), i suspect i may have been called. maybe’my queens would have held up against the AK and the 10′s. i ran it through 10 times and the queens would have held up about 50%, the AK would have won 40% and the 10′s won 10%.
i ended up cashing in 33rd spot and got back more than double my entry fee + airfares + accomodation, which to most players wouldn’t raise their pulse,but to me, it was huge. don’t get me wrong, i was disguisted too, at not advancing much much deeper into the tournament.i know there were plenty of pro’s who were used to this stress, but i wasn’t. these 2 volumes gave me the confidence to know how to approach various stages of the tournament, especially the green/yellow/orange/red zone strategies, which i think were crucial to my surviving and thriving. if nothing else, it’s worth buying these 2 volumes just to understand this concept, which i’d never heard of before. i didn’t make any huge mistakes. a few hands i know i misplayed a little, where i could have extracted more chips when i won, and a few hands i could have lost a little less. i can’t wait for my next tournament, and i can’t wait for volume 3.
Rating
I have a fairly large (over 20) collection of poker books, and I have got to say this is the best book on the subject of tournament poker I have ever read. He writes about subjects that I have never seen in any other book, and the sample hand problems are actually relevant and interesting. I shouldn’t be encouraging anyone to get this book, because it’ll just make it harder on me next time I play in a tournament! See you at the final table!
Rating
An amazing book. “Action Dan” takes you all the way in to the hand to hand tourny action. It is great reading for anyone interested in NL action. Especially for those interested in tournaments, though most of the concepts can apply quite well to cash games.
Its a fast book, easy to follow, written in a comfortable, up close and personal way. The sample hands and exercises are very good too.
A must read, for anyone thinking about sitting at a No Limit table.
Rating
By far, the best poker text I have ever read. Slansky and Cloutier were useful, but Harrington is far far better at explaining the small details and strategies one must employ to compete at the top level. Honestly, worth its weight in chips…
Rating
I’ve been learning poker now since 2003 and have read many books on the subject including books by Doyle Brunson (Super System 2), Phil Hellmuth (Play Poker Like The Pros), a few by some lesser known authors and a couple of Sklansky books. My game has steadily improved over the past couple of years and I’ve won dozens of online sit and go tournaments, and various real life competitions. I’ve also learned that No Limit Texas Hold’em is a game that takes many years to master.
My game today is a world away from 2003 when I started. I can certainly hold my own in a low stakes game. However, this book by Harrington has proven to be the most valuable and insightful poker book I have ever read (about poker). My eyes have been opened to subtle game concepts that I had not previously considered. I can honestly say this is the best poker book I have ever seen. His writing style and method of using examples seems clearer to me than any other I’ve read. What he says makes perfect sense, even to an amateur like me.
Even before I had finished the book I could feel my game improving, I can’t wait to read the second volume and see how my game is by the end of that. I’d recommend this book to anyone that likes poker irregardless of their level of play.
Rating
On this book [Strategic Play], Harrington provides the basics of proper play, his thoughts on strategy and tactics, lots of problems/scenarios, and builds a foundation for the second book [End Play].
His approach works.
About a year a year ago I was invited to join a group that plays no-limit Texas Hold’em on a frequent basis. As the other players were far more experienced at poker than I [a few play in casinos or on-line], and because I didn’t know “I didn’t know what I was doing”, I usually finished last or near to last.
Since reading this book, I have not become a champion or won thousands of dollars any place (I only play in this group), but I have finished second a couple of times and recently came in first. But, even more importantly to me, the other players have commented on my improved play. That means they have begun to respect my play. Once they respect your play, you have more options, and you WILL win more pots. And that’s what this book is really about—how to win more pots in the long run.
Rating
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
Einstein stated that a truly knowledgable person should be able to explain even the most complex of ideas in such a way that even a child could understand them. That is the essence of this work. Harrington takes poker literature to another level, beyond the stratosphere, with this book. His writing style is so lucid that even concepts you’ve never considered come across as something that makes you think to yourself, “Wow, why didn’t I consider this before, its self-evident?” If you’ve ever read a book from two plus two, you know all too well that the authors almost always throw a disclaimer up front that basically states that they are terrible writers and communicators. Not so with this one, to do so would have been a travesty.
Also, unlike other authors (poker brat), if you really want to call them that, Harrington holds nothing back. He probably sees his career winding down and decided to lay it all out there. With the experience and intelligence that he possesses, bellieve me, “all” is alot. There is no possible way that you could read this book, even if you only give it a quick scan, and not dramatically improve your game. And I don’t care how successful you already are. And don’t shy away if you don’t like tournaments. I hardly ever play them myself, but early stage tournament play is a pretty close facsimile to ring play and many of these ideas will improve your cash game results.
The detailed yet lucid explanations of pot odds, which you will eventually calculate as second nature, are alone worth the price of this book many times over. I assure you that the $20 you spend here will be back in your pocket as a direct result of this masterpiece the first time you play after reading.
I suppose there isn’t much more to say without starting to ramble endlessly like Helmuth, who don’t get me wrong is a great player but should stay away from other endeavors. All I can tell you in summation is to get this ASAP and study it repeatedly, you won’t regret it.
Rating
If you’re into Texas Hold’em (and who isn’t these days) this is a book worth reading. Even playing “free money” games on the internet, Harrington’s strategies are helpful. If you play in live tournaments or cash games it WILL help you play better, winning poker. The format of using actual hands in actual game situations as teaching aids is a good way to learn the basics. You will be surprised how quickly you will be more aware of your own play – are the other players aggressive or conservative, how many “outs” you have, what are the pot odds, and so on. Harrington’s book will make you a more skilled player, rather than one who just relies on luck to win. Try it!
Rating
I bought this book the other day and was rather skeptical about how good it would be, but, now that I finished it, I can honestly say that Harrington on Hold `em is the best book on poker that I have ever read. Am I over-exaggerating? No. The secret of this manual is that, while he expresses many of the same thoughts and ideas as other poker players/writers, he is far superior to them in the teaching of technique and strategy.
As a teacher, Harrington is a master. Every page is crystal clear and comprehensible which is considerably more than I can say about the works of his publisher, David Sklansky. The lingo was in keeping with our common poker tongue, and I never had difficulty imaging the situations he described; whereas, with Super System I, while I totally recommend it, there were times when I could not apply Doyle’s counsel to my own game due to a lack of skill. Such a situation never arose with Harrington on Hold `em. Many of my faulty and defeatist habits at the table were identified, and, more importantly, the manual helped me understand just how much careful attention needs to be paid to the betting patterns of my opponents.
The strongest segments in the book are “The Problems” sections. They are found at the end of each chapter or part. Harrington uses them to “show” us information after he has already taught the concepts. These scenarios grab us by the wallet and place us atop the championship felt. The funniest, and most unique, thing about his examples is that Harrington observes the hands from a vantage point high above the players. He tells us what should be done and then often has to shake his head when the player analyzed does the complete opposite. Regardless of the quality of the amateurs, Harrington follows along and makes the best of their bad situations while being careful to point out how much trouble would have been avoided had the right play been initiated in the first place.
Early on, “Action” Dan makes clear that he will be using examples from online play (and then does so extensively) which is extremely helpful for the majority of us who do not reside near one of the gambling Meccas. Most of the scenarios come from the commonly-played online single table satellites. Harrington, rather surprisingly, knows all about the pitfalls and characteristics of internet poker, and, time after time, illustrates how a particular play succeeds in a brick and motor card room but not on the web-and vice versa.
Dan Harrington was the perfect person to write a book like this. Other than Texas Dolly, he has the most gravitas out of any of the poker luminaries. He won two bracelets in 1995, and finished at the final table two years running (2003 and 2004). Practically nobody else has the combination of experience and contemporary success as he, and his intelligence stands out like a flush in this initial volume.
Rating
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.
UPDATE FOR VOLUME II:
Many of the same comments apply to Volume II, which is more of a continuation of the first than a separate book (even the chapter numbering picks up where the first left off). It focuses on the endgame; the late stages where everyone left is in the money and the blinds are relatively very large. They use the ideas of zones and inflection points to give effective generalized advice about different situations, evaluating your chip position relative to both the size of the blinds and the other remaining players.
The last few sections cover short-handed and heads-up play, where strategy often changes radically. In most tournaments the table only gets heads-up at the very end and doesn’t last very long, but the difference between first, second and third place is huge, even millions in the biggest events. Given that one position makes such a big difference, strategies changes dramatically, and most players have little experience heads-up, this material is extremely valuable.
A third volume is in the works, in workbook style with problems and examples, which should nicely complement and review the material in the first two.
Rating
This book is top-notch. I can’t wait to the second volume comes out. If you are new to NL Tournament Holdem you should improve your results dramatically by reading this book. There will be several other no limit books coming out soon I hear, by Greg Fossilman Raymer, Greenstein, etc. and it will be interesting how they compare with Harrington’s. I like the book because Harrington gives instruction WITH examples (although I’d prefer a ton more examples like Ciafonne’s book Middle Limit Holdem). If you’re a limit Holdem player, you should give NL Tournaments a shot–I think it will improve your overall Holdem game and prevent you from going stale–plus it’s FUN!
Rating
This book renders most others obselete. It is simply the most advanced theory of No Limit Hold’em ever given in a public format, putting you inside the genius mind of one of the most successful players of all time. Often I had to put the book down and take a deep breath, simply startled by the depth and insight of Harrington’s logic.
Beginners books can teach you that AK is a good starting hand, but Harrington will tell you what to do when you are in fifth position behind a hyper-aggressive player and two raises behind you. In other words, every real game situation is covered. With a calculating mix of math and psychology, he teaches how to accurately deduce the situation, put people on hands and make smart decisions. His formulas are unique and replicable.
The book is structured in the typical Sklansky-style texts, but the hand examples are deeper, with the specific attention paid to the nuance between online and casino games. Even those tablejockeys who say they “never read a poker book” should swallow their pride and buy a copy or be left in the dust.
When Doyle wrote Supersystem, many players felt he had given away too many secrets. Harrington has just offered us the Holy Grail so cough up the $20, and make far more dominating your lesser opponents.
As your bankroll skyrockets, you will keep rereading it. Welcome to the new Poker bible.
Rating
Volumes I and II are a must-read for anyone who plays No-limit tournaments with any regularity.
The most important factor to consider in any gambling book is: will I make more money after mastering its material? Sadly, 95% of the books out there are pure rubbish. These books are not just instructional, but extremely well written.
You can see the mix of the two authors combining to make this text. First, you have Harrington, a well-known no-limit player. More importantly, you have Robertie, an author with amazing talent for teaching gambling techniques with many problems and solutions. Robertie has written a two volume set on Backgammon that uses a similar style: a rule is given, and 10-20 real-life scenarios are given with actual solutions.
The combination of a Harrington with Robertie is very effective at teaching you how to win at No-limit Hold’em poker. Before reading this, I was already a winning player. After studying these texts, my hourly win-rate went up about 50%. Even solid players will read this and say “Hmmm. I never thought of that, but it makes sense!” You will follow the offered strategies, and even though you’re not sure quite where things went right, you’ll play longer and win more money.
When you consider these books, you should really consider both volumes as one large text. The materials are geared towards an intermediate or higher player. A beginner will learn from this,
but it is a nasty learning curve for beginners, and there are no good books out for scrubs.
No-limit hold’em poker is still a relatively ripe market, despite the press it gets. If you are serious about making money at it, this 2-volume set is mandatory.
Rating
The Bible has finally arrived. Because Super System is no longer as effective as it once was (it was written back when poker was conservative, but now with all the newcomers and maniacs its theories aren’t applicable), the time has come for a comprehensive, NO LIMIT strategy book. Melmuth and Sklansky talk mostly about LIMIT strategy for cash games–this book covers it all–multi-table tourneys, satellites, sit and goes, online vs. live, etc.
And yes, Harrington even discusses styles other than his own. I’m telling you, this is the best poker book around, even better than the Cloutier/McEvoy book, which in my mind, was the best No-Limit tourney book ever until now.
Read it and weep with joy.
Rating
Every poker book out there is labeled “the poker bible” by some expert. I have read many poker books, but Harrington on Hold ‘em puts it all together. He covers it all from pot odds, to playing styles, to how much to raise/bet in certain situations. Everyone should have in their library such classics as listed below, but Dan Harrington puts all of the great advice from other books into a useful manner. While T.J. Cloutier’s book, Championship No Limit and Pot Limit Hold ‘em has several example problems, they are nowhere near as in depth as Harrington’s examples. I have finished in the money in on-line single tables ever since I have read this book. Read Doyle Brunson’s Super System I and Sklansky’s Theory of Poker. They are classics that you should have in your library, however, I found it difficult to play the aggressive style Doyle described. People should also have Caro’s Book of Poker Tells. But it will only come together with Harrington on Hold ‘em, Volume I. I can’t wait for Volume II.
Rating
No-limit play is different from limit play; tournament play is different from ring-game play. In tournaments the blinds come marching irrepressibly around, and they get bigger and bigger. In a ring game, they march around but they stay the same size. What this means is that there is a certain urgency in tournament no-limit that doesn’t exist in a ring game.
Harrington, one of the top players in the world, and a dead-on scientific and shrewdly psychological player, who is also a master chess player and a world class backgammon player, emphasizes this difference by making this book just volume one of a two-volume set. The second volume is sub-subtitled, “The Endgame” and focuses on the later stages of tournaments.
How valuable is this book? For the tournament player I would say that there is only one other book that is even in the same league; that’s David Sklansky’s Tournament Poker for Advanced Players. But this book is better. Harrington’s nearly exhaustive approach out-Sklanskys Sklansky. Scores of hands are analyzed in minute detail, the analysis typically covering several pages of text. Harrington begins with a diagram of the table, showing “your” position and that of the other players seated. He gives the amounts in each player’s stack, the size of the blinds, the stage in the tournament (just starting, early, middle) and what kind of tournament it is, major, online, etc. And he identifies conservative and aggressive players.
Next he gives “your” hand and the action to you. For example, you have TdTh on the button and Player A passes, Player B raises x number of dollars….and now it’s up to you. What I love about these illustrative hands is that Harrington gives first an analysis of the factors that a professional player would consider at that point, and then he gives his recommendation: fold, call, raise x number of dollars, etc.; and then he tells what “you” actually did–which is sometimes or even often, the wrong thing. And then he continues the hand to the flop and often all the way to the river, commending on every action.
How much to bet, Harrington says, can be calculated almost exactly in some cases. If you have top pair and you believe your only opponent is on a draw, you need to bet enough to make it unprofitable for him to call. If it is a turn bet and the pot is $900 and he has a flush draw he has a 9/46 = 19.57% chance of hitting his hand, or about one in five. So you need to bet more than one third of the pot to make it a mistake for him to call. But, as Harrington cautions several times in the book, you do not want to foolishly bet more than is necessary. Going all-in–an irresistible thrill for some tournament players–is silly when you can get the same result by betting a smaller amount.
Another nice point that Harrington makes is that whenever there is a bet and you are trying to figure out what the bettor has and whether you should call or not–always more of an art than a science, which is one of the great things about poker–you should put the probability of a bluff at at least ten percent.
What the reader realizes is that no-limit tournament hold’em poker is a very complex game and that there are almost always many things to consider before making any decision. Sometimes of course the decision is easy. You have the nut flush on an unpaired board at the river and it’s bet to you. You raise, of course. But wait a minute! Is there somebody behind you yet to act? Maybe you should just call and try to get an overcall. And, by the way, just how much should you raise? Even if there is nobody else in the pot but you and the bettor, you need to consider just how big a raise he is likely to call. If you bet too much he may not call. If you bet too little you may not get as much out of the hand as you might.
You might say, Whoa, not everybody at the top plays this way. Surely Johnny Chan, for example, in his prime did not stop and figure out every angle before proceeding. He acted and reacted with lightning speed. Yes, but that is only because he had already figured out all the angles, had added them up and totaled them, so to speak as he went along; and when his opponent acted or he saw the next card, he knew exactly what he wanted to do. Instantly, and perhaps somewhat unconsciously.
The “natural” player as opposed to the “scientific” player considers the same factors before acting, but he or she may put a different emphasis on certain values. The natural player may value position more than the scientific player (or it could be vice-versa), but regardless both players take into account the very factors that Harrington delineates before acting.
One thing that really made me sit up and notice is that Harrington’s theory about profitable player styles includes not only his fairly conservative style, but the “aggressive” style and the “super-aggressive” style. His main point is that the more aggressive your style, the more alert, intense and sharp-witted you have to be. Wild players CAN win, but they have got to be able to read both the action and the other players extremely well since they are often walking the razor’s edge.
Bottom line: Harrington’s mastery of the game and his clear instruction make this a mandatory read for the aspiring tournament hold’em player.