Month: September 2010

My Two Minute Recommendation: Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time scores a 9/10. Three top players discuss nearly 200 real hands and address dozens of common mistakes that even experienced no-limit hold 'em tournament players make. Read Harrington on Hold 'Em first for a theoretical foundation, but read this book next to see the ideas in action.

I am one of those cash game players who likes to deride tournament specialists as uncreative "tourney donks" whose poker skill is limited to an encyclopedic knowledge of pre-flop shoving ranges. I half-expected that that would be my reaction to Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time by Jon "Pearljammer" Turner, Eric "Rizen" Lynch, and Jon "Apestyles" Van Fleet. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised.

These guys are among the best in the world at beating online tournaments full of weak players. There's a temptation to look down my nose and say they don't understand concepts like 3rd-level thinking or balancing, but honestly those just aren't particularly important skills in these events. I wouldn't stake these guys in a high rollers' event or hire them to teach me cash game poker, but they beat the snot out of large-field poker tournaments, and in this book they teach you how to do the same in remarkably clear fashion.

This isn't a beginner's book, and it won't do much for anyone with the postflop skills to beat 100NL, but for the tens of thousands of players in between, Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time is an invaluable resource. I would say that it's required reading as soon as you finish the Harrington on Hold 'Em series, and even if you consider yourself an advanced tournament player, do yourself a favor and read this book just in case. It addresses so many of the mistakes that I most commonly see among intermediate tournament players that you're very likely to learn a thing or two. Chief among these mistakes is an inability to read hands and make disciplined folds. Although these players' hand-reading skills are not uniformly fantastic, they provide a very solid introduction to the concept, and they are particularly adept at interpreting betting lines commonly employed by weak players. Granted beating weak players is easy, but there's a difference between beating them and maximizing your advantage against them. This book is full of examples that clearly and concisely illustrate the reasoning behind some seemingly tough folds and surprising bluffs. In fact, examples are all that there are. Although the authors discuss many important concepts in the context of the hand examples, the book is organized around 194 real hands. Most are discussed only by the author who played them, but 20 feature input from all 3 authors. This is a very effective format that provides insight into a variety of perspectives and styles and that mirrors that poker training videos of which all three authors are experienced producers.