the importance of reading poker books

[dscoot 0]

hello. i have been playing cards since i was a kid. i began playing online casually around 4 years ago. practice truly was the best way for me to learn. i am not a cash game player. tournaments almost exclusively. anyway, i slowly kept learning new tricks, styles, ways to play, theories on my own. i feel i have learned alot about how to play the two cards i am dealt, depending on the other table variables. i have recently begun learning more about the aspects of the game not related to my two hole cards, like reading opponents etc, psychology, etc...anyway, im pretty confident in my A game. of course, i have some money management problems and do not always play my A game bc of various reasons. anyway, how important do you think it is to be well versed in all these poker books on the market? { doyle's, sklansky's, harrington's, cairo's, etc..}do you think a person can become a very successful player without ever reading these books? do you think without reading these books someone could never reach the top poker playing skills?i am thinking about reading some books. this may sound arrogant, but i honestly believe that whether it is stored in the front of my memory or the back cobwebs of my brain, due to the many hands i have played, that there may not be many groundbreaking winning ideas in these books that i have not encountered be4.i guess u could say i am a huge believer of practice makes u better.also, i am a little worried, that perhaps if i read some of these books, i will begin to play too much like their strategies. my play might be too predictable to others. I also feel that i may have some ideas/theories on poker that may not be in these books, and my ideas might actually be what makes me a successful player, but reading these books may make me like every other junkie that reads the books then hits the tables. what do you think about all this stuff?by the way i am specifically talking about nl holdem here. another question i wouldnt mind others discussing is do you think in any way reading these books could harm a poker player at all?

[dscoot 0]

also if u wanna talk about any specific poker book i would enjoy listening.

[thatguy 0]

You have the right idea. Obviously the people who wrote those books learned by experience as you did. I think most pros intend for their books to be read by the less experienced players but at the same time other successful pros say they have also learned a great deal from certain poker books. So I'm sure they are helpful at least.

[WKTSWAY 0]

I think Harrington on Hold em is a great one to read. It helps a lot with how to play when you don't have a larger stack and when to change up depending on how many chips you have.I found I was playing a little too tight for too long of a period. That book has helped me go deeper into tournies more often.

[Ebonwoulfe 0]

My advice is to RTFM (1). I assure you, there are a lot of things in poker books that you never thought of. It is professional poker players that WRITE them, for goodness sakes! Just because you have played a lot you think that you know everything? I am sure that you don't.This "I'm good enough" logic doesn't even work when you apply it to other areas of your life.Do you have like a financial advisor, or hell even a bank? I mean, if you talk to a financial advisor, you do so because that person has more experience than you with money. Sure, you have handled money all your life, but the advisor is a professional. That is who you trust.Or what if you like to golf? If a pro offered you lessons for $20, you would be a complete idiot to pass up the opportunity. You wouldn't pass just because you've been playing for years.You went to school, right? Education is a good thing. I'm sure that there is something you do professionally, and I bet you that you at least took some sort of classes before you started working. Poker books are the same thing, and education.What harm could possibly come from a poker book? No book will automatically make you play different, they just present theories and strategies that work for them. You should jump at the opportunity when someone educated tries to pass on their education to you. Buy a book. You'll be glad you did. There is a damn good reason that these guys are professionals.(1) RTFM: Read The F*ing ManualEdit: My post was amazingly harsh for no good reason, so I made it nicer 8)

[Ebonwoulfe 0]

And just to pad post count and because I thought about it...You don't have to go through the years of experiences that the pros went through because they tell you about them in the books. If you really want to spend the years learning it for yourself, go right ahead. Of course you can be good without reading the books, that's how almost all of the current players got there.The education exists now though, so you should take advantage of it. I know that there was a philosopher who said "If I can see farther, it's only because I stood on the shoulders of giants"

[UNCpoker 0]

IMO, reading books is a good thing. Not to always change your game, but to recognize what others are doing.I have read a lot of books and there are things I don't agree with in them, but that could be due more to my style of play vs. the writer.A lot of times, I talk with players before the tourney or on breaks and they talk about reading this book or that book, and if I have read those books, I may be able to pick up on something they are doing from that book. This works really good on local tourneys where I see a lot of the same players.

[Valuecall 0]

A lot of the hard-core writing on HE has been on limit games, so many of the "name" books will stretch applicability to NL cash games.Disclaimer: Your experience level with NL cash games is surely light years above mine. But since dispensing advice here is free for me, I'll go ahead and opine.For example, some of the outstanding concepts in Harrington's book are centered around logically thinking through play adjustments as blinds increase as a percentage of your stack. Everyone has the "gut feel" about loosening play as your stack shrinks relative to the blinds, but it really helps to try and "systematize it" so you can act less on "hunch" and more about odds.This entire topic is fairly meaningless in cash NLHE games. The blinds don't increase, and if your stack dwindles you just add on.Lots of the outstanding topics in HEPFAP by Sklansky/Malmuth are centered around limit concepts. Since implied odds are in a different universe in NLHE vs. Limit HE, many topics in that book will be irrelevant.Obviously the core books for you to start with would be Super System to gain a knowledge of how poker thought emerged in the early days, and Super System II to expand on this. Also include Theory of Poker by Sklansky to really grasp core concepts from a mathematical standpoint. Then add Caro's Book of Poker Tells if you play live.While reading, don't lose your personal strategy -- just argue things out with the author. Sure, you'll sound crazy talking to yourself -- but maybe it'll help your table image. LOL.

[TobyOrNotToBe 0]

Why not learn from the masters and pick up a book or two.