Most influential books
I recently got a new bookshelf for my office and spent last weekend organizing my poker library. Now, I'm curious if there are any great books I might be missing. By far, my favorite books are Will Tipton's Expert Heads Up No Limit Hold'em (volumes 1 and 2) and Matthew Janda's Applications of No Limit. While there are many excellent books out there, those two had the biggest impact on me in terms of developing a deeper understanding of fundamental play.
If anyone is willing to share, I'm curious to know which books were the most influential in your learning journey.
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Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by
Robert Pirsig
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I recently got a new bookshelf for my office and spent last weekend organizing my poker library. Now, I'm curious if there are any great books I might be missing. By far, my favorite books are Will Tipton's Expert Heads Up No Limit Hold'em (volumes 1 and 2) and Matthew Janda's Applications of No Limit. While there are many excellent books out there, those two had the biggest impact on me in terms of developing a deeper understanding of fundamental play.
If anyone is willing to share, I'm curious
For me it has always been "The Fundamental Theory of Poker" by Sklansky. It is clearly dated, but it is 100% accurate and describes all of poker at the base level.
Even someone who is purely into GTO can greatly benefit from a reading simply because it will explain WHY a solver acts like it does.
At some level it is too simplistic, it's recommendations are too simple to be meaningful, but it accurately describes what a good poker player should be thinking about at table.
For example, even though it talks about implied odds, it describes poker as a battle of the blinds which misses the fact that implied odds in most poker games are far greater than the author realizes. This leads to the book recommending too tight of a pre-flop strategy. It also discusses the value of being range balanced, but again fails in actually realizing the advantages of range balancing by being too tight.
Basically the concepts of the book are great. Spot on. It describes poker at a fundamental level and what is required to properly beat the game, however the recommended strategies are dated and flat out wrong.
Read it for the fundamentals, ignore the strategy part.
I'd read "the poker mindset". Good tips in there.
@JimL Yes, that Sklansky book was a great book. I actually should have included that in my favorites as well. I read it so long ago I completely forgot about it.
Anyone ever read that book "Let There Be Range"? I have always been curious about it, but not enough to pull the trigger on it and pay $1500 or whatever it sells for. I mean it may have well been worth that price so many years ago when it first came out, but the price really hasn't dropped much. I highly doubt in today's solver era there is information or strategies in there that make it worth the asking price.
