A SF Bay Area Amateur's Journey

Greetings, folks.

I am a Hayward, California native who got started in poker in local tournaments last decade. Much of my exposure to poker was an annual Thanksgiving poker tournament that I attended every year from 2014 to 2020, where I only won once. After 2020, I did not participate in any poker tournaments until late 2024, due to the pandemic and other real-life concerns that I faced during these years. Since then, I have been regularly participating in sit and go tournaments that are usually 1-2 tables big. Out of the 70 tournaments that I entered in, I cashed out in 19 of them, with 7 of these cash outs being from outright wins. With a 27% in the money rate and a 10% win rate, I would say that I am okay but not excellent.

Much of what I use for taking on these tournaments come from the 2021 edition of Jonathan Little’s Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker. Even though that book was updated for this decade and recommended by a quite a few poker players, I get the feeling that some of the advice is now out of date. An example of this, but certainly not the only one that I am experiencing, comes from this reddit post where I 3-bet ATs as the Big Blind against an UTG player raise at a 9-handed table. The book recommended that that particular hand be raised as a 3-bet bluff, but it was viewed as a serious mistake, and I can see why from the resulting comments.

Because of my lack of great skill in taking on these tournaments as well as the transportation costs to attend these sit and go tournaments, I am considering switching to live cash games. Because I have a poor internet connection with unreliable cellular signals, I do not believe that online poker is feasible for me at this moment. Although I know of several home games that I probably could get into, I plan to spend most of my time in the Palace Poker Casino, as that is the one public place that I can play a cash game without having to spend noticeable amounts of money in transportation costs. Its no-limit table being a 1/3/5 setup (with the $5 being a Mississippi straddle option if I recall correctly) means that I can theoretically get a better hourly rate then my $17/hour job (after taxes are applied) if I have the proper knowledge. However, I know that the Palace Poker Casino can be rather tough. This is because my one playing experience there in 2023 indicated that the place was full of regulars who were nice enough, but definitely knew what they were doing. As a result, I will need to study up hard in order to even have a chance at doing okay at the Palace Poker Casino, or even at the home games for that matter.

Right now, my bankroll is too small for me to make the switch for playing cash games. So I am taking a break from the sit and go tournaments to have my job’s income and an upcoming yearly bonus restore my bankroll back to a robust size. It will be at least a month before my bankroll is large enough to begin playing cash games, so I would like to use this time to study up on any books, charts, web pages, video free courses, and other material, to get up to speed on tackling today's poker metagame.

My questions are this:

1. Which books are considered to be up to date good to study for cash game sessions like the no-limit table in the Palace Poker Casino? I am preferably looking for books that were published within the past five years. Bonus points if the book can be checked out through the Link+ system.

2. Besides books, what other training material would you recommend that accurately covers today’s scene? Because much of my income will be focused on replenishing my bankroll, I am only focused on material that is free to access.

3. If I instead decide to remain playing the sit and go tournaments, are there any other books that are considered to be up to date for taking on today’s poker tournaments? Again, my focus will be towards books published within the past five years, especially those that can be checked out through the Link+ system.

I know this is a lot, so I appreciate any constructive answers. I hope that I can put the training period to good use before getting started with playing live cash games, and that I don’t get flamed for asking dumb questions.