Poker books

Poker is an information game that changes very quickly, what was effective for a year is no longer profitable, so all technical poker books have a certain "shelf life", but psychological and philosophical books have virtually none, or a very long one.

Best psychological/philosophical poker books

It is no coincidence that we start our review with books in this style. They are books that don't tell us how to play specific hands, but show us how to think or how to develop our psychology so that we can play better poker, so we start there in the first place:

1. Treat your poker like a business

This is probably the easiest book to read on the psychology of poker, written in a very easy style, and the book itself can be read in an evening. However, despite its lightness, it is a really good book, touching on all the main aspects of a poker player's life, money management, time management, relationships with friends and family, diet, attitude to work, taxes, support programmes and many more. A book that is perfect for anyone with even a minimal interest in poker.

Before writing this article, we asked for opinions about poker books in various poker forums, as well as from Lithuanian poker professionals, both CASH and MTT players. Almost all of them unanimously mentioned this book as a book that is definitely worthy of attention.

Where is the best place to play poker?

Buy the book on amazon.com

2. How to be the poker player

A book that takes the perception of poker to another level, a whole new level. It just requires a lot of thought and a lot of thinking about how to apply it to your game. The book exposes a lot of errors in thinking or misunderstood concepts. A book that you can't read in an evening, but have to digest each chapter thoroughly, then take it to the tables or PokerTracker 4 programmes and try to implement everything, and only then is it worth returning to the next section.

It is a philosophical but very strong book that does not tell you how to play a particular hand in a particular situation, but it will give you a much broader view of poker itself, the dynamics of the game, the meta-games, and how to integrate that successfully into your own game. This is the second book we recommend reading after "Treat your poker like a business", no matter the game you play or the limits.

The PokerioSchool.com team is currently translating this book into separate chapters, so you can access it in Lithuanian.

*PokerioMokykla.com cash coach comment

Buy the book on amazon.com

3. The mental game of poker

The books in this series are real bombshells, but again, they are workbooks, a bit of theory and a lot of exercises that you have to do regularly. Both books are dedicated to building your own psychological strategy. The author himself is probably the strongest poker psychologist on the current poker market, working with all the top players.

The first book by this author is dedicated to working on your bad side and your bad game, how to make fewer mistakes, what is a tilt? How to understand it? How to manage it? In general, how to work with your psychology to have good results. So, if you feel that you have problems with fatigue, bridging, motivation and so on, this is the book for you.

I have produced a series of poker psychology videos based on this book for Brilliant, which you can also find on our poker school.

Buy the book on amazon.com

4. The mental game of poker 2

The second book is dedicated to improving your best game, how to play your A-game as long as possible? How to be in the zone? How to learn? How to develop your focus, discipline, motivation etc.

Just like the first book, it is full of exercises, tips and specific tasks to improve your game. Our recommendation is that anyone who wants to play poker professionally should buy this book.

To get a clearer idea of the type of book it is, I invite you to watch the free video, in which I cover only half of the first chapter (there are 10 in total).

Buy the book on amazon.com

5. Zen and the art of poker

Another interesting book on poker philosophy, it is aimed at players who simply have trouble concentrating, have trouble staying disciplined, want to play significantly too many hands and can't help themselves.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to play poker but feels that it is not suited to their overly sharp or fast character, and it will help them to be much calmer at the table.

The author also gives his views on such things as the laws of balance at the poker table, subtle body signs and similar subtleties, which are here interwoven with Eastern philosophy.

To get a clearer idea of what kind of book this is, I invite you to watch my free video in which I give an overview of the first chapter of this book (there are ~6 chapters in total).

Buy the book on amazon.com

Where is the best place to play poker?

Live poker [body language]

So I'll start again with the "psychological" books, which are specifically for the live game, which don't have such a short shelf life, and then we'll try to look at a few strategy books and what we can use in our day.

1. Read 'Em and Reap: A Career FBI Agent's Guide to Decoding Poker Tells - Joe Navarro

This is poker's most highly regarded book on body language. The author, Joe Navarro, is a former FBI agent specialising in body language. Joe used to teach other agents and used it himself in his daily work, bringing poker players into his company. He adapts his experience to poker.

Do you know which part of the body a person has the least control over? So it is the most reliable signalling system for everything. You'd be surprised - it's the foot!

The book is full of good explanations and real-life examples from both life and poker.

Body language is often a bit overrated in live poker, with technical understanding of the game and maths being much more important, but this is a great book for those interested in body language or those who want to take their game to the next level.

Buy the book on amazon.com

2. Verbal poker tells

Like the book before it, this one is about live poker games, about body language, but only about what people say and how they say it.

Players have no idea how much information they give away by saying things that are completely irrelevant in their heads.

Just keep in mind that the book is in English and all the examples are also taken from conversations and dialogues in English. Not everything is easily applicable to Lithuanian casino games, you have to keep your head, but it's an interesting read.

Buy the book on amazon.com

Live Poker [poker strategy books]

So, before we start analysing books of this kind, it should be mentioned that most of the books are quite outdated, and some of the live game books describe examples of 5-card draw and 7-card stud games that are practically no longer played anymore. Nowadays, both online poker and live poker are changing so fast, especially the game between good players, that the books just don't physically keep up with the changes.

I can't leave this place completely empty anyway. Using both my own experience and the comments of good players, I have tried to highlight books that might still be useful for the newcomer and the beginner, and at the very end I have made a museum of classics, books that are definitely better not to read. It is very important to emphasise that good technical game books can only be written by good, systematic, long-time winning players.

The whole internet is littered with "one-win" books, where some player wins a big tournament and comes up with the idea of "cashing in" or "sharing the experience", only to lose more than he won in that tournament in the next year or two. So, before you read the books, be sure to get to know the author and his achievements and gaming history.

1. Every Hand Revealed - Gus Hansen

It's hard to believe, but the author of this book, a Danish poker pro, is apparently the player who has lost the most money in cash games, with his biggest losses in high buy-in Pot Limit Omaha, where in 2014 he was at the -20 MILLION mark.

However, despite his huge losses and high buy-ins in cash games, he has one of the highest rankings in live poker tournaments and has won more than $10 million in them.

So, now about the book. In it, he describes the tournament he won, he describes all the hands he played, what he had, what he was thinking, who he played against, etc. In a word, he completely reveals his thought process.

What makes this book good? It can show a poker newcomer how a professional thinks and that he is a human being, that most of the decisions are simple and do not resemble scenes from a movie, and it can give him more confidence.

He also gets a good feel for how his game and approach changes at different stages of the tournament, with different table dynamics and different opponents. Professionals will find absolutely nothing new in the book, but for a newcomer it is a great opportunity to see the whole process from the inside without having to accept it for cash.

Buy the book on amazon.com

2. The Raisers Edge - Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier

Bertrand "ElkY"Grospellier's tournament history is very similar to that of Gus Hansen mentioned above, with the biggest wins coming during the poker boom years ~2007-2012, and then slowly going downhill. So both books were also written during their "golden years". However, this book has a lot of good insights, and there is a chapter on body language, but it is rather weak, and it would be better to buy the FBI agent book mentioned above, which is specifically about body language. I would recommend this book to those who are interested in deep structure live tournaments.

A graphic depicting Bertrand Grospellier's 'ElkY' achievements. As you can see, the boom in achievements was between 2007 and 2012.

Buy the book on amazon.com

3. Kill Everyone: Advanced Strategies for No-Limit Hold 'Em Poker, Tournaments, and Sit-n-Gos

This is the classic poker book that every MTT player of that year has probably read. To start with, a little about the authors: the main author of this book is Lee Nelson, a New Zealand poker pro, but he has been out of poker since 2012. He has immersed himself more in spiritual pursuits and meditation. The book was published in 2009, during the poker boom, edited and expanded by Elky himself.

For me, this book helped me to understand the importance of aggressive poker, the nuances of icm play, fold equity and some of the nuances of late-stage play. I think this book, unlike The Raisers Edge, is more suited to medium-speed and medium-structured tournaments, such as those played in our casinos.

Lee Nelson's achievements:

Buy the book on amazon.com

4. Tournament poker: 101 Winning moves - Mitchell Cogert

This is an even earlier poker book, published in 2008. It does not have in-depth analyses and calculations. It simply describes the many possible ways of playing. For example: that you can preflop open 3x, you can open 4x, you can open 5x, you can just shoot all in or limn. On the surface it seems nothing new, but the book is very structured in terms of poker knowledge, showing the newcomer that there is not just one option, that after the flop we can make a continuation bet (examples are given of when and why), and that we can also skip the flop and make a delayed continuation bet on the turn (again, examples are given), or that we can skip the continuation bet and make a check-raise instead, or just a check-call. Although some of the information is outdated (but sizings, shor stack play, etc.) it is nevertheless an excellent broadening of horizons and a good read for a newcomer to see that there are so many different lines in general and that all of them can be applied, although by no means should you take everything for cash.

Buy the book on amazon.com

Where is the best place to play poker?

MTT Poker Books [Multi-Stable Tournaments Online]

1. Kill Everyone: Advanced Strategies for No-Limit Hold 'Em Poker, Tournaments, and Sit-n-Gos

As mentioned above, the book does a good job of explaining the various elements of the game, such as:

• fold equity;
• bubble phase;
• icm factor;
• aggressive play;
• late stage and mathematical calculations.

In the past, I would have recommended this book for advanced players, but as the quality of the game has risen, it is now more recommended for tournament novices and beginners. The book is aimed at R&TD and R&TTCnG. 

Buy the book on amazon.com

2. Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time Series

It is a series of books written by three online PROs, the book is written in a very good and simple way, taken by hand, and each player gives a commentary on why he played this way or that way. The value of the book is in the thinking diagrams, i.e. you can see how the pros scale. The basis is the analysis of high buy-in tournaments 100$-1000$+. However, under no circumstances should this be attempted to be blindly applied in 2017.

The books are quite old: 2008, 2010 and 2012 respectively. Although the authors have stunning online achievements (Apestyles has over 1 MILLION USD and PearlJammer 990 000$), their results have not been so impressive lately. Below are their results for the last two years.

Apestyles (January 2015 - November 2016)

PearlJammer (January 2015 - November 2016)

It's true that PearlJammer is showing solid results in the live poker arena, which shows that he hasn't forgotten how to play after all.

Poker books

I - Part

The first part focuses more on the early stages of the tournament.

Buy the book on amazon.com

II - Part

In the second part, each author analyses one tournament in sequence, i.e. late stage + FT all hands in a row until winning.

Buy the book on amazon.com

III - Part

Part 3 focuses on the final table and the Hu game.

Buy a book on amazon.com

Where is the best place to play poker?

Sit and Go poker books

Just as with MTT, most of the books are completely obsolete. It's true that Sit&Go itself is a dying thing, but overall there are two good books that are perfect for the newcomer or the beginner who has very little understanding of Sit&Go tournaments or poker in general, both are written in a very similar format, with the tournament being broken down into different stages, early, middle, late, bubble, final table and heads-up.

Now the ranks have changed, but-ish, but the essence of the game is the same, so it's still a good book if you want to learn how to play small tournaments in your local casino, perfect for the daily low-cost tournaments organised by Lithuanian casinos.

Buy the book on amazon.com

2. Secrets of Sit 'n' Gos: Winning Strategies For Single-Table Poker Tournaments - Phil Shaw

Buy the book on amazon.com

Cash (cash games) 

*PokerioMokykla.com cash coach comment

Buy a book from the author

Buy the book on amazon.com

Mathematics

1. Roy Rounder - Poker Math Made Easy

This is a great book for a newcomer, it explains everything in a very simple way, it's easy to understand, probabilities, outs, pot odds, equity, etc.

You can download the English version of the book for free, or the Lithuanian abridgement, which has been specially translated by PokerioMokykla.com.

Most importantly, this book shows that you don't have to be a maths genius to play poker - it's really simple.

Download the English pdf of the book

Download the Lithuanian version pdf

Buy the book on amazon.com

3. The Mathematics of Poker: Bill Chen, Jerrod Ankenman

And this is the complete opposite, it's a complete high-flying thing 🙂 Very, very few poker players have read this book, the complex and deep calculations, functions, integrals and all that fun stuff. Unlike the book mentioned above, here even simple things are explained in a complex way. However, for those who like the language of mathematics, this is a great book to master the mathematics of poker down to the smallest detail, though I don't recommend it for amateurs.

Buy the book on amazon.com

Where is the best place to play poker?

Limit - Holdem poker books

Many newcomers are probably confused and wondering what is this thing? And the professionals wondering if it is really still being played anywhere in the world? Yes, you hardly ever see limit holdem tables spinning in Europe, but it is still played in America, it's a lower variance game where almost all decisions are calculated because the game is so much simpler, but despite the number of players who make fundamental errors... I don't know if it's worth learning how to play limit holdem online, but there are a lot of cash tables spinning around in Las Vegas, where the low limits are played by pensioners, and the higher limits at the Bellagio by wealthy businessmen. So it's a good book, and it's enough to beat the rather high limits in live holdem.

1. Winning in tough hold'em games

Buy the book on amazon.com

Leisure reading

1. 21: take the bank

Matet film? Believe me, you haven't seen anything 🙂

The film is 5% of the whole story, without the most interesting and breathtaking details.

A great opportunity to find out how the cards are counted in blackjack, how the counting teams work, what life is like in Las Vegas when you make 100,000$ a night, how the casinos and their security systems work.

Definitely a recommended leisure read. The book is also available in Lithuanian.

Buy an English book on amazon.com

Buy the Lithuanian version

Classics (I don't recommend learning from them)

Books that I would like to pay tribute to, because they were once the best, a lot of players read them, and for many players they improved the game. However, I don't recommend those books anymore, because all the ones listed above are newer, better, and in every other way better 🙂 I recommend these books more to those who want to learn more about the classics of poker 🙂

1. The Poker Mindset

It's a psychology classic among old poker players, and if you felt like you were doing badly or not in control of your emotions, everybody recommended you to read this book.

The information is still relevant today, everything works, but the poker psychology listed at the very top of the article is much more relevant to today, e.g: "treat your poker like a business" is practically the same "mindset", just much easier to write, easier to read and easier to understand, more real-life examples. If some of the readers want more serious literature, there are also more serious ones, like the two parts already mentioned "mental game of poker". So, "the poker mindset" is still a good book, but there are many better ones out there, which is why it's first on the classics list.

Buy the book on amazon.com

2. Super system & Super system 2

Want to see what professionals thought about poker 20 years ago? Here's a great opportunity to read this book. Reading these books, the only thought in my mind is, ehh...., that with our current knowledge, we can go back to those times. I don't recommend studying, but it's quite interesting to read and be amazed by the strange tips for fun.

The author of this book, Doule Brunson, is now 83 years old and no longer plays poker actively, having last won in 2012. However, the author's peak was in 2004-2005, and he has won more than $6 million in his career, much of it in the old days when the purchasing power of the dollar was much higher, and adjusting for inflation his winnings would be more like 10 million today, not 6 million. The author himself has played poker professionally for more than 50 years and is an inductee into the Poker Hall of Fame.

Poker books

Buy the book on amazon.com

Buy the book on amazon.com

Harrington on hold'em vol 1 & vol 2 & vol 3 poker books

Tournament players need no introduction to this classic, it's a great series of books for tournaments, and it's true that a lot has changed nowadays, but in those days it was a real bombshell, especially Part 3, which was a workbook, so really the whole book was just situations and choices A/B/C and then explanations. For those times, it was really unprecedented and a very good development tool. Again, I don't recommend studying, but it is a prestigious thing to have poker books in your collection.

Buy books on amazon.com

Where is the best place to play poker?

Write a comment

Perhaps you noticed that I missed something? It's a live article, updated according to trends, so everyone Comments and comments are very, very welcome 😉