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 enlarge | Authors: Dan Harrington, Bill Robertie
Publisher: Two Plus Two Publishing LLC
Category: Book
List Price: $34.95
Buy New: $21.85
You Save: $13.10 (37%)
New (23) Used (9) from $19.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 2494
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 418
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 1880685426
Dewey Decimal Number: 795.412
EAN: 9781880685426
ASIN: 1880685426
Publication Date: March 14, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Finally, a no-limit book for limit players April 13, 2008
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
As a good-to-mediocre limit player, I searched a long time for a book that would improve my no-limit game given that I already knew a good deal about limit poker. This is that book. If you've never played hold 'em, this book is going to be over your head; you won't even understand the first few pages. If you've played limit hold 'em and want to become a solid no-limit player, this is the book for you.
The book is in depth on all betting rounds and promotes the kind of thinking that a good no-limit player needs to have. I also learned a few new ideas about randomizing my play and river bets that I hadn't considered before. At the end of most chapters, a thorough set of problems is presented that really drill the ideas well. Self-testing on those problems alone make the book fun and worth the price!
Like most poker books, the English is poor. Apparently something about playing poker well excludes knowledge of the subjunctive! It's still more readable than most poker books. The chapters on bankroll management and other miscellaneous topics in Volume 2 were unnecessary and thankfully brief. There were some minor inconsistencies in the book and maybe even some math blunders, but relatively few given that the two volumes together are around 800 pages.
I think that it's a rare player that wouldn't stand to profit from buying this book and reading it. The book isn't complete without both volumes.
 Everything in this book is common sense and beyond obvious. April 12, 2008
5 out of 43 found this review helpful
All the advice given in this book and the hand examples are so ridiculously obvious. If you cant think of this stuff yourself, stick to tic tac toe. This book covers no new ground at all and is so basic and simple. Seriously, if you cant figure out what this book contains on your own, you should not be playing poker. How many worthless books can 2+2 publish?
Learn Cash Game Concepts April 5, 2008
6 out of 12 found this review helpful
In this book Harrington tries to describe the difference between No-limit tournaments and cash games. He has split his cash game strategy into 2 books. These books are divided into 12 different parts. This first volume will deal with the first 5 parts.
Part 1: He explains some basic ideas of no-limit holdem like pot odds, implied odds and outs.
Part 2: Harrington talks about how the stack sizes affect the game. Some other principles that he describes here are deception, balance, hand selection, pot commitment, hand reading, multilevel thinking.
Part 3: Differences between tight aggressive play and loose aggressive play.
Part 4: Teach you how to play on the flop when heads-up.
Part 5: How to handle multiway flop with two or more opponents.
Part 6: How to play on the turn.
Part 7: River play.
Part 8: Tells and observations.
Part 9: Basics of the loose aggressive style.
Part 10: Describes what weak games are and how to beat them.
Part 11: How to manage your bankroll and transitioning to live games.
Part 12: Interview with a great no-limit cash game player.
The style and layout of this book is very similar to Harrington previous books. He will describe a concept and then illustrate this concepts by showing it with example hands. He will describe in detail how the players were thinking and how they should be thinking. He got a lot of example hands were he tries to show all the different concepts involved in no-limit cash game.
If you enjoyed his previous book you will probably like this book as well. It often tries to compare differences between tournament and cash game no-limit games.
 Want to rate the book higher...but I can't April 4, 2008
97 out of 105 found this review helpful
"Harrington on Cash Games" is a two book series that deals with full ring no limit cash games. Volume I deals with general concepts, preflop play and flop play. Part one of the book begins with basic ideas. Harrington recommends skipping this section if you are already familiar with the fundamentals of no limit hold 'em and I agree. This section of the book does not cover any new ground. Part two of the book deals with broad elements of no limit cash games. The section on stack size is excellent and explains how different stack sizes call for vastly different preflop and postflop strategy. The section on hand reading is good as Harrington goes through some of the thought processes required to break down and analyze a hand. There's a very brief discussion of metagame. This involves exploiting your image and making small costly plays which you expect will reap greater dividends in the future.
Part three is about tight aggressive preflop play. This is where the book starts to lose some of its shine. The book is stuck in what is conventionally referred to as "level 1" thinking, that is "What cards do I hold in my hand?". Different types of opponents require different strategies but the book plods on with many pages of "I have X hand in Y position. What should I do?". As a trivial example an opponent who is a "rock" and rarely tries to steal your blind requires a different strategy from a maniac who tries to steal your blind every time it is folded around. The book does not really address tailoring your play to your opponent preflop.
Part four of the book is about tight aggressive flop play. Once again the book falls short in a number of areas. To take an example, if you raise preflop and are out of position, Harrington recommends mainly checking KK on a rainbow K72 flop (that is you hold top set on a board without many draws). What Harrington omits to mention is how you should play your distribution of hands in this spot as part of a balanced strategy. For example if you are checking top set but continuation betting most of your hands that miss, this begins to create an imbalance that an opponent can exploit. All the examples are about "How do I play my hand" and the author does not address the question of "How do I balance my distribution of hands in this spot".
As in the preflop section, there is very little discussion of opponent type and this is where the book loses the most marks. Discussion of opponent tendencies is extremely limited. A typical example would be "Let's call 10 percent of the time and fold 90 percent, calling only against the loosest and most aggressive players". Given that you are supposed to randomize your actions using your wristwatch and that Harrington doesn't explain how to quantify "loosest and most aggressive players" these guidelines are difficult to follow. There are other quirks and inconsistencies that would be jarring to the astute reader. For example, after calling a bet out of position with 7h6h preflop and then leading out on a TT4 board and getting raised, Harrington recommends calling 10% of the time to "balance our value calls in other situations". To me this statement is rather obscure and although this volume specifically focuses on preflop and flop play, I feel it is an injustice to leave the reader in this predicament without at least a brief discussion of turn and/or river play. Another inconsistency occurs when at one point Harrington recommends raising with middle pair "to represent top pair" whereas throughout the rest of the text, Harrington recommends mainly calling with top pair. If your strategy is to mainly call with top pair, then it is difficult to try to represent top pair by raising. The last section of the book is tight aggressive play with multiple opponents. This is basically Harrington saying "Don't bluff, play more cautiously and people usually have what they're representing".
The book certainly has moments where it shines. The "problems" sections contains detailed and well thought out analysis. The text will provoke a lot of thought about the game even if there are some specific examples which seem unpolished or unfinished. Novice players will gain a lot from the text. Intermediate players should only expect to pick up a few gems every now and again. As a brief note there are parts of the text that apply to other forms of the game for example short handed online no limit. However these types of games have a lot of specific nuances that the book does not address at all (for example light 3 betting and light 4 betting preflop). Overall I still recommend this book as a buy even though the book seems to treat poker as more of "a card game played with people" rather than "a people game played with cards".
 The worst poker book ever!!! April 2, 2008
5 out of 18 found this review helpful
This is the worst poker book ever! PLEASE do NOT buy either of these books! PLEASE! Reading and studying these books are a lock to make you a better player, and I simply can't have that!
Seriously, these are probably the best books I've ever read, and I've got a fairly small library of poker books, but I love to read the subject. A lot of the information and analysis that I've been looking for as a fairly amateur player looking to take it to the next level is in here; loose-aggressive play, reading hands, betting strategies, etc. Honestly, there isn't much information here that is 'revolutionary', and anyone new to the game won't really pick up on what he's talking about. But I've been very interested in taking my game to the next level, and play cash games, and these books are the best tool that I've seen. But please don't read them, PLEASE!
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