[BugsBunny]

I'll agree with this with one proviso. If someone has no concept of the game at all WLLH may be a better first choice. It's an easier read and doesn't require quite as much thinking. It's also thinner and therfore not as intimidating.

I would say, in that case, read WLLH, play a couple of hundred hands, then read ITH and never refer to WLLH again. If the person can handle it right off the bat though I'd skip WLLH and just go with ITH.

Mason says that some of the preflop advice in ITH is too loose when it comes to coldcalling preflop raises and gives an example of AQo. There is, of course, validity to this criticism and AQo should really be a raise or fold situation. But overall the advice is good. (He also has you calling a raise with JJ rather than reraising, this has been debated previously. While not necessarily optimum play, depending on game conditions, it's not a huge mistake for sure and is even correct play at times (see HEPFAP for more - somewhere towards the end of the EP section)) His preflop charts are detailed and easy to follow. The postflop sections are more detailed and better than WLLH. His sections on pot odds and discounting outs are also good.

He explains and uses concepts involving deciding whether or not to stay in a hand based on size of the pot, number of players in the hand, pot odds etc.

The foundation laid by ITH is solid enough to carry you on past the weakest games. You won't have to "unlearn" as much as you would with WLLH and concepts from books like MLH, SSH, TOP, and HEPFAP will be easier to digest and understand after reading ITH.

IMHO ITH is a great beginners book. If WLLH is preschool then ITH is grade school and the rest are high-school to college and beyond.

So if they're capable of skipping pre-school they can pass on WLLH and use ITH instead.