Newbie's should start with HEFAP

[AmarilloJim1]

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SSHE is still the way to go.

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[mmbt0ne]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">En réponse à:</font><hr />
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in basketball you learn the layup and freethrow before you learn the fadeaway jumpers and hookshots.

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I love basketball analogies!

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So does Sklansky

[droolie]

This is weird advice. HEFAP is for advanced players playing against other advanced players. Most of the advice is for playing against players who are paying attention to your play. This is not the best approach for a newbie to learn. Varying your play and being difficult to read are just not that important at micros and these skills can wait. HEFAP as a book is disjointed and quite dense to the point of being downright discouraging to a newbie. I have found much of it to be quite useful but I would never recommend it to anybody as their first poker book.

SSH is also a very tough read too though. I think it is geared towards decent players looking to improve their game not utter noobs. I usually recommend it to newbies because grinding through it is better than learning the weak tight system found in the very readable but flawed WLLH. Given the raves about Getting Started in Hold'em and knowing the author's other work I guess I'd have to start recommending GSIHE before reading SSH.

My recommendations in order....
GSIHE
SSH
TOP
HEFAP
Middle Limit Hold 'Em (Ciaffone)

[ClaytonN]

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One part that threw me off that I remember right now is "You should be more inclined to call a bet on a raggy flop with KQo than AKo".

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The general reasoning behind this, in layman's terms, is that you're playing against tighter and smarter players who will be more inclined to put you on AK on raggedy flops.

Therefore, by holding KQ, you can bet with confidence if a K or Q falls, and bet when an ace falls "representing AK", so to speak. Hope that makes sense.

[johnc]

SSHE should be #1 read. IMHO ToP has to be next. My understanding of the material in SSHE particularly the reasoning behind it increased dramatically after reading Top and re-reading SSHE. HEFAP is a very good read but I believe it gives the opponents at the low limits way too much credit and may even encourage MUBS in an otherwise impressionable newbie-save it for much later.