Did i just buy two useless books?

[Biggenx]

I started out playing fixed limit, and i've always felt that you need to be good at limit to be good at any hold em game.

But, i hate playing fixed limit, mostly because when i first started playing, i had an extremely frustrating time trying to play winning fixed limit poker at the small stakes.

[LethalRose]

I've read both of those and a ton others. You will get something out of all of them. Be sure to read theory of poker too.

[jt_patriot]

The good news, as far as I'm concerned, is that there are no good small stakes hold'em books in print. I only just started reading Theory of Poker and I've been playing for a couple years now. I'm a winning player, and I've learned alot from playing, posting, reading posts and developing better lines and more ways to maximize my EV. I'm glad that some rookie can't just pick up a book and be half way to knowing what I know in a couple days of reading. So in closing, read the books, take what you can apply to NL out of them and just keep playing.

[pokerjoker]

get harrington on hold em vol 1. best strategy for SSNL out there, you have to make small adjustment for ring game, but it will help your game a ton. vol 2 is pretty good too but 80% of it is really geared to playing short handed tournies

[betgo]

[ QUOTE ]
get harrington on hold em vol 1. best strategy for SSNL out there, you have to make small adjustment for ring game, but it will help your game a ton. vol 2 is pretty good too but 80% of it is really geared to playing short handed tournies

[/ QUOTE ]

HOH vol.1 and the first chapter of vol. 2. The rest of volume 2 is oriented toward things like preflop pushes with short stacks and has no relevance to cash games.

There really aren't any decent books directly oriented to small NL games. Brunson's chapter in "Super System", "How Good is Your Pot Limit Holdem" by Reuben, and the Reuben/Ciafonne book are really all that's helpful.

Since all of the reasonable books are discussing something different from what you are playing -- tournaments, high stakes games 30 years ago, or pot limit games -- you can't just apply everything literally. Harrington's and particularly Brunson's material are brilliant works by top players that you really should practically memorize if not always follow.

Limit books are pretty useless. Baldwin's chapter on an older version of limit holdem from SS1 has some discussion of flop textures that applies. There is also some material aling these lines in "Small Stakes Holdem" that might be relevant.