Review of Harrington on Hold'em

[Crix]

Harrington on Hold’em Review

Just finished Harrington on Hold’em and thought I would share some of my thoughts with you.

I have eagerly awaited the release of this book as I am a devout NL ring and tournament player and felt there was a serious gap in the pieces on this topic. Harrington does a very good job at filling this gap.

The structure of the book is a bit here and there, but having read it all the way through, I’m not sure of a better way to have gone about it. Lets face it Harrington and Robertie are gamblers, not editors. But, if you’re serious about your poker you will have no trouble keeping glued to the pages.

The book, rightfully, spends little time with the basics and gets right into the meat of the game. Lets face it, this is not a book for the newbie wanting to learn the game from scratch. It assumes that you have a solid grasp of the fundamentals and gets on with things from there.

Harrington delves right into the several types of player that we currently see in both B&M and online NL tournaments, starting from the conservative on through to the ultra-aggressive. He then shows us, through exceptionally explained hand examples, how to play as and play against these types of players.

The sections that follow that repeat the same format, i.e. a detailed explanation of the concept being explored and then a thorough follow through using hand examples. I was very intrigued to see that nearly as much material is taken from online tournaments as from B&M’s. Harrington has a surprisingly good grasp of the online game. Some how I just never imagined Dan sat in front of a PC grinding out a SNG on Party Poker….nope still can’t see it.

The areas explored in the subsequent sections are; reading the table, pot odds and hand analysis, betting before the flop, betting after the flop and betting forth and fifth street.

I always got the feeling while reading this that Harrington was really letting us into how he truly thinks during every hand. Other books, like Cloutier & McEvoy’s ‘Championship No-Limit & Pot-Limit Hold’em’, left me feeling as though the authors were afraid to let you have too much information. Sections of HOH, like ‘Betting before the Flop’ left me wondering if Harrington will regret some of the things he has divulged once the other top tournament players get hold of it.

All-in-all this book gets a big thumbs up. It is easy to absorb and leaves you feeling as though you’ve had a lesson from one of the all time great tournament players.