Finished SSH....next book should be...?

[McNeese72]

My first response was going to be "read it again" but I see that several people have said it already. If you can absorb everything in one reading, you are a lot smarter than me. The cover of mine is falling off from use.

[Aaron W.]

[ QUOTE ]
I just finished SSH and my question to you all is which book should I pick up next? I'm actively trying to improve my game, but still only comfortable/bankrolled enough to play the lower limits (.5/1, or 1/2 if I see a soft enough game). TOP, by all accounts, appears to be the best poker book ever written, but would the advice I find in that book apply to the lower limit games that I currently play? Is there another book I pick up the next time I'm at the mall that would be more beneficial for the stakes that I play.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

[/ QUOTE ]

A number of people told you to read SSH again. And they're right. Other people told you TOP and HPFAP. And they're right, too.

The best advice is for you to start really studying your play. It's easy to deceive yourself into thinking you've got SSH mastered because you've read it a couple times and you're beating up on the $.25/$.50 game (or whatever game you were playing before $.50/$1).

Hang tight at $.50/$1 and build up your bankroll. Start watching your opponents and learning about how *THEY* play. Then look back at SSH, TOP, and HPFAP again with new insights in terms of responding to player specific situations. If you're looking to improve your game, that's where the real magic begins. These books are all about laying foundations. It's up to you to build on it.

I'll quote you again on something:

[ QUOTE ]
TOP, by all accounts, appears to be the best poker book ever written, but would the advice I find in that book apply to the lower limit games that I currently play?

[/ QUOTE ]

Since you're asking this question, you're not understanding what these books are about. The ideas don't apply to specific limits, but to specific game conditions. Every now and then, I'll read a small stakes post about some very soft $40/80 game that was playing like a $3/6 game.

SSH is about specifics for beating soft games. HPFAP is about specifics for beating tougher games. TOP is about generic ideas which apply to all games. Keep that in mind as you go through them.

[Jacob_Gilliam]

Next up should be HPFAP, no doubt. TOP is very overrated in my opinion. Most of the concepts are obvious once you've been playing for awhile, and it's mostly covered to a lesser extent in the other books.

[txdolly]

I found the section on reading hands from TOP to be very informative. It (TOP) does usually refer to the type of game and player so it makes you focus on the player. A good read but I would go back and re-read SSH.

Good Luck

[deception5]

[ QUOTE ]
I think that HEFAP has a lot of excellent concepts that apply at all levels. The reponsibility of figuring out when/if to apply certian ideas to microlimit games or players falls on the reader.

In particular, the shorthanded section is a must-read.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just wanted to second this - after you have gone through SSH a few times, hepfap has some great information which is applicable at all levels. I wouldn't worry too much about the starting hands yet, but there are many great lessons to be learned.

Also as others have advocated, keep reading SSH.

[McGahee]

[ QUOTE ]
Next up should be HPFAP, no doubt. TOP is very overrated in my opinion. Most of the concepts are obvious once you've been playing for awhile, and it's mostly covered to a lesser extent in the other books.

[/ QUOTE ]

That opinion seems to be taboo, but I would have to agree from what I've read of TOP. Maybe I just haven't "gotten it" yet.

[Bankuri]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Next up should be HPFAP, no doubt. TOP is very overrated in my opinion. Most of the concepts are obvious once you've been playing for awhile, and it's mostly covered to a lesser extent in the other books.

[/ QUOTE ]

That opinion seems to be taboo, but I would have to agree from what I've read of TOP. Maybe I just haven't "gotten it" yet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Which is exactly why, in another thread, I advocated it as an early book to read. I read it first, so it was full of new information that wasn't specific to any particular brand of poker (in fact, most of the examples use 7-card stud/razz). It outlines an approach, that is followed up in the other 2+2 books.

[Fantam]

In addition to Hold Em Poker for Advanced Players, there are 2 new books on the market:

Getting started in Hold Em by Ed Miller

Weighing the Odds by King Yao

GSIHE is aimed at beginners and upwards and Weighing the Odds is aimed at medium stakes and upwards (similar to HEPFAP).

See the Books/Publications section of the forum for some reviews on both of these books. Hint: They are both very good! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[PuckNPoker]

I'm going off the charts a little on this one. Although HPFAP and TOP are all great books, I think your next book (after of course rereading SSH [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] ) should be Inside the Poker Mind by John Feeney.

I'm a little more than halfway through it, and I really wish I read it sooner. IMHO It is a good complement to SSH. I think a lot of stuff he put in there is covered elsewhere, but I think Feeney has put it together in an easy digestable way that will get you thinking about the play of hands on another level. Some of the stuff (General poker concepts essays) you will be saying "Oh I already know about that" but I think if I found his book right after SSH it would have accelerated my appreciation/absorption of SSH a lot.

[@bsolute_luck]

your next book should be "how to train a monkey to ride a unicycle". it's a classic! or if you really want to improve on how to play poker Theory of Poker or HEPFAP (or whatever that goofy long acronym is)