Harrington on Hold Em

[Aytumious]

I realize that there is a book forum, but I was very interested in the opinions of other cash game players who read this book and how it may have affected their play. For me personally, it made me realize I was not raising enough PF with decent hands in the right situations and also how I was not fully taking advantage of board texture and opponent characteristics to steal pots, especially on the turn and river. I play 6 max, but I still found this book to be very useful for tweaking my game. Any thoughts?

[Malachii]

I think HOH has helped the game of pretty much every poster on this forum in one way or another.

[Ilovephysics]

Yes, I would agree that I was taken a bit back at the betting recomendations for a 'conservative' player. I think the post-flop play was rather eye-opening when subsequent watching of televised poker (almost comically) revealed to me many so-called 'aggressive' players using almost the exact same style of 1/2 pot betting when they floped bottom pair on a ragged board, etc..

Very interesting to watch how universal a fair amount of what Harrington wrote really was... to the point where it makes me really want to read part 2 simply because I worry that this volume lacks detail into what happens when someone puts you to the test with a specific move, etc.. I.e., You simply can't just bet 1/2 the pot, get called, bet 1/2 the pot, get called again on the turn, and then check the river because you dont like the fact you've been called twice and assume you are beat. Similarly, what happens when you bet preflop, bet on the flop, get called, and then get raised on the turn (with intent by your opponent) to make the call essentially too large pot-odds wise for you to call unless you had a huge hand anyway.. i.e., your opponent picks up that you are willing to cave into a modest raise to someone who has stuck around with you (because you are assuming the reason they are sticking around with you is because they too have a hand)

Then again, if you are betting about the same regardless of holdings, it would be rather tough for anyone to make such a move without really being sure you had only a marginal part of the flop, etc....

[theblitz]

I have not yet read HoH because of the fact that it is a tournament book and I play cash games.

Is it still worth the read?

[TheMainEvent]

Part one concentrates on the earlier, out-of-the-money tournament situations that somewhat resemble cash games. Part two is about the late tournament scenarios so will probably be useless for non-tournament play.

[Aytumious]

[ QUOTE ]
I have not yet read HoH because of the fact that it is a tournament book and I play cash games.

Is it still worth the read?

[/ QUOTE ]

Your question is part of the reason for my original post. Most of the strategy in the first volume is directly applicable to cash games since he is talking about the deep stack portion of a tournament.

The main attraction of the book is the clarity with which he expains the thought process behind his decisions. Also, he is not nearly as tight PF as his reputation suggests, and his aggression level postflop is very solid and surely quite profitable.

[poboy]

While it was written with tournies in mind I think alot of it applies to cash games as well. Not to mention it is one of the best written poker books , very enjoyable read IMO. Not quite as meaty as a typical 2+2 book but certainly worth it's price. JMO

[Malachii]

Yes. You can easily apply it to cash games. And in my opinion, Volume II should be very applicable to cash games as well because he is specifically going to talk about ways to bluff and shorthanded play.

[Alex/Mugaaz]

I don't know how much I agree with all this support. HOH is an incredible book, but I don't agree that it applies to SSNL. I think it applies fairly well to mid-high stakes, but to me it's like trying to apply HEFAP to small stakes limit games, it works fairly well but there is a better way.