Harrington on Hold 'em Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments, Vol. 1: Strategic Play

The No limit hold’em, is definitely a complex game. It is so complicated, that there has not been a worthwhile comprehensive treatment of the game in the form of a book; I believe that this might be due to the fact, that it involves more of the “table feel”, experience as well as intuition, which can not be easily taught or may be expressed in a suitable format.

Harrington along with Robertie have done just that. Harrington has been the 1995 world champion, apart from being the only player to be in the final table in both 2003 as well as 2004, coming over the two biggest fields in the history of the World Series i.e. 839 and 2,576 players, respectively. On the other hand, Robertie is a famous backgammon player apart from being an author of a number of excellent books on the game.

This book does a great job of discussing the relative advantages of different styles, playing against every kind of opponent, as well as even selecting one for you. This definitely makes sense; irrespective of his own style, for becoming successful he is required to spent quite a lot of time pondering about, observing, as well as combating all different kinds of players. More so, a playing style can not always be rigid and even the most orthodox players need to switch gears and get more aggressive as and when time demands.

This can be further explained: first, Harrington’s own game as described is not as orthodox and watchful as many might think. Second, a fairly conventional approach is obviously the sounder one for the apprentice, and anybody without lots of experience. Overtly aggressive game would be a lot harder to teach properly, and also a lot harder to pull over successfully. The players who flourish playing such aggressive, gambling techniques have outstanding talent apart from lots of experience as well as a feel for the game and the opponents. More so, they have usually been faced with difficult decisions and have undergone a lot of pressure situations more often. As far as those who insist on going for it, the best thing to do is to learn a fundamentally better style first and thereafter proceed from there on.

The book has been laid out well for reading. All the chapters start with a discussion on the topic and touching of the theory. There are several example situations along with the answers as well as detailed reasoning. These are further accompanied with discussions on merits of alternative games. Following every chapter there are several problems, usually from real hands. It offers a diagram of the table, your knowledge of your opponents, the chip counts for every player, and so on, i.e. all the necessary information. The problems generally provide all the information even though some of it might not be relevant to the problem. A major part of the decision making process in a game of poker consists of recognizing as well as eliminating the extraneous details for making analysis far more managable.

For those who are new to poker, for getting the most out of the book, it is recommended that you read a few other books at the same time. Some other worthy readings include “Small Stakes Hold’em” by Miller, Sklansky and Malmuth, “Winning Low Limit Hold’em” by Lee Jones and “The Theory of Poker” by David Sklansky.

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