Phil Gordon

I'm terrible at poker. Not wanting to embarrass myself at the next poker night, I got Gordon's book. This is perhaps a little more advanced that what I could use, but it's a quick and readable introduction to poker strategy, and the art of imperfect information, livened up with examples from the table. Gordon provides the basics of "tight-and-aggressive" strategy, and why it wins most of the time, along with the bigger picture of tournament games and poker psychology. The mathematical parts show more of the book, on pot odds and quickly figuring the odds of your hand against an assumed AA or AK hand, as well as avoiding common statistical mistakes, is a little rough, and will take me another reread.

If there's any criticism that can be fairly levied against The Little Green Book is that it's become so popular that the 'meta' of the game has moved to take advantage of it. This book won't make you a star, but hopefully it'll keep me from embarrassing myself next Thursday. show less

This is a bunch of hand stories from a rather excellent poker player. However, it is of course, biased to his particular style. One would think Daniel Negraneau would have an completely different point of view, and a book like this with one hand per pro would be the ideal; however, you can learn a lot from Phil, and there are few people better to learn from.

A good beginner's book. It probably coul dhave been tighter, but some of the anedotes that stretch it out are amusing and instructive.

Simply one of the best out there. Gordon has both great insight and great skill at articulting concepts better than anyone else out there.