Many people have asked me what the most important poker books are to read. Well this all comes down to your own skill level and where you are in the game and where you are trying to get to and what games you want to play. Firstly if you want consistent income then you should be reading up on cash games and there is no better place to start than the Harrington series on cash games.
This two book volume is a comprehensive primer on the game that will take your game from novice to an advanced level. These books are not sufficient on their own because they do not address many of the issues of modern online poker and that is their weakness. But for a novice then there are no greater books on the market in my opinion that will take your game away from that of someone who knows nothing about the game and elevate it over a period of a few months to someone who knows the game very well indeed.
But if tournament poker is your thing then Dan Harrington has also with Bill Robertie produced a three volume series for tournament poker as well. In fact this could get you far closer to being a strong tournament player than the cash game books do for cash games. I wouldn’t have any doubts about recommending these books to anyone who wanted to come into poker and learn either cash games or tournament strategy.
