The Education of a Poker Player
I have read and studied more poker books than I can care to remember over the years. In fact this is mainly the reason why my level of knowledge is what it is. These days coaching sites are all the rave but despite the fact that the guys behind these sites are some of the best in the business, they are really only the next step in the poker coaching evolutionary ladder.
The first poker book that I ever read was Tony Holden’s “Big Deal”. In fact I read this book back in 1992 and it was this book that first got me interested in poker. I already knew the basics and the rules as we used to have a small cash game back then but my knowledge was basic to put it mildly.
After reading “Big Deal”, my interest was definitely tweaked and I quickly followed this up by reading three other books in the same year and they were “The Education of a Poker Player” by Herbert Yardley, “Total Poker” by David Spanier and “Scarnes guide to Modern Poker” by John Scarne which didnt actually discuss texas hold’em in any detail.
None of these books would really educate you in order to make you a winner in the modern online game today but they still have lots of valuable knowledge in them that make them all good solid reading. I didn’t really expand on my poker library for years until about 1998 when I started to read books by David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth.
This was a big step for me in my education and my knowledge of limit hold’em really sprouted from this. It was at this time as well that I first read “SuperSystem” by Doyle Brunson and this was my first introduction to the game of no-limit. Brunson’s book is still a very worthwhile read of course even today although the no-limit section isn’t suitable for online games with short stack players all over the place.
Back in 1998, there were still not that many books around to speak of and trying to get hold of poker books in England was difficult as there really wasn’t that much interest in the game back then. When “Late Night Poker” was shown on Channel 4 in the late 1990’s with under the table cameras then this along with the Internet was responsible for the game literally exploding and it is amazing to see how far the game has come in just ten years.
Another big author in my education was Bob Ciaffone. He wrote numerous books, the best of which for me personally was “Middle Limit Poker” that he co-wrote with Jim Brier.
I was already playing limit hold’em at that stage but this book enabled me to go beyond the masses at that time although it has dated somewhat now with the arrival of coaching sites and software that can break limit poker down so much that it has almost become a solved game. Recently of course I have joined and participated in forums, joined coaching sites and used electronic software in order to take the next step.
But writing about poker may just have been the biggest learning tool of all. The process of putting something down into print really does galvanise your mind at times.
This article was written by Carl “The Dean” Sampson
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