One More Poker Book Review
Harrington on Cash Games – Volumes I and II – Dan Harrington 
So I read one more book. While I was getting killed in Montana at the table I realized I’ve mostly read books that teach you how to win tournaments. I figure it was time to remedy this. I bought Harrington on Cash Games Volume I by Dan Harrington. It was well worth the money. Reading it I realize that my cash game is terrible because I’ve been playing cash games like tournaments. Harrington starts the book by comparing the differences. I’m sad I didn’t read this book 5 days before.
There’s a simple difference that one needs to know when going from tournaments to cash games:
In cash games, playing small hands aggressively is an unnecessary risk because the blinds will not increase. Good cash hands are disguised big hands.
For this reason, a player needs to open up his starting hand requirements and play some more speculative hands. Playing 79s makes some sense in cash games (though not all the time). Top pair, top kicker in cash games isn’t worth pushing all-in with where every dollar you don’t invest in a hand is a dollar you go home with.
Harrington’s book drives this all home very well. He includes a large number of “problems” for you to work out, giving explanations for each answer he gives. This is the ideal book for a mainly tournament player who wants to learn the cash game.
The book is broken into 2 volumes. The first volume is the intro stuff and a lot of the overall strategy including standards like pot and implied odds (his explanations are as clear as I’ve read). Then he moves on to tight-aggressive play. In volume 2 he moves on to loose-aggressive play. The highlight for me was a whole section on beating weak games. That was worth the price of admission alone. I would recommend these books whole-heartedly.
Nice review BB. I have the opposite problem. I’m more profitable in my cash games than my tourneys. Online or live, it doesn’t matter. According to my stats I’m a winning player in cash and a losing player in tourneys.
From the little I’ve read on your post, it’s true that I play much more speculative hands in cash games, and this might carry over in tourneys where I play speculative hands as if it were cash games.
Well anyway, nice post and I just might pick up that book also. Sounds like a good read.
Nice review. Harrington on Holdem is one of the must reads for those learning the game. Although written with a tournament bent, the information in the 3 volumes is very helpful for cash games as well. I am looking forward to reading this one.