Harrington on Hold'em: Expert Strategy for No-Limit Tournaments Volume III: The Workbook

Dan Harrington

The first two volumes of Harrington on Hold'em are the gold standard in the world of how-to poker books Volume III puts it all together, and if possible is even better than the first two-- though you have to have read the first two to get the most out of this book.

Think of Volume III as the Cosmo of poker books; you'll spend the time taking quizzes. The book consists of fifty hands, some you've seen on TV, some from online tournaments. Harrington lays out the hand, and then asks what you would do. Most of the problems have a number of different hypothetical points where you get that question.

This is great stuff. Harrington shows you both places where top players played perfectly and places where top players either made a subtle error (in Harrington's opinion, of course), or just completely blew the hand. This lends the book an extra air of authenticity; Harrington is showing you that top players are people, too. (The exception is Phil Ivey, whom I don't think anyone is sure is actually human.) He concentrates on situations where beginners and intermediate players make the most mistakes (six problems, for example, dealing with just bubble play), takes you through multi-hand problems (the great Ivey/Helppi matchup at Bellagio 2004), and sometimes even throws the same problem at you from two different perspectives at the table, once in the problem and once in the solution.

Another excellent learning opportunity from Dan Harrington. If you've been reading the series, this one's a must.

And for the record, Robert "The Iceman" Beveridge scored a 396: "A player with a solid base of skills to build upon." "I'm xterminal. Come play with me on pokerstars.net.