I’ve read 3 books this year that might be of interest to the readers of this blog.
The first book I read was Harrington on Cash Games. HOCG is a great poker book. It might not be in that top echelon of poker strategy books that includes Theory of Poker, Super / System and Caro’s Book of Tells, but if it isn’t, it is at the top of the echelon just below.
To be fair, it is terribly dry and sometimes seems repetitive. That’s fine because so is poker! If you want to be entertained, read Positively Fifth Street, which is be best prose ever written on our favorite subject. If, however, you want to be informed, read Harrington.
Since his first books covered tournament play, he starts out by pointing out the key differences between cash games and tournament games. I found to be a better description of the differences than I had found in previous reads. He then covers most topics chronologically – preflop, flop, turn, river. The random topics covered next include his discussion of “the metagame.” If you only read one chapter, read this one.
Some strategy I pulled out of the book include that while there is a tendency to sit on a deep stack and protect it, the appropriate strategy is just the opposite. With bigger stacks, you have bigger implied odds, and therefore the value of middling hands goes up (the corollary is that the value of a monster such as AA goes down). He also provides a decision-making criteria on betting on the river that is extremely straightforward but powerful in its application. Specifically, he says to never bet if only better hands will call and inferior hands will fold. That seems simple enough, but when you work through the examples, you can really see the greatness of his advice. I played 2 weeks ago and an opponent had trip 7s, King kicker. He bet the river and I re-raised him all-in with my 7s full. This is a good example of a player not following Dan’s advice: with a pair on the board, what inferior hand would call? What superior hand would fold? Maybe A7, but not for the amount that was bet.
It’s a good book, you should read it.
The next book is The Big Rich. TBR tells the stories of the four original Texas oil billionaires: Richardson (Bass), Hunt, Cullen and Murchison. The stories are fascinating enough, but as a third generation Texan who has lived in Austin, Dallas and Houston, I really enjoyed the people and places covered in the book that have in some way been a part of my life. E.g., in elementary school, I swam at the Shamrock Hotel (there is an entire chapter on this hotel), Jane and I walk past Mt Vernon on White Rock Lake regularly (this is where H.L. Hunt lived), my grandfather once watched Glenn McCarthy get into a fight over a parking space at a Rice football game (this incident is mentioned specifically although my grandfather isn’t) and the mention of the old Houston Natural Gas (my father used to work there.) Also, while Jane and I were driving to Houston, I was reading about Strake finding oil near Conroe. We were near Conroe at the time, and I looked up to see my old Boy Scout Camp, Camp Strake. I connected the dots.*
Even if you have no connection to the people and places in the book, you should find the rise of these men interesting. You’ll probably also find the falls of their fortunes (typically due to an idiot son or grandson) interesting. There is a lot of discussion of politics in Texas, and as a person who is no fan of Texas’ brand of (ultra-)conservatism, I found the political stories just delightful.
The third book is The Maisel Report by Ivan Maisel. TMR covers many of the age-old debates on college football. Rather than taking stands on who is the best player, which is the best team, etc., Ivan only discusses which ones are overrated and underrated. I like this approach because I think it is actually the more interesting discussion. Although he covered a minefield of topics, I found that 90% of the time, his opinions were in line with mine. That is really saying something because few people ever agree with me when it comes to college football. For starters, he couldn’t say enough about Tommy Frazier and the 94 and 95 Huskers. Neither can I!
He occasionally does a poor job of making his point, but this happens infrequently enough to not affect the overall quality of the book. One example is his criticism of DKR Texas Memorial Stadium. He called it overrated but never actually listed a criticism. In fact, he largely seemed to be complimenting it. I think I know what he wanted to say (and I would agree with him), but he never came out and said it. I found it a little bit surprising that Vince Young made none of his lists (he was a bit character in a couple stories about other players). I suppose that since the premise of the book is about things that are over- or under-rated, that would imply that VY is just appropriately-rated.
Ivan may have to eat a little crow for his dim view of the future of Nick Saban and Alabama. Bama did just fine in 08, and they would have beaten Utah, IMHO, if not for missing its best player.
There are three typos in the book, which I might expect in a poker book but not in a book from the ESPN machine.
So, if you are looking for a book to read on the beach this summer, consider any of those three. I certainly enjoyed them.
DF
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*This is in no way as cool as when I read The Prize. We were driving through Vienna, Austria, just as I read the chapter about OPEC building its headquarters there. I looked up from the book and was looking directly at the OPEC building. True story. You can ask Full House Rob – he was there.
