Christmas.....aaaghhh

[raab11]

Just got back from the paper shop, where to my complete astonishment they were puting up xmas decorations.

When i expressed my shock i was told,"..its ONLY 5 weeks away". This of course is true; five weeks today infact. Still seems early to me.

Anyway i better get working on my xmas poker dvd. I know i've only been playing a couple of months but it seems everyone else is releasing a dvd for xmas, so why not me....lol

seriously though any book/software recommendations for a rookie keen to improve?

cheers

[thetank]

What type of poker do you play?

[raab11]

mainly nl  hold em tourneys online, limit ring games(still too many dumb calls for no limit cash games). though i like omaha hi/low too

[jezza777]

On your xmas list should be....

The Theory of poker by David Sklansky

Internet Texas Holdem by Matthew Hilligar  ( for limit ring games)

Holdem Poker for advanced players By David Sklansky

Tournament Poker By David Sklansky

Harrington on Holdem By Dan Harrington both volumes

Software wise go for poker tracker the best pice of software on the market bar none

[raab11]

cheers jezza

i'll look an amazon now

raab

[thetank]

I think the best game for a rookie to start with is limit poker.
I think that's a better place to learn the odds, whether to draw to a hand or not is a decision that comes up more often in the limit game than the no-limit.
Another reason why it's good for rookies is that mistakes made won't wipe you out.
Lee Jones's book winning low limit holdem I think is the best one out there for limit poker.

As for software PokerTracker and Turbo Texas holdem (TTH) all the way.

TTH is an invaluable tool at limit poker. You can put in exact situations, what type of players were playing, what you were dealt pre-flop, what action had gone before you, what came on the flop etc. and it can compuate in minutes millions of random extrapolations from that given situation to find out the EV. You then do it again but taking a different betting action eg. raising instead of calling. Then compare EVs for each move. This will show you in specific situations that you decide whether it was right to fold, call or raise.

They do one for no-limit tournaments too but it's not as indespensable.

PokerTracker does just what you would expect from it's name. It tracks your poker. What that means is you play thousands and thousands of hands and it compiles statistics for you. You'll know if you're making money playing a certain hand from a certain position. It stores all your hand historys so you can play them back, graphically represented, and scrutinise them.

Also useful is poker tracker compiling statistics on your opponents. Things like how many hands they are playing, how often they call compared to how often they bet or raise (aggresion factor) and loads more. You can transpose these statistics right onto the screen you're playing. You can have the program tell you who the rocks are, and where the maniacs are seated. Who is tight but passive and who the stone cold tight aggressive killers are.