One of the hardest parts of improving as a poker player is finding high-quality learning resources. there are numerous successful players over the years who have written books on their approaches to the game, however poker evolves so quickly that these books are often out of date within a few years.
During my time playing at Encore in Boston, I met many people who were addicted to poker books. they had read dozens of strategy books and were still struggling to win relatively easy live games. this is because poker books that actually provide quality information are very rare. furthermore, these books are extremely technical and often put off mathematical illiterates.
You are reading: Game theory poker books
In this article I will review the few and only books that I would recommend reading if you want to become a winning player.
modern poker theory by michael acevedo
I really can’t say enough good things about this book. It’s the culmination of the best parts of every poker book I’ve ever read and is backed by rigorous research on piosolver. The author has experienced significant success on the tournament circuit both live and online and has a background as a financial analyst and mathematician.
This book unites theoretical analysis with a foundation in practical hand examples without becoming just another hand review book.
This book is primarily geared towards mtts and will be most useful if you are used to playing poker with shorter chip sizes. As a real money game player, I still find this book extremely useful as it approaches the game from a formal context based on game theory.
See Also: Teresa Medeiros – Book Series In Order
In this book, you will learn the following
- fundamental concepts of game theory
- how to classify ranges as condensed, polarized, bounded, or unbounded depending on various situations
- the relationship between polarization range and bet size
- how to bucket multiple hands into stocks and create a strategy for all your holdings
- how to analyze complex data and solver results to run gto lines
It’s worth noting that this book alone won’t make you a significantly better player, but it will give you the basics to tackle the game like a pro.
applications of no limit hold’em by matthew janda
No limit holdem apps is considered a classic and is essential reading for anyone looking to become a proficient player. I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have read this book early in my poker journey. It’s worth noting that while this book has aged extraordinarily well, there are some aspects that are outdated.
- preflop range: The original preflop ranges in this book were built based on frequencies and hand calculations. in the age of solvers, it’s better to use ranks built from sims.
- manual revisions chapter: I would recommend skipping the manual revisions chapter at the end of the book, as modern solvers have revealed flaws in the range of matthew construction.
This book formed the backbone of Doug Polk’s strategy and guided much of his analysis. Doug Polk at the height of his career was considered the best no-limit heads-up player in the world after beating Ben Sulsky. If he plans to read this book, he would recommend reading slowly and carefully working through all the equations and examples. this will result in a solid basic knowledge of poker theory that you will be able to develop very quickly. No limit hold’em applications can be daunting reading and are intensive in theory, but they are absolutely necessary to develop a foundation in gto play.
expert heads up no limit hold’em by will tipton
will tipton has become something of a cult icon in the poker theory community. he was the first person to create a weighted flop subset representation of the game and even released a bundle of video tutorials with his book explaining toy game analysis in gambit. Many concepts in the book were completely foreign to most players in the community in 2012. In addition, Tipton brings the advantage of his background in theoretical computer science that allows him to rigorously formalize his ideas.
some of my favorite lessons from the book are:
- thinking of expected value in terms of the overall game tree
- proper definition of maximum exploitation strategies
- how iterative exploitation leads to nash equilibria
- how river and turn deflections influence equity distributions
- rank distributions in various board structures
See Also: Books & Bibliography – The King Center
It is worth noting that the title of this book is misleading. This book is extremely useful for all poker players, not just heads-up players. though, this is the style will is best known for specializing in.
expert heads up no limit hold’em volume 2 by will tipton
expert heads up no limit hold’em is a bit more practical than the first book, applying its earlier ideas to multi-street situations. this is a welcome contrast to the first volume which focuses primarily on preflop play and turn/river scenarios. the book brings more nebulous concepts down to earth. As a computer scientist, I enjoyed this book simply for its mathematical elegance; however, I still believe that the concepts will have value for many players. The book also comes with a video pack where tipton guides you through building his own poker game tree solver in python!
no limit hold’em for advanced players: emphasis on difficult games by matthew janda
Of all the books on gto poker, this is probably the most practical. matthew walks through a variety of common points in the game and explains reasonable lines to take based on analysis in snowie poker and piosolver. this book is good for developing general heuristics for executing gto strategies at the table. however, I don’t think the heuristics are as detailed or advanced as to necessarily set you up to win difficult games. That said, the value of this book is that it’s much easier to read than the others and is good for getting your feet wet in gto.
the grinder manual by peter clarke
This book is not a theory-focused book, but rather a very pragmatic book on heuristics to execute somewhat solid lines on the table. The strength of this book is that it focuses on 6-max cash games and includes some very useful models and approaches for determining which places are good to c-bet and how to think through the ranges. plus, the book does a good job of explaining the advantages of being in position.
This book is by far the most beginner friendly book on this list and will lay a great foundation for becoming a winning player. additionally, the book does an excellent job of covering various hud stats for effective exploitation of player pool trends.
the math of poker by bill chen and jerrod ankenman
Of all the books on this list, you’d be better off reading this last one. It’s not that the book itself isn’t brilliant, it’s that the math in the book is so difficult and complex for anyone without a few semesters of college math that it’s not worth reading for most players. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and recommended it to many of my friends. many of them reported that they couldn’t get past the first few chapters. if you’ve taken calculus, probability, and statistics and maybe a game theory course, you’ll finish the book with no problem.
The book is extremely abstract and doesn’t generally apply to decisions at the table, but it’s an awesome read for fans of math and poker.
See Also: Robert Whitlow – Book Series In Order