I read this book and the other two companion volumes where they came out. It changed the way I played and I credit the read and Terra's of Harrington and immediately qualified to the World Poker Tour (Cyprus 2009). Rereading the books meant my biggest live cash in the World Poker Tour to date: WPT Paris 2011 ... 25th for $24,000.

Mandatory read for the aspiring tournament hold'em player

No-limit play is different from limit play; tournament play is different from ring-game play. In tournaments the blinds come marching irrepressibly around, and they get bigger and bigger. In a ring game, they march around but they stay the same size. What this means is that there is a certain urgency in tournament no-limit that doesn't exist in a ring game.

Harrington, one of the top players in the world, and a dead-on scientific and shrewdly psychological player, who is also a master chess player and a world class backgammon player, emphasizes this difference by making this book just volume one of a two-volume set. The second volume is sub-subtitled, "The Endgame" and focuses on the later stages of tournaments.

How valuable is this book? For the tournament player I would say that there is only one other book that is even in the same league; that's David Sklansky's Tournament Poker for Advanced Players. But this book is better. Harrington's nearly exhaustive approach out-Sklanskys Sklansky. Scores of hands are analyzed in minute detail, the analysis typically covering several pages of text. Harrington begins with a diagram of the table, showing "your" position and that of the other players seated. He gives the amounts in each player's stack, the size of the blinds, the stage in the tournament (just starting, early, middle) and what kind of tournament it is, major, online, etc. And he identifies conservative and aggressive players.

Next he gives "your" hand and the action to you. For example, you have TdTh on the button and Player A passes, Player B raises x number of dollars....and now it's up to you. What I love about these illustrative hands is that Harrington gives first an analysis of the factors that a professional player would consider at that point, and then he gives his recommendation: fold, call, raise x number of dollars, etc.; and then he tells what "you" actually did--which is sometimes or even often, the wrong thing. And then he continues the hand to the flop and often all the way to the river, commending on every action.

How much to bet, Harrington says, can be calculated almost exactly in some cases. If you have top pair and you believe your only opponent is on a draw, you need to bet enough to make it unprofitable for him to call. If it is a turn bet and the pot is $900 and he has a flush draw he has a 9/46 = 19.57% chance of hitting his hand, or about one in five. So you need to bet more than one third of the pot to make it a mistake for him to call. But, as Harrington cautions several times in the book, you do not want to foolishly bet more than is necessary. Going all-in--an irresistible thrill for some tournament players--is silly when you can get the same result by betting a smaller amount.

Another nice point that Harrington makes is that whenever there is a bet and you are trying to figure out what the bettor has and whether you should call or not--always more of an art than a science, which is one of the great things about poker--you should put the probability of a bluff at at least ten percent.

What the reader realizes is that no-limit tournament hold'em poker is a very complex game and that there are almost always many things to consider before making any decision. Sometimes of course the decision is easy. You have the nut flush on an unpaired board at the river and it's bet to you. You raise, of course. But wait a minute! Is there somebody behind you yet to act? Maybe you should just call and try to get an overcall. And, by the way, just how much should you raise? Even if there is nobody else in the pot but you and the bettor, you need to consider just how big a raise he is likely to call. If you bet too much he may not call. If you bet too little you may not get as much out of the hand as you might.

You might say, Whoa, not everybody at the top plays this way. Surely Johnny Chan, for example, in his prime did not stop and figure out every angle before proceeding. He acted and reacted with lightning speed. Yes, but that is only because he had already figured out all the angles, had added them up and totaled them, so to speak as he went along; and when his opponent acted or he saw the next card, he knew exactly what he wanted to do. Instantly, and perhaps somewhat unconsciously.

The "natural" player as opposed to the "scientific" player considers the same factors before acting, but he or she may put a different emphasis on certain values. The natural player may value position more than the scientific player (or it could be vice-versa), but regardless both players take into account the very factors that Harrington delineates before acting.

One thing that really made me sit up and notice is that Harrington's theory about profitable player styles includes not only his fairly conservative style, but the "aggressive" style and the "super-aggressive" style. His main point is that the more aggressive your style, the more alert, intense and sharp-witted you have to be. Wild players CAN win, but they have got to be able to read both the action and the other players extremely well since they are often walking the razor's edge.

Bottom line: Harrington's mastery of the game and his clear instruction make this a mandatory read for the aspiring tournament hold'em player.

--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”

Not only the first volume of the best poker series I have ever read but also one of the best instructional books of any sort that I have ever read. Wonderfully concise introduction to the key concepts of tournament poker with opportunities to test your wits in real situations.