Harrington On Hold 'Em: Volume 1 By Pdcd By PDCD on Nov 05, 2007 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

There are three books in the Harrington on Hold 'em series. Volume 1 discusses not only general play of individual hands, but focuses specifically on the early stages of the tournament. These books are absolute must-reads for any beginning or intermediate no limit Texas hold 'em tournament player.

Harrington is a World Series of Poker main event winner. He's known as "Action Dan", a joke which indicates that he is usually seen as a dry, boring, and tight poker player, but anyone who reads these books is going to have a very strong foundation as a well rounded tournament poker player.

This book has sections on different styles of play from tight to aggressive and various mixes, different types of tournaments (multi-table, single table, online), betting patterns, odds, position, betting on all streets, and drawing. It also introduces the very famous "gap concept" that states that a player should have a better hand to call a raise with than he would need to actually make the raise himself. For full discussion on this, see the book.

There are tons of examples in the book, and that's where it really shines. The examples and quizzes are top notch, even if over time some have disagreed with specific hands. This book truly is an entire course on how to play the early part of tournaments.

The only negatives are that you need to buy the 2nd book at the very least to get a comprehensive early and late tournament game plan and that Harrington seems to have a disdain for online poker. He frequently discusses how bad or overaggressive online players are compared to live high buyin events, which may have been true then, but is not necessarily the case now with the wealth of new poker knowledge as well as the restrictions on online gaming -- the games can be quite difficult!

Overall, if you play any no limit Texas hold 'em tournaments, and if you play regularly, you need to own this book. It's a must have. Most serious tournament players will have read this and probably use many of the tactics and much of the reasoning inside, so it will help you get to know your opponents as well as develop your own tournament style.