Question of the Day - 03 May 2013

WSOP bracelet-winner and Huntington Press author Blair Rodman writes:

Poker is a very complex game, especially no-limit hold 'em, the dominant form since the poker explosion of 2003 and the game I'll assume you want to play. For anyone who's looking to compete anywhere near the level of the young wizards plying their trade in the bigger games, serious study (details, details) and many hours of experience are required. (Yes, those are the boring books.) However, there are many small no-limit games in Las Vegas filled with players like yourselves, who want to play more for entertainment than solely for profit. With that in mind, here are a few books that keep it lighter, but still provide strategies that will give you a better chance of making a little cash while enjoying the experience.

• Phil Hellmuth's Play Like the Pros. It's not the best poker book ever, but it contains enough strategy tips to help you learn and improve. There's also lots of Phil talking about Phil, which some people enjoy.

• John Vorhaus' Killer Poker No-Limit: A Winning Strategy for Cash Games and Tournaments. John writes in a light and amusing style and teaches how to have a winning mindset. He's written a lot of poker, including his contributions in Huntington Press' Decide to Play Great Poker (which is one of those more technical books you reference), as Annie Duke's co-author.

• Tony Korfman's Texas Hold'Em: Tournaments, Cash Games and Embarrassing Social Gas. As it says on the title page of this self-published tome: "Laugh your ass off! Learn some poker!" If you can handle some, well, a lot, of off-color language, you'll get a kick out of this book. He had me laughing out loud and the advice is credible.

The above books will teach you some basics and provide some entertainment, but they won't turn you into a great poker player. If you decide you want to take your game to the next level, you can't go wrong with the Ed Miller series, beginning with Small Stakes No-Limit Hold'em. Many consider this the perfect entry-point book for rank beginners.

While some of the books above include tournament advice, they're all focused primarily on cash games. One area where less-dedicated players can more easily level the playing field is in no-limit hold 'em tournaments. This is due to the nature of tournaments and the strategy of putting pressure on better players by using the all-in move. Teaching players how to do this was the mission of Kill Phil-The Fast Track to Success in No-Limit Hold 'Em Poker Tournaments, penned by myself and Lee Nelson (with Foreword contributed by Hellmuth). From the popularity of Kill Phil and feedback we've gotten, our mission was a success.