Phil Gordon's Little Blue Book

Phil Gordon's Little Blue Book

More Lessons and Hand Analysis in 

No Limit Texas Hold'em

by Phil Gordon

Quick Thoughts

Having previously reviewed Phil Gordon's Little Green Book (see here if you have not read this review) and given their popularity; its probably worth looking at another one of Phil Gordon's books. The little blue book differs in approach from the green book, using selected hand histories as a tool for analysis and advice. This is less of a beginners book then the green book, but makes a reasonable follow up to this and other introductory poker books.

Four out of five stars as a good follow up to introductory poker books.

Basics

As with the green book this is a nice hard back book. Although the book format is small, at around 400 pages in length it packs in a lot of material. Hand histories are divided into different formats of No Limit Holdem with chapters on cash games, sit and goes and a number of chapters on tournaments. Separating tournament play into a range of chapter is probably a good idea. The chapter on satellites and super satellites is interesting, providing advice specific to the non-standard payout structure of this type of tournament. The other chapters on tournaments considers early, middle and late stage play followed by a chapter that specifically considers the final table of a multi-table tournament.

Typical Cost

£9 to £12.99, $14 to $21

Additional Thoughts

Example hand histories and hand analysis can sometimes come across as contrived, where the author selects (or makes up?) a hand that simply presents the point or advice they want to get across. Phil Gordon goes to some effort to avoid this. The hand examples are from real hands he has played, and being real poker even when played optimally the hands don't always go his way. Similarly he is open about hands he could have played better.

This is a good book for dipping into, perhaps reading through 2 or 3 hands in a short session, or reading one of the chapters in a longer session.

Phil Gordon's Little Green Book

Phil Gordon's Little Green Book

Lessons and Teachings in No Limit Texas Holdem

by Phil Gordon

Quick Thoughts 

A nice introductory book with some good coverage of the basics, as well as touching on some more advanced topics. As the title implies this book focuses on No Limit Holdem. The book is strong at the introductory level, however you are likely to need to combine this with other books if you are playing tougher games, especially online.

In my opinion this book gets four out of five stars as a good introductory book on No Limit Holdem. 

Basics 

A nice small hard back book of just under 300 pages. After introductory chapters the book goes on to cover a range of topics from pre-flop and post-flop play, through to tells and tournament play. Percentages, odds and probability are given a reasonable treatment at quite an accessible level. Important topics such as bank roll management and psychology are also addressed towards the end of this book.

Typical Cost

£8 to £12.99, $15 to $40

Additional Thoughts 

After a reasonable introduction, that a beginning player will appreciate, this book goes on to address pre-flop play.  Especially useful are the pre-flop charts (at the back of the book) recommending hand ranges for some different cases. Although note; the black and white print of charts designed to be in colour is a bit cumbersome.  While some people might want to argue about specifics of pre-flop range; this is a good introduction to this concept and should help with overly loose play (without good post-flop skills) that plagues some beginners in the game.

The chapters on post flop play and tournament poker give a good introduction to these topics within the space provided. The tournament poker chapter gives coverage to tournament specific topics. However, the book may well have benefited from some specific discussion on the differences between cash game and tournament poker.

The chapter on tells, as Gordon notes, is largely based on Mike Caro's book of Poker Tells. However, it's good to see Phil Gordon's take on these tells. This summary on tells also provides more depth to the book and a good starting point without having to read Caro's book straight away. Although as the classic text on tells you are likely to want read this book in due course. I'll get round to a review of Caro's book in due course. Update - See this review here.

Online poker is covered in a very short chapter, which unsurprisingly given the age of the book some may feel is dated. As noted in my quick thoughts; if the online game is your focus you will probably want to read this book in conjunction with other books that address online specific topics, such as HUD's, tracking software and table selection.

The book is scattered with quite a few interesting short pieces, such as the don't wear sunglasses to play poker notes, page 230. Overall the style of writing is nice and accessible. Hopefully you will enjoy this book and find it useful in learning, or brushing up on, the fundamentals of No Limit Holdem. This book is also a good choice as a first book on poker while still having some material of interest to the intermediate player.

You can also see a review of another one of Phil Gordon,s books, his  Little Blue Book.

If you have read this book please share your star rating. Also let us know if you have any comments on the book, or if your thinking about buying it.