Harrington on Hold 'em Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments, Vol. 2: Endgame (Harrington Tournament Series)

This is a copy/paste review of several different poker books. I bought these so long ago. I don't recall what information is in each of the books. Overall, between the information in all of them, I've been a pretty consistent winner at smaller stake tournaments. I'm by no means a pro, but I'd make $3-4,000/year playing tournaments, usually the $5 or $10 buy in levels.Twice I've turned $10 into over $1,000. In those cases I started with $1 tournaments until I had enough to enter bigger ones.I was also reading books before I'd ever been online. Back in those days I ordered from Gamblers Book Club in Las Vegas. I did pretty well at live poker in the 90s at the lower stake games. 3/6 or 5/10 Hold em I usually did pretty well. At 10/20 and above, not only was the $$ a factor, but the players were generally better. I was playing full time back then, but could never really break the barrier between the good low limit player to the pro level player.I haven't played regularly in quite a few years. The government shutting down/severely restricting the sites for US based players was the biggest reason. Also, my job involves a lot of travel, so it's tough to sit through much more than sit-n-gos. Playing at a casino after playing online to me was such a drop off. Online ya can play a lot of games at once. Live action was just to slow after playing online.For about 3 years there, I was in the top 3% or so of all online players- at least based on the rankings of the time. Back then there were maybe 850,000 people ranked and I might be ranked 12,000 or so.I did well at Poker Stars and Full Tilt. I thought my then girlfriend to play. The biggest thrill I've ever had in poker was in a 2000+ person tournament, she came in 1st and I came in 2nd. No, we didn't cheat. We weren't even at the same table until there were 17 people left. About a month before that, I came in 2nd in a different 2000+ person tournament.I've taught a good friend to play. He's went way beyond anything I've accomplished. He now plays full time for a living. Another friend I've taught to play has also exceeded anything I've ever done. His son- who I taught to play along with his dad, went from $1 tournaments to $100 tournaments in a matter of months.Except for the one, we've all stopped playing poker regularly for one reason or another. Job, business, marriage, kids, whatever the case may be. I'm not sure how up to date these books are. Poker progresses. I remember back in 1995, I could go to Toronto and the games (live cash games- $10/20 hold em) were nothing but fish. Ya'd see max raises and be thinking it was a straight flush vs 4 of a kind. They'd turn over their cards and it was Ace high vs 1 pair. LOL!!! So the games get better as people either smarten up or lose their $$.So these books (again, I'm doing a copy/paste review for a few of them) are at the very least a solid lesson on how to play. I'm not sure how they'd go over in 2017, when I'm doing the actual review. For their time though, they were all dynamite.

There is an old adage that says sequels are never as good as the original. For the most part this saying holds true but then there is the exception. Back in 1974 a sequel came out that broke the mold of how a second movie was expected to turn out. There will be endless discussions regarding which of the 2 films was superior, but there was no denying that when the second film was made, it not only was a success, but one of the greatest movies ever made.That film was The Godfather, Part IIWith 'Harrington on Hold'em Volume II: Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments: Endgame', Action Dan has managed to make the impossible possible. He (along with Bill Roberte) have written a sequel so good that it is hard to distinguish the two books and easily point to a reason why the first book is better than the sequel.With the focus being how to play the middle to end stages of a tournament, Harrington has written a book that even the most experienced of players will be able to profit from. My favorite 2 points made in this book are as follows:1. The concept of M and why it is so important to always know where your stack is in relation to the antes and blinds.2. When heads up, nearly any 2 cards are worth playing and you are never that far behind.I really hope that Dan Harrington doesn't sell a lot of these books, because anyone that reads, learns, and follows the advice within is going to become a much better poker player. Employing a writing style that makes even the most difficult concepts easy to understand and follow, the end result is incredible.I said it when I reviewed the first book, these are the most important poker books written since Doyle Brunson's Super/System which came out in the 1970s, and it is REQUIRED reading for ALL Hold 'Em players.Wonderful, wonderful poker book by one of the best players in the world.***** HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION

Harrington and Robertie have surely done it again -- even more powerfully than in their first volume. They have presented the authoritative text about how to think about and how to play a final table in a no limit hold em tournament. And in so doing they have redefined the game. Harrington and Robertie introduce a whole new lexicon (at least it was new to me) about no limit poker: inflection points, red zones, dead zones, green zones, probe bets, continuation bets. Some of these phrases I had heard -- maybe even dropped to impress people from time to time. But they explain them clearly and tie them all together in a vivid strategic picture of the game. But even if you were familiar with all of these terms and phrases that help clarify the many otherwise intuitive concepts of no limit tournament play, you've never read a simpler, clearer or more powerful explanation of them -- and all of the different stages players enter as their stack size grows and diminishes at the final table in a tournament. Similarly so with other vital concepts to no limit play like continuation and probe bets and final table play. Harrington and Robertie take the ideas that excellent players have intuitively known but until now have not fully expressed and put them into clear, simple language that any moderately experienced player can readily grasp and absorb. The hand examples, which the authors think us through further drive home the key points of this masterwork. To say that this is a must read for every serious hold em player doesn't do it justice. It is a book that has set a new standard for poker literature. Even if you are a very experienced winning no limit tournament player, this book will help you think and play. And I don't think that it is overstating it to say that it will significantly change the way players talk and write about the game in the future. Bravo Harrington and Robertie. Your two volumes are by far the best I have ever read -- and I've read just about everything that's out there.

Good book and advice for playing tournaments

good read for poker amateur trying to upgrade the game

Must read pour tout joueur de poker de tournoi. Un tournant pour gagner de l'argent en sit n go online

This book follows on from the first book and teaches all the skills necessary to adapt your game when your stack gets small compared to the big blind. The later section on heads up is worth the price of both books on its own and is the only work on heads up play I have found worthy of reading. The key to both of these books which no other poker book covers is the art of betting - how much to bet and when. Its what separates the average poker player from the pros and up to now kept as a closely guarded secret.Basically these two Harrington books make every other poker book redundant. If you want to learn the basics of texas holdem get the Matthew Hilger book. Learn and digest that and then get these two Harrington books and you will have everything you need to know to become a winning poker player.There is a third book on the way which has 400 hand examples which I am sure will further add to this already superb work.Buy them now and then get onto a poker site like getmintedpoker.com or ladbrokespoker.com and start building your bank roll!

Ordered this a long time ago. I enjoyed the read. Different styles today, but still an interesting read.