10 Poker books you MUST read: Ace on the River

10 Poker books you MUST read: Ace on the River

When I began playing poker choosing a ‘primer’ –as poker strategy books are often called-was a fairly simple process, since there were typically only a handful of books on the particular topic in print! And no, I’m not 75 years-old, I began playing poker a few years before the nuclear bomb known as Chris Moneymaker went off in 2003.

Nowadays, the process is a lot more complex for the sheer fact that there are hundreds of ‘primers’ to choose from, so with that in mind I have devised the following list of the 10 poker books you MUST read, and honestly I am loathe to include any ‘primers’ on my list; although a couple of more theoretical tomes seem to have found their way onto it, as well as two general poker ‘primers’!

• 1. Ace on the River, by Barry Greenstein
• 2. Cowboys Full, by James McManus
• 3. Positively 5^th Street, by James McManus
• 4. Zen and the Art of Poker, by Larry W. Phillips
• 5. Biggest Game in Town, by Al Alvarez
• 6. Education of a Poker Player, by Herbert O’Yardley
• 7. Big Deal, by Anthony Holden
• 8. Theory of Poker, by David Sklansky
• 9. Mathematics of Poker, by Bill Chen and Jerod Ankenman
• 10. One of a Kind, by Nolan Dalla and Peter Alson

So without further adieu, here is the first poker book you MUST read:

Ace on the River, by Barry Greenstein

Ace on the River is a tough book not to like; it’s combination of advice, warning, and humor gives the reader an inside look at what it actually means to be a professional poker player. Ace on the River is a ‘primer’, without really being a ‘primer’, and Greenstein does a magnificent job of detailing his life’s story -without glossing over any embarrassing moments-while at the same time explaining what it takes to be a professional poker player.

The target audience for this book is anyone who takes poker seriously -which seems to be EVERYONE in today’s poker world-and the people who will benefit the most from reading Ace on the River are the ones  who curse out other players for bad plays, tilt rather easily, or have problems with self-control.

The reason I call Ace on the River a MUST read poker book is simple: This is the only poker book I know of that talks about intangibles, and doesn’t focus on the mathematical strategies of starting hand selection or any of the other concepts that are repeated ad-nauseam in typical poker ‘primers’ -which are also 10-times more boring and difficult to even read in some cases.

In Ace on the River Greenstein outlines the mentality you need to possess to make it in what is a cut-throat world: Even the most competitive sales jobs don’t have the same ruthlessness you see exhibited at a poker table, and for this reason a poker pro needs to constantly be on his or her toes, and cannot let their guard down in any part of their life; which seems to be the central theme of Ace on the River. Or, perhaps the theme of Ace on the River can best be summed up by something Benny Binion once said, “Trust everyone, but always cut the cards.”