The 10 books every poker player should read Part 1

There are plenty of specialized poker books a poker player could read that will improve one specific part of their game. Whether it’s a strategy book like Chris “Fox” Wallace’s No Limits, Lee Nelson et al.’s Kill Phil series, or Rolf Slotboom’s Secrets of Professional PLO, or if it’s a psychology book like Jared Tendler’s The Mental Game of Poker or Paul Hoppe’s Way of the Poker Warrior (all excellent books I might add) these books are helpful to certain players or for certain leaks.

However, in terms of becoming a well-rounded poker player there are certain books a player can read that will help them regardless of what stakes, formats, or poker games they play. Some of these books I’m about to list were written for poker players, by poker players, while some of them are simply applicable to the game of poker.

So in no particular order here are the first three entries on the list:

• How We Decide, by Jonah Lehrer

This is the most enlightening book I have ever read (and I read quite a lot of books in this type of genre) dealing with how people make decisions using their emotional and logical brains –sometimes in unison, sometimes independently, and sometimes conflicting with one another.

How We Decide will put a poker player in the fast lane when it comes to understanding other’s motives, as well as how they can improve their own decision-making process in terms of when to rely on your instincts, and when the logical side of your brain will serve you better.

Furthermore, this particular book has an entire section dedicated to poker, and also touches on poker and other games of skill throughout.

• Ace on the River, by Barry Greenstein

This book, penned by long-time poker player Barry Greenstein, was one of the few books to hit the market during the poker boom that didn’t focus on strategy, or cashing in on the emerging market for anything dealing with online poker. Instead, Greenstein’s book gave the reader an up close and personal look at the world of professional gambling, and looked at some of the aspects of the poker culture that most aspiring players are completely unaware of.

This book is an absolute must-read for any player mulling over the decision of whether or not they should become a professional poker player.

• 200 Poker Tells, by Joe Navarro

While anything written by former FBI interrogator Joe Navarro will give you a good insight into body language, and how you can use it to your advantage, 200 Poker Tells focuses entirely on poker, and is therefore the best for poker players specifically, even if it isn’t Navarro’s best work on the subject itself.

In 200 Poker Tells, Navarro goes over the most basic (and therefore the most common) tells in poker, as well as the more generalized body language signals that indicate whether a player is nervous, confident, lying, etc.

Read Part 2

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