culture

Five books worth the shelf.

Three of them teach you to play and two of them tell you what the game is like from the inside. For each one, the author, the publisher, the year and what it is known for were read at a source. What is deliberately absent is a chapter by chapter account of the contents, because that would be a summary from memory of somebody else’s work.

The Theory of Poker

Anyone who wants the reasoning rather than a chart

David Sklansky

Two Plus Two Publishing, first released in 1978 and in its final form in 1987

The book that put names to the ideas the rest of poker literature now takes for granted: expected value, the semi bluff, how often to bluff, implied odds and reverse implied odds.

It is the oldest book here and still the one that explains why rather than what. It is also where the Fundamental Theorem of Poker comes from, the idea that you gain whenever an opponent plays differently from how they would if they could see your cards. Nothing in it depends on which variant is fashionable, which is why it has outlived every strategy book written about a specific game.

Super/System

Readers interested in where modern strategy came from

Doyle Brunson, with chapters by other players

Published in 1978 as How I Made Over $1,000,000 Playing Poker, and as Super/System from 1979

A collection in which each form of poker is written up by a different specialist: draw by Mike Caro, seven card stud by Chip Reese, lowball by Joey Hawthorne and Brunson, stud high low split by David Sklansky, limit hold em by Bobby Baldwin and no limit hold em by Brunson himself.

It was one of the first books to set out strategy for several variants at once, and it is the reason a generation of professionals had anything to read at all. Parts of it have dated as the games moved on, and that is worth knowing before you buy it. Wikipedia also records the remark that has followed the book ever since: Brunson is said to have believed it cost him more at the table than it earned him in sales.

Harrington on Hold'em

Tournament players

Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie

Two Plus Two Publishing, in three volumes: 2004, 2005 and 2006

A three part treatment of no limit hold em tournaments: Strategic Play, The Endgame and The Workbook.

Harrington won the World Series Main Event in 1995 for a million dollars and then finished third in 2003 and fourth in 2004, in the two years the field grew fastest. That combination is unusual enough to be worth noting: the books were written by someone who had just done it against modern fields. They remain the standard reference for how a short stack should be played.

Positively Fifth Street

Readers who want the world rather than the game

James McManus

2003

McManus was sent by a magazine to cover the murder trial connected to the death of the Binion’s Horseshoe executive Ted Binion, and played the 2000 World Series Main Event while he was there. He won a satellite into it and finished fifth.

The best argument on this page that poker writing does not have to be strategy. It is a reported book about a trial, a city and a tournament at the same time, written by someone who unexpectedly found himself at the final table of the thing he was covering. Read it for what Las Vegas was in 2000, not for advice.

The Biggest Bluff

People who want to understand why anyone plays

Maria Konnikova

Penguin Press, 23 June 2020

An account of the author’s own entry into poker, written by a psychologist.

It is the most recent book here and the one most often given to people who do not play. What makes it more than a diary is that the experiment worked in public: in January 2018 Konnikova won a PokerStars Caribbean Adventure championship event for 84,600 dollars and a thirty thousand dollar entry package, and in 2024 she won a World Series bracelet in an online event for 68,478 dollars.

in what order to read them

If you are starting, the reasoning comes before the tactics: The Theory of Poker first, then a tournament book if that is what you play. Everything those books call expected value is what we call EV in the glossary, and the concept they build on top of it is pot odds. Read those two entries first and the books get considerably easier.

There is one thing books cannot do, and it is the thing that decides most results: they cannot show you your own mistakes. A book teaches the general case and your leaks are specific to you. That is the argument for reviewing your own hands, which is set out in the page on how to start learning poker, and the reason the money is more often lost to tilt than to a gap in theory.

next step

The same material, in the right order, free.

Our learning section covers the ground these books cover, street by street, with the arithmetic worked out rather than asserted. It is not a substitute for the books; it is the shortest way to find out whether you want them.

Start learning poker

questions about poker books

What is the best poker book for beginners?

The Theory of Poker if you want to understand the reasoning, because everything in it applies whichever variant you end up playing. If you already know the rules and want tournament advice, the first volume of Harrington on Hold’em is the more practical starting point.

Is Super/System still worth reading?

As history, yes. As strategy, partly. It was one of the first books to lay out serious strategy for several variants, and parts of it have dated as those games moved on. Read it for where the ideas came from rather than for what to do on Tuesday night.

What is the Fundamental Theorem of Poker?

The idea introduced in The Theory of Poker that you gain every time an opponent plays their hand differently from the way they would have played it if they could see your cards, and lose every time they play it the same way. It is a way of judging a decision without waiting to see who wins.

Are there poker books that are not about strategy?

Two on this page. Positively Fifth Street is reporting on a murder trial and a tournament at once, and The Biggest Bluff is a psychologist’s account of learning the game. Both are about the world around poker rather than about what to do with a pair of nines.

Do poker books still matter now that solvers exist?

For the arithmetic, less than they did. For the reasoning, as much as ever: a solver gives you an answer and a good book tells you why the answer is what it is. The two are complements rather than replacements.

Why does this page describe so little of what is in each book?

Because we describe only what we read at a source. Publisher, author, year and what each book is known for are checkable facts; a chapter by chapter summary written from memory is where mistakes get in, and it would also be quoting somebody else’s work.

sources

Authors, publishers, years, contributors and the tournament results named on this page all come from these, read on 30 August 2026. The judgements about which book suits whom are ours.

Back to poker culture, or read about the events these books describe on the history of poker page.