Phil Gordon's Little Green Book: Lessons and Teachings in No Limit Texas Hold'em

A must for every poker player!

Phil is a good teacher and explains the concepts in a straightforward and entertaining manner. His next book: Little Gold Book" takes it to a higher level but is too difficult for me as a beginner.

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.

Enjoyed reading the methods of the man. Not your definitive guide, but doesn’t pretend to be. Great insight to one individuals take.

This is the fifth Poker book I've read and is hands down the best so far. It's more of an intermediate/advanced book which assumes a basic understanding and knowledge of the game that you can build on. It reads almost like a Professional Poker Player's Diary; with tips, stories and guides to hands and plays etc, which all come with easy to follow examples. Without a shred of a doubt it has improved my game in the week or so it took me to read it, and I will doubtlessly be referring to specific chapters again in the future. If you have been playing for a while and are looking to up your game, look no further! A very engaging and highly useful read.