[MistaSantos]

Just what the title says I want to buy my first poker book and I need suggestions.

[Poboy]

What game do you play or want to play? Are you new to poker?

[BDHALEY]

Super System. First edition.
Super System II
Phil Helmuth Play poker like the pros
Phil Gordon's little green book
Theory of Poker.

If you're playing cash games or tournaments any of the first 3 will give you basic, intermediate, and advanced strategy. Phil Gordon's little green book is great for tournament strategy. Theory of Poker is advanced in depth stuff beyond the "I play AA like this" stuff. In my opinion, all necessary books for Hold em strategy. SS and Helmuths book also cover other games. 7 stud, Omaha, etc.
Good stuff.
buy from ebay, you'll find them cheap there.
Good luck...

[Colquhoun]

My first book was Small Stakes Hold'em by Ed Miller. It skips all the basics (unless you want that) and is a good introduction to pot odds, implied odds, counting outs, position, protecting your hand, etc.
a link is here:
http://www.twoplustwo.com/books.html#Small%20Stakes%20Hold'em
Note that this entire book is geared toward limit play, but so much of the important concepts discussed are for both limit and NL.

[MistaSantos]

Originally Posted by Poboy

What game do you play or want to play? Are you new to poker?

I play mostly home game tournaments of no limit Hold'em. and when I go on vacation I'll play some low stakes limit hold'em. I'm planning at some point this year going down to AC to play in a tournament. I consider myself a beginner I've been playing sparodically for about a year. Now I play about every 2 weeks and watch it on TV a lot.

[yeltzen]

Harrington on Hold'em vol 1 and 2 if you're just playing in low stakes home/casino tournaments.

If you're going to play cash games like low stakes limit Hold'em, I would strongly recommend reading the Theory of Poker first. It's a pain in the ass, but once you read that, you can fly through just about any other poker book. It was the first book I read. After that, read Small Stakes Hold'em if you're going to play in a casino. Online, it's not quite as good as it used to be.

[smoore]

I disagree about ToP. It's a really deep book about how to beat the toughest games.

HOH I and II by harrington (NLHE tournaments), Small Stakes Hold'em by Miller (LHE). GSIHE by Miller is probably a little too basic but if you feel you need a refresher course it's the one for you.

I don't have any experience with Gordon's books.

[Poboy]

Originally Posted by MistaSantos

I play mostly home game tournaments of no limit Hold'em. and when I go on vacation I'll play some low stakes limit hold'em. I'm planning at some point this year going down to AC to play in a tournament. I consider myself a beginner I've been playing sparodically for about a year. Now I play about every 2 weeks and watch it on TV a lot.

If you're a beginner, then I recommend Winning Low Limit Hold Em by Lee Jones. It's pretty basic (not two pair beats a pair basic, but basic good play). It's a simple, solid foundation. It's well written, and an easy style to read. It's a first step on the road, so after that get Theory of Poker by David Sklansky, like yeltzen said. It's a much denser read than WLLHE, but it has everything you need in it.

[bolgenmod]

The absolute best beginner's book on the market is Getting Started in Hold'Em (Ed Miller). Yes, it is basic, but it is still valuable. I would highly recommend at least looking at it to see whether or not it would be helpful. (I had read many, many poker books before this came out and still found some gems in it.)

Next on my beginner's list would be both Winning Low Limit Hold'em (Lee Jones -- get the newest edition, 3rd) and Small Stakes Hold'Em (Miller, Sklansky, Malmuth). SSHE is a better book than WLLH, but it is also more complex. And SSHE focuses strictly on limit games. But SSHE has invaluable stuff about (for example) evaluating the strength of hands and partial outs that applies to all games. WLLH is pretty basic, and it now has a section on SNGs.

The Harrington books are absolutely necessary for tournament play, but may not be all that helpful for home game tournaments -- most of his advice is geared towards long deep-stack tournaments against reasonably skilled opponents, which may or may not describe your home game.

I would not recommend reading Theory of Poker until you have read some other books -- it is a great book but complex.

If you are only going to read one book (and I would NOT recommend that), I would go with SSHE even though it is not about no-limit play. If the book has to be about no-limit tournament play, HOH would be the one (or two -- you have to read both 1&2).

[Couga]

Well I don't have anything new to add. But I would agree for tournaments that you buy "Harrington on Holdem" at least Volume 1 and if you can get Volume 2, pick that up as well. But Vol. 1 is the best in the series in my opinion, and would probably serve your purposes best.

For the limit poker, I would strongly suggest Lee Jones' "Winning Low Limit Hold'em." I also own "Small Stakes Poker" as others have suggested, which is a great book, but I think you will get more out of Jones' book at this point. After you have read that a few times then pick up Small Stakes Poker.

Hope that helps.

- Couga