[ky70]

When does the law of diminishing returns kick in with reading poker books and studying poker strategy? I recognize that information and knowledge are beautiful things but how helpful is it to your game to read your 8th, 9th and 10th book? Is it more of an enjoyment read for you at this point or do you truly believe the added knowledge is improving your game? Anyone noticed a "step back" in their play that may be attributable to overloading yourself with too much info/differing strategies?

[dad604]

Originally Posted by ky70

When does the law of diminishing returns kick in with reading poker books and studying poker strategy? I recognize that information and knowledge are beautiful things but how helpful is it to your game to read your 8th, 9th and 10th book? Is it more of an enjoyment read for you at this point or do you truly believe the added knowledge is improving your game? Anyone noticed a "step back" in their play that may be attributable to overloading yourself with too much info/differing strategies?

For most players, in one word, never. I don't think you can ever stop learning. And then there are the natural gifted ones that don't need a book but they are still consistently learning.

[links_slayer]

Originally Posted by dad604

For most players, in one word, never. I don't think you can ever stop learning. And then there are the natural gifted ones that don't need a book but they are still consistently learning.

While I agree that you can never stop learning, I think the problem might be trying to apply/recall the wealth of information you have learned.

[Wooly1]

Personally at this point I am not opposed to reading more of the mainstream style poker books however I really find I am getting more from some of the books you might not normally think of as required strategy reading. Just a few I would recommend are...

The Professor, The Banker and The Suicide King

Poker Wisdom of a Champion

The Real Deal

[beekeeper]

I like to read the "classics"--Sklansky & Harrington--interspersed with other books, like Phil Gordon's, the Tao of Poker, and others, one after the other. I probably shouldn't admit this, but I don't really try to understand (or perform) the advanced math stuff, but it's not necessary at our game. I just do it to keep myself thinking about different concepts. I figure if I mix up what I'm thinking about poker-wise, it has the effect of mixing up my game.

[jamby]

I can't get enough of reading about odds and the laws of chance, poker, poker players, gambling in general, the history of the game, etc. I find sometimes that my second read or re-read is more advantageous than the first. More sticks and often times I will have read something during the interim that helps to make something clearer to me. I'm a sponge for reading about the game.

[retravoh]

Personally, i've read Skalansky, Brunson, and others and I have to admit, I've way outread the competition that I play with from week to week.

the point being, that unless I plan to go to vegas and play 20-50 times higher stakes than what i'm playing here, then i've just been wasting my time with more complex strategy.

my opponents just are'nt good enough for me to think very hard about how to play a hand.

[jamby]

But, reading is FUNdamental.

Originally Posted by retravoh

...i've just been wasting my time with more complex strategy.

my opponents just are'nt good enough for me to think very hard about how to play a hand.

[retravoh]

Originally Posted by jamby

But, reading is FUNdamental.

this is true. reading sklansky's views on gambling have been fun and very interesting to me - even if I never end up using any of his more complicated theories.

[bolgenmod]

I probably read more poker books than just about anyone here (except jojo). I read them all: strategy books, non-strategy books. I haven't read any of the McEvoy/Cloutier books (because I heard they were terrible which my reading of them in the bookstore confirmed), but that is about it, barring a few random books. (Yes, I have read some of Ken Warren's books and Hellmuth's "Play Poker Like the Pros"!)

Part of it is that, as you might guess, I love to read. So when I discovered that there were poker books, well, I went to town. I really enjoy reading about poker, especially since I don't play as much as I would like to.

I think that on the one hand, you do reach critical mass at some point: if you read enough books, there is little that is new in most poker books. On the other hand, even now, I have rarely read a book that doesn't give me at least one or two new things to think about. Sometimes it is just in the way that an author explains a concept; other times it really is something new. The only book I have read within the last 6 months or so that I would say had absolutely nothing new in it was Daniel Negreanu's "HE Wisdom for All Players" (which I have to say was terribly disappointing: I expected at least a LITTLE something from that book). So I figure that pretty much any decent poker books is worth the price to me: I am going to read something, so it may as well be a poker book!

Will books improve your game? Maybe, but you also have to reread them AND play. They certainly have helped my game. The best example of a book (or books) that improved my play tremedously was HOH. I read and reread HOH 1 and 2 when they first came out. At the time, I had only played about one or two tournaments (terrible tournaments with my homegame players -- we all were pretty horrible). I also started playing the CT Thursday tournaments around this time (late Fall 2005, Y1Q3 or so). And I was terrible there too (never made finished any higher than midway through the field). But I kept rereading HOH 1&2. And kept trying to figure out the right way to play.

Maybe I would have learned faster if I played more tournaments, but I didn't really want to -- I just wanted to play with my CT buddies. And to get to the point where I was not a total fish. Not to boast, but I did improve my game significantly, to the point where I am now one of the better players in the CT tournaments. And I have to say that HOH and all the other books I read deserve much of the credit: I only played once a week, I never discussed hands here or on 2+2 (or even read their MTT forum, which is an great resource I hear), I never used PokerTracker or anything like that (I did finally buy it when we started the Hammer/Hephaestus challenge, but I still don't use a HUD or do much with the PT stats), but I thought about the game a lot. And reread the books.

Now, my story may be atypical -- I don't think that reading HOH seven times will necessarily turn you into a successful player -- but reading about the game really seems to have worked for me.

I don't know if the law of dimishing returns will kick in, but I know that after reading well over 50 poker books (too lazy to go upstairs and count), I am still learning, still improving my game, and still look forward to new books!