by Pete Adams

Created on: November 06, 2008

Only a few years ago, finding anything on the subject of poker in anything but the most specialised of book-stores was something of an achievement. Since television has discovered the game, the situation is somewhat different and the problem nowadays is one of how to deal with overwhelming choice.

There are hundreds of books doing the rounds and I very much doubt that there are too many people who have read anything approaching a significant proportion of them. So how do we go about navigating this ocean of print? More importantly, how do we combine our journey through poker prose with our journey through the game itself?

The idea that someone could sit down and read every word ever written on the game, then pop down to The Horseshoe to win the World Series without ever having played a hand, is clearly an absurd one. As with any skill, time spent practicing is often far more valuable than time spent reading. Equally, undirected practice is likely to be both unproductive and extremely frustrating. We all need a few pointers from time to time.

Before we tackle the important question of what to read; we need to deal with the even more important question of when to read it.

For the absolute beginner, the first port of call is to learn the rules and basic mechanics of the game. There are plenty of books out there that cover this but given that the rules of any form of poker will fit quite happily on a postcard, there's no need to rush out and buy a book at this point. A quick Internet search will turn up any number of perfectly good reference sheets. Watching games on TV is another good way to pick up the basics, but the best of all is to play a few games - whether with a few friends or in one of the free rooms available at most on-line poker sites. There's no point doing too much reading before you get some sort of hands-on feel for how the game works and start acquiring the elementary language of the game. Immersion is the key, spend as much time as you can playing, watching or talking about poker. Once you feel really comfortable with the game, you can focus on getting good at it without the distraction of wondering whether a flush beats a straight or what a "turn" card might be.

Having removed the "absolute" from your "absolute beginner" status, it's a good time to get reading. The key here, is to pick one book and study it thoroughly - a vastly more effective approach than casually reading any number of works. Whatever you do, don't stop playing - read a section

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