The Irish Thug

I’ve been reading Harrington on Hold’em Vol 2. I really like it, even though it’s tournament strategy. I think what sets HoH apart is the examples. Theory of Poker has an insane amount of content, but is a tough read. My theory is that the example hands in HoH are what make it easier to read. For those that haven’t read either volume, there are a lot of problems used as examples. If you haven’t read the books, think of a number of how many example hands there are in a chapter.
That number is not big enough. The first chapter in Vol 2 is Making Moves. It is about 110 pages. Half of that is the “Problems” section where Harrington goes through example hands. There is also a hand or two within the main text of the chapter.

Now on to the title of this entry. In these examples, Dan gives the results of the hand after he explains what move you should make. (The player doesn’t always follow Harrington’s advice, which he uses to prove points.) The thing with showing the results is that they usually look like this:
Your Hand: Ts3c
Action to you: You are the SB. Players A through E fold. The pot is $240 (BB is all-in).
Action: You call, the BB shows 7d6s. The board comes KcQdTdTh6h.
Now you didn’t need to improve, but yet you end up with trips and completely dominate the BB who happens to pair his bottom card after he was already drawing dead. There are hands where it works out so Harrington can say, “Well, it doesn’t always work out, but you know you made the right play.” But that’s like 1 out of every 10 hands.

Another one of my favorite things is when he does this:
Situation: Towards the end of a one-table satellite. Players B and E are aggressive. Player C is supper-aggressive.
Your hand: AhTd
Action to you: Player A folds. Player B raises to $120. Players C,D and E all fold. The pot is now $210.
Thanks Dan, for the great reads on players C and E, cause they have so much effect on what I do in this hand.

In closing, very good book. I need to re-read some sections.