The first years of the poker boom were fueled by the interest in no-limit hold em tournaments. Recently, however, players have been gravitating to another, even more complex form of hold em no-limit cash games. In Harrington on Cash Games: Volume I, Dan Harrington teaches you the key concepts that drive deep-stack cash game play. You'll learn how to tailor your selection of starting hands to your stack size, how to recognize the increasing deception value of supposedly weaker hands as the stack sizes increase, and how to use the concept of pot commitment to your advantage as the size of the pot grows. After laying out the general concepts behind deep-stack cash game play, Harrington shows you a complete strategy for post-flop play, and then teaches you the difference between post-flop play against a single opponent and post-flop play against multiple opponents. If you play no-limit hold em cash games, you need to read this book.
Table of Contents
About Dan Harrington vii
About Bill Robertie ix
Introduction 1
Organization of the Books 1
No-Limit Cash Games versus No-Limit Tournaments 3
A Sample Hand 5
Basic Ideas 17
Introduction 18
The Four Principles of Poker 19
Expectation and Expected Value 22
Example 23
Pot Odds 27
Example 28
Expressed Odds and Implied Odds 30
Example 30
Calculating Outs 34
The Rule of Four and The Rule of Two 37
Bet Types 39
The Value Bet 39
The Probe Bet 40
The Bluff 41
The Semi-Bluff 41
The Check 44
Controlling Pot Odds 46
Example 46
The Elements of No-Limit Hold 'em Cash Games 49
Introduction 50
Stack Sizes 51
Stack Sizes and Hand Selection 53
Sample Hand No. 1 54
Sample Hand No. 2 55
Big Hand versus Big Hand 58
Normalizing Hand Values 58
Implied Odds Justification 60
No-Limit Hold 'em and Venture Capitalists 61
Hand Distribution as a Defensive Weapon 61
Hand Selection in Tournament Play and Cash Play 62
Stack Sizes and Bet Count Tables 64
Stack Size, Pot Size, and Pot Commitment 67
Idea No. 1: Balancing the Strength of Your Hand and the Size of the Pot 67
Sample Hand No. 1 69
Sample Hand No. 2 71
Idea No. 2: Courting or Avoiding Pot Commitment 77
Sample Hand 78
Summarizing Hand Strength, Pot Size, and Pot Commitment 81
Hand Reading 85
Sample Hand 86
Defending Against Hand Reading 92
Diversifying Betting Sequences 93
Sample Hand 95
Recap: What Went Wrong? 100
Deception 104
Hand Analysis: Weighing the Evidence 105
The Metagame 107
Playing the Metagame 109
When Not to Make Metagame Plays 115
Metagame Evolution 116
Avoiding Big Mistakes 117
Hand Susceptibility 119
Dealing with Short Stacks 121
Tight-Aggressive Preflop Play 123
Introduction 124
Hand Evaluation and Stack Sizes 126
Limping, Raising, and the Deception Principle 133
Adopting Complementary Strategies 136
Factoring in Your Post-Flop Skills 140
Playing Individual Hands 141
The Big Pairs 141
Medium Pairs 143
Small Pairs 145
Small Pairs and Implied Odds 147
Ace-King 148
Ace-Queen 150
Ace-Jack through Ace-Deuce 151
The Trouble Hands 155
Suited Connectors 156
Other Playable Hands 158
Playing the Small Blind 160
Playing the Big Blind 162
Attacking Limpers 168
The Gap Concept in Deep-Stack Poker 169
The Problems 171
Tight-Aggressive Flop Play Heads-Up 217
Introduction 218
Your Goal in the Hand 223
Bet Sizing on the Flop 224
Raising the Initial Bet 226
Sample Hand 228
General Guidelines for Flop Play 230
Handling a Single Pair on the Flop 234
Betting Monsters on the Flop 239
Example: Strategy No. 1 and Stacks of 100 Big Blinds 241
An Interesting Variation: The All-In Semi-Bluff 246
Various Flops and How to Respond 248
Preflop Aggressor Out of Position 251
You Raised with K[spades suit symbol]K[clubs] 252
You Raised with A[heart suit symbol]Q[heart suit symbol] 256
You Raised with T[clubs]T[spades suit symbol] 260
Preflop Aggressor in Position 264
You Raised with A[spades suit symbol]A[clubs] 265
You Raised with A[heart suit symbol]Q[heart suit symbol] 272
You Raised with 9[spades suit symbol]9[clubs] 278
Non-Aggressor Out of Position 283
You Called His Raise with J[heart suit symbol]J[diamond suit symbol] 283
You Called His Raise with 3[clubs]3[heart suit symbol] 286
You Called His Raise with K[clubs]J[spades suit symbol] 288
You Called His Raise with 7[heart suit symbol]6[heart suit symbol] 290
Non-Aggressor in Position 292
You Called His Raise with T[heart suit symbol]T[clubs] 292
You Called His Raise with 4[spades suit symbol]4[diamond suit symbol] 295
You Called His Raise with K[spades suit symbol]Q[spades suit symbol] 297
The Problems 300
Tight-Aggressive Flop Play with Multiple Opponents 339
Introduction 340
Evaluating Hands in Multi-Way Pots 342
Playing Very Strong Hands 344
Sample Hand No. 1 346
Sample Hand No. 2 347
Sample Hand No. 3 349
Playing Overpair and Top Pair Hands 353
Sample Hand No. 1 354
Sample Hand No. 2 355
Playing Middle Pair and Low Pair Hands 357
Sample Hand No. 1 357
Sample Hand No. 2 359
Sample Hand No. 3 360
Playing Drawing Hands 364
Sample Hand 365
The Problems 370
Index 413
Biography
Dan Harrington won the gold bracelet and the World Champion title at the $10,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold em Championship at the 1995 World Series of Poker. And he was the only player to make the final table in 2003 (field of 839) and 2004 (field of 2,576) considered by cognoscenti to be the greatest accomplishment in WSOP history. In Harrington on Cash Games, Harrington and two-time World Backgammon Champion Bill Robertie have written the definitive books on no-limit cash games. These books will teach you what you need to know to be a winner in the cash game world.
