The Harrington on Hold ‘Em series introduced important but largely unknown concepts to a wide audience and fundamentally changed the way tournament poker was played. The Harrington on Cash Games series may have helped some people get started in no-limit hold 'em (NLHE) cash games, but it fell far short of the bar set by its predecessor. In particular, many online cash game players felt that the book didn't speak to the aggressive, short-handed games in which they play.
- So, plan to get very lucky after you read Dan Harrington's 2 volumes on cash game no limit hold'em. I've been a limit player for 20 years. Recently, I decided to devote myself.
- Dan Harrington and Bill Roberti, Harrington in the cash game: How to win in the No Limit Hold'm Money game, vol. I (Two Plus Two, 2008) took about 50 pages of Harrington's first volume in the cash game before I started saying to myself, This is as good as Halldem's Harrington.
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.
When 2+2 Publishing announced Harrington on Online Cash Games (HOCG), a book meant to address specifically 6-handed online NLHE games, there was understandable skepticism. Harrington's refusal to disclose the screenames under which he plays, and thus his results in online cash games, led some to question whether he was even qualified to write such a book.
Personally, I can understand the desire to see his results, but I believe that a good book is a good book. If his arguments, reasoning, and math are sound, then his results are not terribly important.
That said, it would be hard to come away from HOCG convinced that authors Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie are inexperienced at online play. Their book is an excellent introduction to the games, covering not only strategy but also important aspects of the online game such as site selection, rakeback, and using Heads-Up Display (HUD).
HOCG is the single best resource I've seen for anyone just starting out online or still learning to beat the microstakes games (i.e. stakes smaller than $.25/$.50). Though still good, the section on moving up to small stakes games ($.25/$.50 through $1/$2 blinds) is a lot less thorough and somewhat more hit-or-miss than the majority of the book, which is aimed at microstakes players. I'd recommend the book without qualification for anyone still aspiring to beat the microstakes. Others will need to approach the small stakes advice more critically, but there's still a lot of good material to be found there.
The tricky thing about writing a book for beginners is getting the balance between accuracy and simplicity right. On the one hand, NLHE is a complex game where the right play almost always depends on a wide variety of factors and judgment calls. Providing rules or straightforward advice runs the risk of opening oneself up to objections, exceptions, and 'what if's'. There is even the danger of hindering the reader's development later in his career when he finds himself hamstrung by over-reliance on these rules and 'standard' plays.
On the other hand, the beginner by definition lacks the experience to make many of the more subtle adjustments and judgment calls. Providing him with too many exceptions and variables to consider is essentially providing him no guidance at all.
HOCG gets this balance just right, providing clear guidelines alongside advice for how to make the most important adaptations and adjustments. Harrington doesn't overwhelm with exceptions, but he does discuss the most important ones, leaving room for independent thought right from the beginning.
The best example of this is the book's guidelines for pre-flop hand selection. Rather than provide either a definitive list of playable hands from each position or a lengthy diatribe on the advantages and disadvantages of various hands, Harrington discusses two separate pre-flop strategies and explains the differences between them. This approach invites the reader to feel like a poker player using his judgment and making strategic decisions rather than a robot following a pre-programmed formula.
Of course some generalizations are unavoidable, and most of the spots where I'm tempted to furrow my brow and ask, 'but what about…?' are minor points where it's probably better not to complicate the matter. There are a few cases where an overly broad statement could eventually hinder a reader in tougher games. 'Only bluff with hands that have no showdown value' and 'Don't bluff a calling station' come to mind. By and large, though, Harrington's generalizations will do no harm and quite a bit of good in the course of a player's development.
The authors open with a brief introduction to the most important theoretical concepts in NLHE: pot commitment, hand ranges, implied odds, that sort of thing. Despite being simple and concise, they often manage to be insightful as well, which is no mean feat. The sections on bet sizing and reasons for betting are particularly good, though I don't see the need to distinguish a continuation bet from value bets, bluffs, and semi-bluffs.
HOCG stands out not only for the quality of its content but also for how thoroughly it addresses concepts specific to online play that most other resources neglect. This includes a substantive guide to note taking, discussions of site, table, and seat selection, and the most through introduction to setting up and using HUD statistics that I've seen anywhere, including in materials created by Hold ‘Em Manager and Poker Tracker themselves.
HUD statistics play a role in virtually every example in the book, which is a great way of demonstrating how to use them in real-time decision-making. It's easy to get overwhelmed by all those numbers on the screen, and many players end up focusing on either the cards or the statistics rather than synthesizing all available information. The way in which these statistics are integrated into the text and consistently included as a factor in all decisions serves both to highlight their importance and illustrate their proper use.
The consistently excellent material continues through the section on microstakes play, which is a nice introduction to the kinds of opponents one will encounter in these games and the strategies that will beat them. Harrington addresses the most common beginner's mistakes in simple and convincing terms, and this section will help many readers get on their feet and winning quickly and with minimal losses. The hand examples that conclude this section are well-chosen to illustrate, synthesize, and expand on the preceding material.
Unfortunately, HOCG is not so consistently spot-on in its advice for small stakes players. Harrington's advice about how the games will differ from the microstakes and the new skills that will be required is a good introduction, and there are valuable passages scattered throughout. In other places, however, he fails to address important factors and ends up offering some misleading advice.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the section dealing with 3-bets. A failure to address the aggressive 3-betting in online cash games was one of the most common criticisms of the original Harrington on Cash Games books. While HOCG devotes 15-20 pages to the concept, there are nevertheless some glaring omissions that render the resulting advice rather superficial.
Most troubling is the lack of consideration of how often an opponent will call a 3-bet. When contemplating a 3-bet, Harrington always considers the opponents Fold to 3-Bet percent but never the frequency with he calls vs. 4-bets when he doesn't fold. This is a critical bit of information in determining whether to 3-bet a polarized or de-polarized range, but it's discussed nowhere in HOCG.
The book is also light on discussion of sizing 3- and 4-bets, which is a fundamental concept deserving far more attention than it receives. Harrington's proposed 4-bet sizing in particular is routinely far too large. The result is an example in which he advises 4-bet-folding JJ in position with a sizing that will be flat called by the average opponent approximately never.
This isn't precisely bad advice; it's just incomplete and sub-optimal. Following Harrington's guidelines for 3- and 4-betting probably won't lose you money, but it will result in taking far less advantage of profitable opportunities and opponent's mistakes than you ideally would. This is unfortunate given the importance of this topic to the small stakes NLHE audience and how well HOCG demonstrates exploitive play based on HUD statistics with regard to so many other concepts.
One final factor worth mentioning is the book's readability. There are a lot of little details that separate an entertaining and informative read from the mere regurgitation of information that is the average e-book written by a twenty-something online pro. These include characters like 'Loose Lou' and 'Johnny All-In', who represent types of players found in online games, and even a few genuinely funny one-liners. These may seem like minor things, but taken together they make the book much easier and more enjoyable to read. It's a welcome departure from the old 2+2 philosophy of 'we're here to give you poker advice- if you want a well-written book, buy a Hemingway novel'.
Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie's Harrington on Online Cash Games is a must-read for anyone making his first foray into online NLHE cash games or struggling in the microstakes games. It's the single best soup-to-nuts resource I've seen for getting started and is probably worth re-reading several times before moving on to any other books. It's still a valuable resource for small stakes games, but it doesn't address these games so thoroughly, and the reader will need to think critically about the material to determine what is and is not worth using. If for no other reason, HOCG is worth reading because it is soon to be one of the most widely read books among your opponents!
How to Win at No-Limit Hold ‘Em Money Games Volume II
by Dan Harrington
Harrington on Cash Games Volume II covers turn and river play as well as playing loose and aggressive, dealing with others who play that way, bankroll management, and other topics. Harrington explains complex poker theory well, but when it comes to putting it into practice, his advice is hit-or-miss. His recommendations for playing the turn are solid enough, but he badly misunderstands river play, and his advice for beating loose-aggressive players and weak games is a little lacking. Small-stakes players and those new to cash games will get a lot from this book, especially if they know what to ignore, but more experienced players will find many of the advanced topics misguided and unhelpful.
Harrington on Cash Games Volume II (HOC2) is subtitled 'How to Win at No-Limit Hold ‘em Money Games' but it might well have been subtitled 'Cash Game Poker For Second-Level Thinkers' instead. Harrington's advice is useful up to a point, but he rarely gets past his own hand and his opponent's possible hands to think about what his opponent believes he has, let alone what she thinks she has represented to him.
As in Volume I, Harrington gets a lot of poker theory right, often finding helpful and insightful ways to explain complex ideas, but generally fails in his attempts to illustrate how these concepts should be put into practice. This is particularly unfortunate because so much of the Harrington on Cash Games series focuses on practical application (for turn and river play and a loose aggressive strategy, in this volume) over the theoretical explanation that is really the author's strong suit.
Tight-Aggressive Turn Play
HOC2 picks up right where the first volume left off, detailing how Harrington's tight-aggressive (TAG) strategy works on the turn. The second volume is much superior to the first, but because they are so mutually dependent in this way, it would be difficult to purchase and read only the better book.
The section on turn play is one of the highlights of the book. Abandoning the tedious minutiae of dozens of examples, Harrington wisely focuses on the broader principles of turn play. He clearly and comprehensively lays out the reasons why you would want to bet or check the turn and concludes with some very valuable and important advice: 'If you have shown consistent strength throughout the hand, and on the turn your opponent either bets into you or raises your bet, top pair is very unlikely to be good.'
The sample problems that follow are also stronger than previous problem sets have been, in no small part because Harrington delves deeply into the thought process behind each play. He puts his opponent on a range of hands, considers his equity, speculates about likely river action, and usually arrives at a good play.
Tight-AggressiveRiver Play
After a strong section on turn play, Harrington quickly loses his momentum. He's right that the river is the most important street in deep-stacked no-limit hold ‘em (NLHE) for a variety of reasons, but his advice on how to play it is some of the weakest in the book. His suggestions for playing the nuts and other strong hands are solid, but he exposes one of the central flaws in his strategy when he argues that, 'When you have some value in your hand, you'd like to see the showdown as cheaply as possible.' In fact, the ability to turn such a hand into a bluff or to get away from it under the right conditions is key to playing the river well. Yet the author goes so far as to say that 'Bluffing with middling-strength value hands like middle pair is a waste because those hands might actually win the pot in a showdown.'
That said, it would be hard to come away from HOCG convinced that authors Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie are inexperienced at online play. Their book is an excellent introduction to the games, covering not only strategy but also important aspects of the online game such as site selection, rakeback, and using Heads-Up Display (HUD).
HOCG is the single best resource I've seen for anyone just starting out online or still learning to beat the microstakes games (i.e. stakes smaller than $.25/$.50). Though still good, the section on moving up to small stakes games ($.25/$.50 through $1/$2 blinds) is a lot less thorough and somewhat more hit-or-miss than the majority of the book, which is aimed at microstakes players. I'd recommend the book without qualification for anyone still aspiring to beat the microstakes. Others will need to approach the small stakes advice more critically, but there's still a lot of good material to be found there.
The tricky thing about writing a book for beginners is getting the balance between accuracy and simplicity right. On the one hand, NLHE is a complex game where the right play almost always depends on a wide variety of factors and judgment calls. Providing rules or straightforward advice runs the risk of opening oneself up to objections, exceptions, and 'what if's'. There is even the danger of hindering the reader's development later in his career when he finds himself hamstrung by over-reliance on these rules and 'standard' plays.
On the other hand, the beginner by definition lacks the experience to make many of the more subtle adjustments and judgment calls. Providing him with too many exceptions and variables to consider is essentially providing him no guidance at all.
HOCG gets this balance just right, providing clear guidelines alongside advice for how to make the most important adaptations and adjustments. Harrington doesn't overwhelm with exceptions, but he does discuss the most important ones, leaving room for independent thought right from the beginning.
The best example of this is the book's guidelines for pre-flop hand selection. Rather than provide either a definitive list of playable hands from each position or a lengthy diatribe on the advantages and disadvantages of various hands, Harrington discusses two separate pre-flop strategies and explains the differences between them. This approach invites the reader to feel like a poker player using his judgment and making strategic decisions rather than a robot following a pre-programmed formula.
Of course some generalizations are unavoidable, and most of the spots where I'm tempted to furrow my brow and ask, 'but what about…?' are minor points where it's probably better not to complicate the matter. There are a few cases where an overly broad statement could eventually hinder a reader in tougher games. 'Only bluff with hands that have no showdown value' and 'Don't bluff a calling station' come to mind. By and large, though, Harrington's generalizations will do no harm and quite a bit of good in the course of a player's development.
The authors open with a brief introduction to the most important theoretical concepts in NLHE: pot commitment, hand ranges, implied odds, that sort of thing. Despite being simple and concise, they often manage to be insightful as well, which is no mean feat. The sections on bet sizing and reasons for betting are particularly good, though I don't see the need to distinguish a continuation bet from value bets, bluffs, and semi-bluffs.
HOCG stands out not only for the quality of its content but also for how thoroughly it addresses concepts specific to online play that most other resources neglect. This includes a substantive guide to note taking, discussions of site, table, and seat selection, and the most through introduction to setting up and using HUD statistics that I've seen anywhere, including in materials created by Hold ‘Em Manager and Poker Tracker themselves.
HUD statistics play a role in virtually every example in the book, which is a great way of demonstrating how to use them in real-time decision-making. It's easy to get overwhelmed by all those numbers on the screen, and many players end up focusing on either the cards or the statistics rather than synthesizing all available information. The way in which these statistics are integrated into the text and consistently included as a factor in all decisions serves both to highlight their importance and illustrate their proper use.
The consistently excellent material continues through the section on microstakes play, which is a nice introduction to the kinds of opponents one will encounter in these games and the strategies that will beat them. Harrington addresses the most common beginner's mistakes in simple and convincing terms, and this section will help many readers get on their feet and winning quickly and with minimal losses. The hand examples that conclude this section are well-chosen to illustrate, synthesize, and expand on the preceding material.
Unfortunately, HOCG is not so consistently spot-on in its advice for small stakes players. Harrington's advice about how the games will differ from the microstakes and the new skills that will be required is a good introduction, and there are valuable passages scattered throughout. In other places, however, he fails to address important factors and ends up offering some misleading advice.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the section dealing with 3-bets. A failure to address the aggressive 3-betting in online cash games was one of the most common criticisms of the original Harrington on Cash Games books. While HOCG devotes 15-20 pages to the concept, there are nevertheless some glaring omissions that render the resulting advice rather superficial.
Most troubling is the lack of consideration of how often an opponent will call a 3-bet. When contemplating a 3-bet, Harrington always considers the opponents Fold to 3-Bet percent but never the frequency with he calls vs. 4-bets when he doesn't fold. This is a critical bit of information in determining whether to 3-bet a polarized or de-polarized range, but it's discussed nowhere in HOCG.
The book is also light on discussion of sizing 3- and 4-bets, which is a fundamental concept deserving far more attention than it receives. Harrington's proposed 4-bet sizing in particular is routinely far too large. The result is an example in which he advises 4-bet-folding JJ in position with a sizing that will be flat called by the average opponent approximately never.
This isn't precisely bad advice; it's just incomplete and sub-optimal. Following Harrington's guidelines for 3- and 4-betting probably won't lose you money, but it will result in taking far less advantage of profitable opportunities and opponent's mistakes than you ideally would. This is unfortunate given the importance of this topic to the small stakes NLHE audience and how well HOCG demonstrates exploitive play based on HUD statistics with regard to so many other concepts.
One final factor worth mentioning is the book's readability. There are a lot of little details that separate an entertaining and informative read from the mere regurgitation of information that is the average e-book written by a twenty-something online pro. These include characters like 'Loose Lou' and 'Johnny All-In', who represent types of players found in online games, and even a few genuinely funny one-liners. These may seem like minor things, but taken together they make the book much easier and more enjoyable to read. It's a welcome departure from the old 2+2 philosophy of 'we're here to give you poker advice- if you want a well-written book, buy a Hemingway novel'.
Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie's Harrington on Online Cash Games is a must-read for anyone making his first foray into online NLHE cash games or struggling in the microstakes games. It's the single best soup-to-nuts resource I've seen for getting started and is probably worth re-reading several times before moving on to any other books. It's still a valuable resource for small stakes games, but it doesn't address these games so thoroughly, and the reader will need to think critically about the material to determine what is and is not worth using. If for no other reason, HOCG is worth reading because it is soon to be one of the most widely read books among your opponents!
How to Win at No-Limit Hold ‘Em Money Games Volume II
by Dan Harrington
Harrington on Cash Games Volume II covers turn and river play as well as playing loose and aggressive, dealing with others who play that way, bankroll management, and other topics. Harrington explains complex poker theory well, but when it comes to putting it into practice, his advice is hit-or-miss. His recommendations for playing the turn are solid enough, but he badly misunderstands river play, and his advice for beating loose-aggressive players and weak games is a little lacking. Small-stakes players and those new to cash games will get a lot from this book, especially if they know what to ignore, but more experienced players will find many of the advanced topics misguided and unhelpful.
Harrington on Cash Games Volume II (HOC2) is subtitled 'How to Win at No-Limit Hold ‘em Money Games' but it might well have been subtitled 'Cash Game Poker For Second-Level Thinkers' instead. Harrington's advice is useful up to a point, but he rarely gets past his own hand and his opponent's possible hands to think about what his opponent believes he has, let alone what she thinks she has represented to him.
As in Volume I, Harrington gets a lot of poker theory right, often finding helpful and insightful ways to explain complex ideas, but generally fails in his attempts to illustrate how these concepts should be put into practice. This is particularly unfortunate because so much of the Harrington on Cash Games series focuses on practical application (for turn and river play and a loose aggressive strategy, in this volume) over the theoretical explanation that is really the author's strong suit.
Tight-Aggressive Turn Play
HOC2 picks up right where the first volume left off, detailing how Harrington's tight-aggressive (TAG) strategy works on the turn. The second volume is much superior to the first, but because they are so mutually dependent in this way, it would be difficult to purchase and read only the better book.
The section on turn play is one of the highlights of the book. Abandoning the tedious minutiae of dozens of examples, Harrington wisely focuses on the broader principles of turn play. He clearly and comprehensively lays out the reasons why you would want to bet or check the turn and concludes with some very valuable and important advice: 'If you have shown consistent strength throughout the hand, and on the turn your opponent either bets into you or raises your bet, top pair is very unlikely to be good.'
The sample problems that follow are also stronger than previous problem sets have been, in no small part because Harrington delves deeply into the thought process behind each play. He puts his opponent on a range of hands, considers his equity, speculates about likely river action, and usually arrives at a good play.
Tight-AggressiveRiver Play
After a strong section on turn play, Harrington quickly loses his momentum. He's right that the river is the most important street in deep-stacked no-limit hold ‘em (NLHE) for a variety of reasons, but his advice on how to play it is some of the weakest in the book. His suggestions for playing the nuts and other strong hands are solid, but he exposes one of the central flaws in his strategy when he argues that, 'When you have some value in your hand, you'd like to see the showdown as cheaply as possible.' In fact, the ability to turn such a hand into a bluff or to get away from it under the right conditions is key to playing the river well. Yet the author goes so far as to say that 'Bluffing with middling-strength value hands like middle pair is a waste because those hands might actually win the pot in a showdown.'
When it comes to catching bluffs, Harrington's theory is lacking as well. He is correct that you must sometimes, for game theoretical purposes, call big bets when you can only beat a bluff. Otherwise, savvy opponents can bluff you mercilessly on the river. Harrington doesn't seem to understand what this really means, though. He claims that you can 'review the hand and see if your opponent's betting fits the hand he's representing. If there's a good fit, let the hand go. Save your calls for the hands where there are obvious betting discrepancies between the betting history and the hand that's being represented.'
This is a perfect example of Harrington's failure to get past second level thinking. An opponent who realizes that you are very unlikely to have a hand stronger than one pair can easily bluff with a betting pattern that is perfectly consistent a strong hand. The point of game theory in this spot is that you have to call some percentage of the time when you can only beat a bluff, even though nothing about your opponent's line suggests a bluff. Only calling when there is some inconsistency in an opponent's story is not sufficient to counteract this bluffing strategy. In fact, savvy opponents are more likely to value bet when they know they have represented a weak hand and to bluff when they have shown strength consistently.
Harrington On Cash Games Vol 2 Pdf
Harrington's other strategy for stopping a bluff, the blocking bet, is nearly as ineffective. In most cases, a blocking bet has to have some chance of getting called by a worse hand to have value. Otherwise, it simply folds out worse hands (or worse, entices them to bluff) and gets called or raised by better. The author claims that a small blocking bet is difficult to bluff raise because it looks like a 'suck bet' with a big hand, but he correctly argues that you should very rarely make such small bets with big hands on the river. Thus, in Harrington's tight-aggressive strategy, a blocking bet will look exactly like what it is: a hand that doesn't want to get raised.
When it comes to bluffs of his own, Harrington is similarly weak. He claims it is obvious that you shouldn't bluff a calling station, but plenty of situations exist where a calling station gets to the river with a hand that won't call a big bet. I've written an entire article on this point.
Harrington On Cash Games Pdf
His advice to 'Bluff players who've shown weakness somewhere along the way,' once again falls into the trap of low-level thinking. Smarter opponents are more likely to call on the river when they know they've shown weakness. They may even show weakness for the purpose of inducing a bluff.
Dan Harrington On Cash Games
Most importantly, Harrington never mentions that a river bluff still needs to be based on an analysis of an opponent's range and the hands he is likely to fold. It isn't enough to bluff because you can't win any other way. You need to know which hands you expect your opponent to fold, what percentage of his range they comprise, and how much you'll need to bet to take him off of those holdings.
Tells and Observations
This section brings the book back to poker theory, where it is strongest. The author does a nice job of dispelling certain misconceptions about is and is not worth noticing about one's opponents. He rightly downplays the importance of physical tells and suggests instead that you focus on concealing your own tells and place opponents on a spectrum from loose to tight, passive to aggressive, and straightforward to tricky.
Playing the Loose-Aggressive Style
Despite his tongue-in-cheek nickname of 'Action Dan', the famously tight Harrington has a good grasp on what makes loose-aggressive (LAG) play successful. He clearly and concisely explains how LAG play loses value by entering pots with weak hands but regains that value through deception, frustrating opponents, and generally taking them out of their comfort zone.
It's generally good that he avoids the minutiae that bogs down his explanation of his TAG style, but if anything he provides too little information about how exactly to play as a LAG. The text includes a nice little summary of some plays that LAGs can make but offers little advice on when to attempt them. Harrington also has too little to say about how to maintain a LAG style when smart players start playing back at you. His response, that, 'There is no ‘correct' answer to the problem; it's endemic to the loose-aggressive style,' while not exactly wrong, is a bit of a cop out. There are things that LAG players do to deal with opponents who play back them, and Harrington would have done well to learn about and discuss some of them.
Harrington's strategy for countering LAG play is not without its strengths, but it has some glaring weaknesses as well. He correctly points out that you must raise and re-raise a LAG more often than you would a TAG, but doesn't provide much insight into when or with which hands. When he does talk about changing hand values, he misses an important point: although it's true that broadway hands medium pairs have better equity against a LAG's pre-flop hand range, they are not necessarily easier to play post-flop. An aggressive player forces you to hit the flop, and Harrington underestimates the value of suited connectors that can hit the flop strongly enough to play back at the nettlesome LAG.
Most surprisingly, Harrington insists that he would prefer to sit to the right rather than the left of a LAG player. His assumption is that the LAG is the 'fulcrum' of the table and action tends to revolve around him: other players check strong hands waiting for him to bet, they re-raise him light, etc. Harrington assumes that since the LAG will predictably bet or raise anyway, there's little informational value to be had from sitting on his left and it's better to see how other players respond to his action.
There's something to this at a full ring table, where pots are more likely to go multi-way, but it really only works against a LAG who is not particularly good. A player who understands his own image will often frustrate you by checking when you were hoping he would bet and re-raising you when you really wanted to see the next card for cheap. The simple fact that he is loose means you'll play more pots with him than you otherwise would, and for that reason alone you should want to have position on him.
Beating Weak Games Buzzed drinking game cards questions.
When I saw this section heading, I thought to myself, 'Isn't that what this whole book is about?' But now we're talking about really weak games: $1/$2 live tables and internet games where bets are made with decimal points. Harrington's advice to play solid, straightforward poker and bet more hands for value is correct, and he explains the reasoning behind it well. If anything, he's a little too conservative. Against weak players, you should welcome the chance to take cheap flops in position with very speculative hands, not for deception purposes, but simply for implied odds.
The advice in this section is so simple and straight-forward that the author probably devotes too much space to it. Then again, the majority of his readership probably plays in these games, so he probably has his reasons.
Bankroll Management and Other Topics
The obligatory hodge-podge chapter reminds us that this is a Two Plus Two publication. Harrington briefly discusses non-strategy topics such as bankroll management, avoiding tilt, and paying taxes, but doesn't devote enough space to these topics to say much of substance. Anyone who actually needs an answer to one of these questions is unlikely to find this book very satisfying.
An Interview With Bobby Hoff
I'm generally skeptical of these 'let's talk to a venerate old pro and pretend that whatever he says is brilliant'-style interviews, but Hoff actually comes across very well here. He still plays high stakes games live and online and seems to have a good feel for the current poker climate, which a lot of the old-school guys lack. He certainly plays a different style than many contemporary professionals, but for the most part it makes sense and he has good answers to some tough questions. He seems to understand both the math and the psychology of very deep stacked live no limit hold ‘em very well, and I found the interview entertaining and educational.
Conclusion
Harrington on Cash Games Volume II is a much more diverse book than its predecessor, which focused almost exclusively on tight-aggressive play. The second volume, which covers turn and river play as well as playing loose and aggressive, dealing with others who play that way, bankroll management, and other topics, is more of a mixed bag. The author continues to explain complex poker theory well, but when it comes to putting it into practice, his advice is hit-or-miss. His recommendations for playing the turn are solid enough, but he badly misunderstands river play, and his advice for beating loose-aggressive players and beating weak games is a little lacking. Small-stakes players and those new to cash games will get a lot from this book, especially if they know what to ignore, but more experienced players will find the more advanced topics are often misguided and unhelpful.
