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RECOMMENDED POKER TOURNAMENT BOOKS AND SOFTWARE
By the Poker Tournament Formula.com and Blackjack Forum Online Contributing Editors
There are many excellent books on poker tournaments, but these are the ones we recommend most highly because they most helped us become winning players ourselves.
For books on other types of professional gambling strategies, see the Blackjack Forum Recommended Books on Professional Gambling. Some are out of print but are worth extra effort to locate in used book stores. If you read all of these, you will know a lot about professional gambling.
Coming in June 2008:
♠ Snyder, Arnold. The Poker Tournament Formula II—Advanced Strategies for Big Money Tournaments
Cardoza Publishing, 2008.
500 pages; paperback.
If you want to make money in pro-level no-limit hold’em tournaments, you must abandon a lot of what you already know about playing poker.
If you’ve been playing cash games for years and you consider yourself a solid player, that’s a handicap when you start entering tournaments.
Likewise, while there are a lot of books on the market today on how to play poker tournaments, and some of the tips in these books are excellent, for the most part, the authors who have written these books are handicapped by being a bunch of poker players, or worse, mathematicians! Coming from backgrounds of years of poker play or too much higher education, they focus so much on poker and the mathematics of poker that they miss most of what’s really important about optimal pro-level tournament strategy. A tournament is not a poker game, and the mathematics of tournaments is not the mathematics of poker.
The Poker Tournament Formula II picks up where The Poker Tournament Formula I left off. Specifically, while the first book dealt with loose aggressive strategies for beating fast-structured, small buy-in tournaments, the new book focuses on tournaments with blind levels that last 40 minutes to two hours, or online tournaments with blind levels that last roughly 20 minutes and longer.
This book tears apart a lot of the accepted ideas on how to make money in pro-level events. It will teach you to ask new questions before deciding how to play a hand, and give you the means to answer them.
Intro to The Poker Tournament Formula II: Advanced Strategies for Big Money Tournaments
Table of Contents (coming soon)
 ♠ Snyder, Arnold. The Poker Tournament Formula, Cardoza Publishing, 2006.
368 pages; paperback. Price: $19.95
This book shows players how to make money in the "fast" multi-table no-limit hold'em tournaments that are now so popular online and in poker rooms all over the world. You will find it different from every other book on poker tournaments you've read, even if you've read them all, because it's something from a different type of professional gambling perspective. And it works.
The Poker Tournament Formula shows how to stop being at the mercy of the cards you are dealt, and how to adjust your strategy to maximize your edge in every poker tournament you play. The book also shows exactly why you must learn to do these things to make money in these tournaments.
What is a "fast" poker tournament? In this book, it's any multi-table tournament that has blind levels that last less than an hour. These events generally have buy-ins from $20 to $1,000, and last anywhere from two hours to six or seven hours. If you think that the strategies for beating these tournaments are the same strategies that you would use to beat the major events you see on television, you are mistaken. And if you think you can use a single one-size-fits-all strategy to beat poker tournaments, you are mistaken again, and your mistake is costing you money.
Many players seem to believe that a no-limit hold'em tournament is a no-limit hold'em tournament, and they approach every event the same way. This book shows why they are wrong.
Beginners who apply themselves and use the strategies correctly will soon be making a lot of money in fast multi-table poker tournaments from many more experienced poker players (and you don't need a big bankroll to do it). Advanced poker tournament players and professional gamblers who have read all of the books on this subject will find analyses and strategies that will surprise them. If you are coming to poker tournament play from blackjack, you will find the edge with correct fast poker tournament play much higher than you can get with any type of blackjack play, with flux that is relatively mild. And the sheer number of weekly live and online fast poker tournaments means you can keep your money in action 24/7, with little to no expenses.
The Poker Tournament Formula also covers analysis of optimal rebuy strategy, live and online poker tournament cheating encountered by the author, and how to calculate bankroll requirements and flux for specific tournament formats and fields.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION TO THE POKER TOURNAMENT FORMULA
Or... Why A New Approach to Winning Poker Tournaments is Long Overdue
For Analyzing Online Poker Bonuses:
♠ Snyder, Arnold. How to Beat the Internet Casinos and Poker Rooms, Cardoza Publishing, 2006.
269 pages; paperback. Price: $12.95
 Arnold Snyder shows how to play and win money in the online casinos and poker rooms. The book covers the latest information on every step of the process, from choosing sites and opening an account to analysis and strategies for the latest types of bonuses. The second section covers online poker strategies, with an emphasis on analyzing the value of online poker room bonuses and the differences between live games and tournaments and online games and tournaments.
Order How to Beat the Internet Casinos and Poker Rooms
Table of Contents
For Practicing Poker Tournament Strategy:
♠ Poker Academy Software
This is the long-awaited answer to the goofy non-realistic players on Wilson's Turbo Texas Hold'em and Tournament Texas Hold'em practice software, and it truly does deliver a good portion of what was promised. We recommend it as the best of the current poker practice software options.
It is for Texas Hold'em (limit and no-limit, tournaments and ring games) only. The poker bots you are playing against in this software are much more realistic than in prior poker simulation software we've seen. Reportedly, the program's artificial intelligence makes your opponents adapt to your play as real players do--there seems to be some evidence of this, but the players are still not very tough to beat.
The software also gives you solid tournament advice mid-hand about the strength of your hand and your best betting options considering your stack size relative to your opponents' and the blinds.
The Poker Academy Software is very useful for practicing the strategies in The Poker Tournament Formula, though you shouldn't use your results on the software as an accurate estimate of your real-life poker tournament advantage.
Other Poker and Poker Tournament Books (Reviews and Information Coming):
♠ Hilger, Matthew. Internet Texas Hold'em
(Summary: This is the best book I've read on the topic of playing poker online. It containts excellent information on multi-table play and the differences between live and online cash games. A full review is coming.)
♠ Lessinger, Matt. The Book of Bluffs
(Summary: This book has made us a lot of money in poker tournaments, and there is nothing else like it available. A full review is coming.)
♠ Brunson, Doyle, Super System II.
Doyle Brunson's chapter on No Limit Hold'Em is not only the seminal work on the game, but remains the best discussion of winning overall strategy for No Limit Hold'Em cash games. Brunson's discussion is focused on no limit cash games, but his strategy also has many winning concepts applicable to tournament play.
 Order Super System II
♠ Caro, Mike, Caro’s Book of Poker Tells.
Caro's book is sound on reading tells at poker tables. Most of the information in this book, however, was published first in an uncredited 1985 book by John Fox titled Play Poker, Quit Work and Sleep Till Noon, which is still one of the best books on the game.
 Order Caro's Book of Poker Tells
♠ Harrington, Dan. Harrington on Hold ‘Em: Volume II, Strategic Play.
We have realized for some time that if you follow the strategies in Harrington's book in fast tournaments (tournaments with blind levels lasting less than an hour) you will be a losing player. We have only more recently realized that Harrington's strategies are weak in slow tournaments as well. Harrington's Vol. II has some value for the discussion of specific hands in specific circumstances. It is also of value for gaining an understanding of a common, and particularly exploitable, "by the book" type of player you will frequently encounter at the tournament tables.
 Order Harrington on Hold 'Em: Volume II, Strategic Play
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