Ed Recommends: Elements Of Poker by Tommy Angelo

I tried writing this review a few times, but I was never happy with it. Frankly, I never thought what I had written did the book justice. It can be hard to explain to others why they should read Elements of Poker by Tommy Angelo because no other poker book is anything like it. It doesn’t teach you where to bet or check or what hands to play preflop. (Though, being a poker book, it naturally includes a starting hand chart!) It teaches numerous other poker player skills that are just as important to long-term success.

For instance, Tommy talks about the skill of Quitting. You know sometimes when you’ve been running bad and for the first time in a while you’re actually winning a fair bit? That little voice in your head says, “Book the win. Quit. We’ll grab a beer to celebrate!” Then maybe some other little voice says, “But it’s all one session. There’s no reason to quit a good game. You can’t quit! Play until you’re propping your eyelids open with toothpicks.” Tommy explains why you should quit and celebrate in one of my favorite passages in the book:

Let’s take it from the moment you get the idea to cash out and lock up a win, and project the future. There are three main things that could happen:

• You quit right now, a winner. We have established as a given that you will be happy. We will call the amount of happiness you will feel X.
• You continue to play and you win some more money before quitting. You will be happier than X, but not all that much happier. You’ll probably be around one-fifth X to one-tenth X happier.
• You continue to play and you end up losing for the day. No more X for you. Nothing but Y, Y, Y.

Irrefutable logic. It’s an awesome book filled to the brim with practical poker wisdom that has already made me a better poker player. It’s a 10. Buy it. Read it. Tommy will even sign it.