Review of Harrington on Cash Games

Johnny Kampis : August 11th, 2008

Reading Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie’s recent book Harrington on Cash Games: How to Win at No-Limit Hold’em Money Games Vol. 1 is like putting on an old glove. Anyone familiar with the duo’s books on tournament poker will quickly be comfortable with the easy to read and understand writing style.

That being said, Cash Games Vol. 1 is not nearly as useful as the previous tournament books (the first two volumes, that is, as the third volume workbook appeared to be as a way to simply cash another check and isn’t worth the expense). The Harrington on Hold’em books were groundbreaking as they introduced foreign concepts like inflection points and a player’s “M” to the discussion. Cash Games doesn’t dig up much in the way of new topics and has been criticized by many on the online poker forums as advocating a much too conservative strategy. Given that the book comes from the facetiously named “Action” Dan Harrington it’s no surprise that the style taught here is very tight and aggressive.

Cash Games should prove very useful to beginners in no-limit hold’em cash games (if any such players still exist) by providing a framework that should work well in the low-limit hold’em tables in which they will undoubtedly play. The book will teach someone who’s played more than a few games on the felt a thing or two as well. For one, Cash Games made me think more about hand strengths and how I often push one-pair hands too hard for fear of being run down by a drawing hand or bluffed out of the pot later. Harrington and Robertie advocate keeping pots pretty small with hands like unimproved pocket aces.

The book opens with an introduction of concepts most players already know, including four useful principles: Strength – bet strong hands, check middling hands and bluff or fold weak hands; Aggression – aggression is better than passivity; Betting – a bet should force a stronger hand to fold, a weaker hand to call or give a drawing hand unfavorable odds; and Deception – mix up your play. Perhaps all of these points are obvious, but Cash Games point out that is useful to always keep these in mind while at the table.

The overall layout of the book is similar to Harrington on Hold’em, where chapters are followed by example hands that involve concepts discussed in the previous chapter. Cash Games also includes several sample hands from High Stakes Poker, much as the previous tomes used sample hands from the World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour to broach topics.

The two authors discuss how stack sizes affect implied odds, which in turn affect hand selection. The two compare a good no-limit cash game player to a venture capitalist. Neither expects all of their investments to pan out, but occasionally a company or poker hand will yield big profits.

Despite the criticism that Harrington is too conservative, he and Robertie discuss some advance bluffing concepts in the book, such as floating and firing two and three barrel bluffs and in which situations these techniques should and shouldn’t be used.

The book also includes and interesting section on evaluating hands in multi-way pots. The authors discuss how well aces hold up against multiple players with various holdings, as well as how unprofitable it is to call with junk hands in the blind even with fantastic initial pot odds. Even if you’re getting 7-to-1 on your money with K-7 offsuit you should chunk those cards in accordance with the true chances of winning.

Overall, while Harrington on Cash Games Vol. 1 isn’t nearly as groundbreaking as Harrington on Hold’em the book is worth a purchase. After all, you only need to learn a new concept or two that improves your game to make a book like this worth the cost.