Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker, Volume 1: Fundamentals and How to Handle Varying Stack Sizes

Excellent foundation concepts. Easy to follow along and implement into my game. Recommended for all serious poker players. Excellent information.

This is my wife's Amazon account, but I have to review this book. I bought it when it first hit Amazon. I have read at least 90 other poker books. I am a tournament player. this is by far the best tournament book for advanced play ever written. it's not even close.After reading this book, I finished 30th in the WSOP Seniors event (out of 3751), then 36th in Binion's Classic main event (out of 314) and 2 weeks ago I played the World Poker Tour's Legends of Poker main event and finished 32nd (out of 757). 2 of those 3 cashes were for over $10K. and I attribute most of the credit to this book. (as an aside, I met Jonathan at the WPT Legends and he is a polite and friendly person. he cashed too, but busted before his student. :-) ) I've also made the final table at a local casino's weekly tournament 5 of the last 8 times I've played and they have between 88 and 104 players.the key to this book is the way to look at your stack and the betting, in terms of Big Blinds, rather than chips. it's so much more helpful to figure out bet sizing. And his discussion of aggression at each level of your stack size in terms of big blinds is marvelous. I can't say enough about this book.Personally, I hope no one buys it because anyone reading it will be a much better player if they follow his advice.

This is a great great book! I have plugged many leaks in my game and have noticed the way I think about poker is really evolving, especially the ability to "put my opponent on a range" which is something Mr. Little talks about constantly.I gave it 4 stars, and not 5, for several reasons. One, while my mind is really geared toward math, it is unrealistic to be able to plug in the variables and compute some of his raise, call, or fold formulas on the spot at a live table when there is so much going on. But maybe this will come with more practice. Even without all the variables and an actual equation, I have been able to roughly calculate the equity I have with each decision, and his suggestions to study poker equity tables online is a good one. The main reason, is that most of the book is spent discussing when the effective stack size is 200 BB's. I either need to move, or move up in stakes, because the small to medium buy-ins I play in in NorCal start you with maybe 160 BB's (this is just for the first level). Not too many people bust or double up at the first level, so once we move up a level and the blinds double from 25/50 to 50/100, the effective stack size is 80 BB's. I could really benefit from more specific examples of how to play at this level.That said, I have played 4 live tourneys since reading this and volume 2. While I haven't finished in the money (I have FT'd a few times prior to reading this book), I'm noticing how consistent, and improving my results are:-92nd out of 151 (played right)-49th out of 103 (played right)-42nd out of 91 (played right)-23rd out of 101 (there are 2 crucial hands that made me go bust at the end that I played wrong- to summarize, you need a much better hand to raise than you do to call, especially with players already raised into the pot. He talks a lot about this and I was not dealing with the pressure of my short stack well)I believe that as I continue to apply his outlined methods, and slowly integrate them with my own unique game, I will become a very consistent in the $ player. Any of the above tourneys I played, I could have easily made the $ with just one or 2 more flips going in my favor. Which is another thing, he really helped me deal with tilt, and short-term variance.Overall, not just a good read, I would say this and volume 2 are must-reads if you want to take your poker tournament game to the next level.

I tend to the LAG style of play and have gone well in getting into the money and often (relatively speaking) with a good sized stack. However, I felt I was hitting and missing some important concepts and not getting to the final table enough nor getting enough firsts out of the final three. This book has shown me where I was leaking and where I was doing good. It's great to read such a strongly affirmative exposition of LAG play and that TAG play is not the only way to win; I never could keep my stats in the recommended ratios. So this book has helped liberate my play and shown me how I could improve. I feel better about my game now, it's more solid, and my 'success' rate has improved.However ... when he explains various points there are a lot of provisos to be aware of. In my first implementation of some of his advice I had missed one of his provisos and found myself rather deeply in a mess. So if you do read it, study his advice carefully. This book is a serious case of "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" as his style of play is probably further out than the average player will feel comfortable with. Consequently, you should be willing to make an effort to genuinely understand exactly the principles he espouses.Overall, he helped me learn how to play "my game" sensibly. Thank you, JL.(For the record, I have no affiliations or biased groupy involvement.)

Jonathan Little is a great teacher who writes in a personal style that is easy to understand. If you are an experienced poker player, this book won’t teach you anything revolutionary to change your game. However, JL shares some great insights on how winning tournament players think/play (and how losing players play). If even one of these tips helps you win a tournament, it is more than worth the 30 bucks for this book.One thing should be said about D&B publishing though: this is my third book from them, and each one has been full of typos and grammatical mistakes. It’s almost as if they didn’t even read the books before publishing them. I want to be clear that this shouldn’t reflect on the authors’ abilities.5/5 for Jonathan. 1/5 for D&B.

I won't bother going to lenghts on this book series. It is the "Harrington series" of the 21st century!Great info on tournament play of current poker tournaments from a player that has the success record to back up his writings.Vol.1 has a ton of info on ournament playVol.2 also has some tournament play stuff and also lots of stuff about the life and situation handling of an aspiring professional poker playerVol.3 is the workbook of the series, loaded with a ton of examples from Jonathan Little's tournament hand histories.There is a lot of study in this series but the rewards surely make up for it. And then your poker playing will be so upgraded that you will find that you now are a much much better player.Highly recommended!PS: This review is common for all three books, since I got them all together and have an opinion for the whole package

This book brought a lot of clarity to my understanding of playing a poker tournament. It improved my game fundamentally to the point that I now qualify easier into the World Poker Tour. Jonathan Little is a top player, and I played with him in a World Poker Tour (WPT Cyprus 2009) finding myself impressed by his cool, clinical approach to the game. I finally got around to buying and reading this book and also Vol 2. I appreciate the clarity and organization of both books. Player Ego is absent (thankfully) and there is a comfortable humorous edge to the explanation that makes reading a delight. These books have made me a better tournament poker player, no question.

Jonathan Little explains the basics of tournament poker with such clarity that it is simply amazing.This book has all the answers for beginning players for raise-sizes, how to play stack sizes, and importance of position but stands out among other poker books because it is written in a no-frills way by a true poker player who has been to the bigger tournaments of the world and has experienced success from a small starting bankroll.

Very satisfied with the book and with the delivery! 👍

Exactly as advertised. Excellent all round service.