Dan Harrington on Cash Games Volume I – review
Dan Harrington is an American poker players, who won the World Series of Poker Main Event in 1995. The same year he also won a $2.500 No Limit Event. Harrington made his biggest cash by winning the $1.634.865 first prize in the Legends of Poker tournament in 2007. Harrington has a background in both backgammon and chess and is also has business in real estate and shares. As a poker writer is made fame by his classic trilogy Harrington Holdem, which deals with tournament poker. In 2008, he published together with Bill Robertie, also co writer in the series Harrington on Holdem, the books Harrington on Cash Games Volume I &II. In these books the authors discuss (deep stack) cash games, both live and online. Volume I is topic of this review
Structure Harrington on Cash Games Volume I
In the first volume of this series on cash games Dan Harrington explains the basic of poker, like pot odds, bet types, impact of stack sizes and hand reading. Subsequently he discusses in this book the tight aggressive approach for cash games. Step by step he explain how to play which hands for all streets (preflop, flop, turn and river). He also discusses the differences in playing a pot heads up or multiway for each hand. Harrington ends each chapter with numerous discussion hands, which he analyzes thoroughly.
Writing Style Dan Harrington
Just like his previous books, Harrington has written this book in a very structural and clear manner. He is able to explain poker concepts in an way, which is also understandable for beginners. Harring on Cash Games Volume I is also written in a logical sequence by first explaining the basic concepts of poker, followed by discussing the tight aggressive approach per hand type per street.
Opinion Harrington on Cash Games Volume I
I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand I think it a clearly and well structured written book. Harrington is able to explain the basic concepts well and advices a solid tight aggressive approach, which beginning players can use to avoid difficult spots and which will minimizes the risk of big mistakes. Many players will argue that Harrington’s tight aggressive approach is too tight for online poker and that by using this approach you will be crushed in online games. Players who argue this have to realize though that Harrington has written this book also for live, full ring and deep stack cash games and these differ greatly from online 6-handed 100 big blinds poker.
On the other hand however this players are right. The strategy and solutions which Harrington gives in his discussion hands is simply very exploitable in my opinion, especially because most discussion hands are online examples (between 200NL and 5000NL). I also think that Harrington focuses in these discussion hands too much on balance and on his own cards. The optimal way of playing a hand is also determined by the hand range, on which you put your opponent. Dan Harrington assumes that all good solid players play like himself, which is of course not true in reality. Factors like (recent) history and game flow are also important in the way you play hand, but the writer rarely incorporates these factors in his decision making process. These factors are of course difficult to include in a book, but the emphasis on balance and randomization is a bit ridiculous. Harrington advices in each example hand to do a certain percentage a specific action (for instance, bet 80% and check 20%) for balance purposes and that he uses this watch to randomize his actions. In all of these examples he does not include whether his opponent is a regular, calling station, tilting etc., but he assumes that his opponents play just like himself. Such hand analyses do not correspond with reality and even less with online reality.
He also does not incorporate the aggression of online games nowadays. On the stakes of his discussion hands, players 3bet and 4bet a lot, both as bluff as for value. Harrington does not seem to be aware of this and in all his online example there is only 1! Instance of 3betting, on which Harrington analysis is: he has to have a strong hand. So his online examples do not reflect the reality of online poker games.
As I mentioned before Harrington focuses too much on his own hand. Poker is also exploiting weaknesses in your opponents’ game and Harrington does not do this once. A raise for isolation is play which is not in Harrington’s repertoire. There are much advice in this book, which is in my opinion not optimal.
Concluding I think that Harrington on Cash Games Volume I is a good book for beginning players, because Harrington explains poker basics clearly and his tight aggressive approach will minimize the risk of making big mistakes.
On the other hand, advanced poker players will notice that his advised strategy is exploitable and his advice in discussion hands suboptimal. The online games have become much more aggressive in recent years and because Harrington does not include this in this book, his advice does often not apply for online poker.
