The best poker books for beginners

How to beat live no-limit cash games, one level at a time, from $1-$2 up to $5-$10. Ed Miller's idea comes from golf: your opponents are the course, and their habits decide where the safe shots are and where the hazards sit.

Topics include not paying people off and when to keep betting. A PokerNews review warned that it isn't for players still learning the game, and it doesn't cover tournaments.

Yes, and that's its whole purpose. Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie split it into three volumes. The first covers playing styles, starting hands, pot odds and hand analysis, and the second shows how to change your play as your stack shrinks next to the blinds.

The second volume is where the M-ratio comes from, a way of measuring your stack that tournament players still use. Be warned that the first volume isn't written for novices and skips hand rankings and betting basics.

It's the book that explains why. David Sklansky covers expected value, semi-bluffing, how often to bluff and implied odds, and the same ideas sit under nearly every modern strategy.

It came out first in 1978 under another title, and the final version arrived in 1987. It's a book about ideas and doesn't go deep into beginner strategy, so read it second. You can get a head start from our pages on expected value and pot odds.

Mike Caro's book of tells. It's a catalog of physical habits that give a hand away, with photographs and Caro's estimate of how reliable each one is. It first came out in 1984, and the current edition is called Caro's Book of Poker Tells.

Read it for live games and treat it as a tie-breaker. Betting patterns tell you more than a nervous hand does, as our guide to reading players explains.

Read The Mental Game of Poker. Jared Tendler, a mental game coach, wrote it with Barry Carter, and it's about tilt, swings of luck, confidence and motivation, with step-by-step ways to work on each one.

A beginner's biggest losses often come in the hour after a bad beat, so this one may be worth more to you than another strategy book. Our page on variance covers the math side.

Thinking in Bets, by the former player Annie Duke, is about making decisions when you can't know how they'll turn out. That's the skill of separating a good decision from a good result.

The Biggest Bluff is a memoir by the psychologist Maria Konnikova, who started out not knowing how many cards were in a deck, was coached by Erik Seidel, and won a 2018 PokerStars event in the Caribbean for $84,600. Either one is a fine first read if you want a reason to care before you study.

For history, yes. Doyle Brunson published it in 1978 under the title How I Made Over $1,000,000 Playing Poker and renamed it Super/System in 1979. Other players wrote some chapters, including Mike Caro on draw poker and David Sklansky on seven-card stud high-low.

It was one of the first full strategy books, and many top players have credited it. Parts are dated, so don't learn today's game from it.

Last. Michael Acevedo's book teaches balanced, game-theory play worked out with solver software, and it runs to about 500 pages. It's a serious study book for people who already understand ranges and bet sizing.

Beginners get more from learning what their opponents do wrong. Read our short guide to GTO first and see whether you want more of it.