Poker is a game of skill as well as luck. To improve in the game you need to be able to read your opponents, make good decisions, and play with a winning mindset. To do all of that, you must be able to study the game effectively. This means setting up the right study methodology and getting in the correct volume of hands.
You also need to know how to play the hands that you should be playing. This requires the ability to decipher your opponent’s tells — their eye movements, idiosyncrasies, hand gestures, and betting behavior. Those are the clues that tell you whether they have a strong hand or are just bluffing.
Lastly, you need to understand the math behind poker. This includes concepts like balance, frequencies, and EV estimation. These can seem intimidating at first, but over time they become second-nature. You can learn the basics of these concepts with a few hours of dedicated study, and then you can use them in the context of your poker games to gain a more complete understanding of the game.
There is no better book on poker strategy than this one. Written by Matt Janda, this book dives deep into the math of the game and will help you see things in a new way. It is an excellent complement to The One Percent course and will help you put the pieces of the puzzle together into a full approach to the game.
