Winning Low-Limit Hold'em

Originally the standards-bearer when it came to small-stakes and microlimit hold 'em, Lee Jones's "Winning Low Limit Hold'Em" may have lost the crown when Miller et al's "Small Stakes Hold'em" was released. However, "WLLH" (as it's typically known online) is a solid book that espouses a tight strategy that will go a long way towards clearing up the largest leaks of beginning hold 'em players.

The second edition, which sports a dark-blue cover, was released in 2001 and receives a fair amount of criticism for being overly weak-tight. In order to counter that criticism, and to update the text to speak more directly about Internet-based Hold'Em, Jones released a third edition (with a pastel blue-and-green cover) mid-2005. The new edition | tightens up the starting hand requirements, eliminates some of the "weasel words" found in the 2nd edition, and adds a fairly large section on no-limit hold'em sit-and-gos, whose popularity appears to be a direct result of the Internet poker boom.

If you're completely new to the game, this book is a good second book to read, after something like "Getting Started In Hold'em" by Miller, "Fundamentals of Poker" by Malmuth and Loomis, or "Hold 'Em Poker" by Sklansky. If you already know whether a straight beats a flush and how to determine who wins if the board is all spades, you're ready for WLLH.