With Texas Hold 'Em Poker's growing popularity and the myriad of books and resources available on the game it can be difficult for new poker players to know where to start their poker education.  If you're a new poker player, I highly recommend reading these books to start learning and improving your game.


Poker: The Real Deal - by Phil Gordon

This is an awesome book for beginner players new to Texas Hold 'Em poker.  Phil Gordon does an excellent job in making this book fun and easy to read, providing entertaining content as well as an introduction to strategy and analysis of the game without using too much technical terminology.  He takes you through the history, rules and basics of Texas Hold 'Em Poker, in addition to sample hands and math percentages, helping you quickly improve your game.  I highly recommend this as a first book for a new poker player.

Harrington on Hold 'em Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments, Vol. 1: Strategic Play - by Dan Harrington

For the ambitious beginner (and quite frankly for advanced experience players too) this is probably one of the best books in learning more about different styles (conservative to aggressive) and strategies of tournament poker.  As the title suggests, this book is focused on No-Limit Texas Hold 'Em Tournament Poker play.  The book is packed with not only great educational content, but also provides example "problems and challenges" to make you think and work through the content of each chapter. I have gone through this book 3 times in the 18 months, and as I gain more experience and see more hands, the content of this book continues to provide value and education. Beginners new to the game will have a great jump start on learning and improving their game.