Too Many Books? Yup.

A small fraction of my collection. These were just the ones that I had piled on my desk at the time I posted this blog entry. Yes, I have a sickness.

As mentioned before herein this blog, my wife and I are book collectors. No, not fancy-schmancy first-edition book collectors. Instead, we're collectors of interesting stuff, preferably inexpensive stuff. Books we'd like to read some day, or have read before and want to read again. We're also big on reference materials of all sorts. Most of our acquisitions come from used bookstores, library sales, and yard sales. Occasionally, we'll break down and buy new via Amazon or, gasp, a brick-n-mortar new bookstore.

We have a literal houseful of the written page, ranging from old obscure leather-bound non-fiction, to slick modern fiction, with pretty much everything in between. Years ago we tried to count, but gave up after 15K titles. Seriously. If a nuclear EMP device ever knocks out the grid and all electronics/internet/computers/etc. go down, our house will be one that carries the torch of knowledge into the post-Apocalypse. Want to know how to skin a deer, identify a plant, or what constellation is overhead? We've got multiple books on each subject. Want to read an old German nursery rhyme, a Steven King novel, or a poem by Shakespeare?? Covered. Want a foreign language dictionary in French, German, Russian, or Spanish? Check, check, check, and check. Medical texts and home repair and insect identification how-to's? Car books, philosophy tomes? Martin Cruz Smith, health and fitness? Janet Evanovich, Tom Clancy, stock trading, Elmore Leonard, and Hemingway? Engineering, medical, philosophy, mathematics, statistics, architecture, etcetera. Our library has 'em all covered. And we read them, too. At any given time, I've literally 4-6 different books open throughout the house that I'm bouncing between/reading. My wife probably has twice as many. We have, as you might say, a glut of books and interests. Or perhaps it's best described as a problem. Dunno.

And of course I have poker books. Oh, and videos, too. And Cardplayer magazines. And newsletters. And e-books. And podcasts, and...  Well, you get the idea. I have a lot of poker studying material. In fact, I've come to the realization that I have too many poker reference materials. Take books for example. I recently counted what I have in just hard copy. I was a little shocked to discover to find over 175 poker books on the shelves of my office. Seriously. 175.

If I read one of these per week, it would take me three and a half years to get through the pile....

And this doesn't count the fifty or so electronic/soft-copy poker books and PDFs. Or the more than 1800 poker training videos I have collected (yes, eighteen hundred). Or the 250+ podcasts I have on my computer. Or the estimated 200 back issues of Cardplayer I have sitting in a bookshelf in my bedroom. Or the hundreds of articles, web pages, and other card-related errata that I snip and clip and file away....

...which brings me to the point of today's blog post. With the WSOP less than six months away, and the desperate need to focus attention and improve my MTT play, I need to triage all this material. I need pick a few good reference books and/or videos and then really dive into them. Take serious notes. Study and learn...

...and ignore the rest of the collection-- at least until after the WSOP. Give up cash game studying. Quit reading non-useful information. In other words, the name of the game has to be prioritization.

FWIW, here's the list of what currently sits on my bookshelf, grouped by general poker and gambling categories:

Winning 7 Card Stud	Adams
Seven Card Stud for Advanced Players	Sklansky
High Low Split Poker: Stud and O8	Zee
SnG Strategy	Moshman
Secrets of SnGs	Shaw
Ultimate Guide to Poker Tells	Burgess
Idiots Guide to Poker Tells	Dempsey
Reading People	Dimitrius
You Can't Lie to Me	Driver
Reading Poker Tells	Elwood
How to Read Hands at NLHE	Miller
Read 'em and Reap	Navarro
Inside the Poker Mind	Feeney
Your Worst Poker Enemy	Schoonmaker
The Poker Mindset	Taylor
Omaha Poker	Ciaffone
Championship Omaha	Cloutier
Pot Limit Omaha Poker	Hwang
The Professor, Banker, and Suicide King	Craig
One of a Kind: Stuey Ungar	Dalla
Deal Me In	John
The Man With The $100,000 Breasts	Konik
Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker	McManus
The Odds: One Season, Three Gamblers	Millman
The Best Hand I Ever Played	Rosenbloom
Lessons from the Felt	Apostolico
Tournament Poker and Art of War	Apostolico
Tournament Poker 101	Cogert
Tournament Poker for Donkeys	Cogert
Full Tilt Poker Strategy  Guide - Tournaments	Craig
Every Hand Revealed	Hansen
Harrington on Holdem Vol 1	Harrington
Harrington on Holdem Vol 2	Harrington
Harrington on Holdem Vol 3	Harrington
Making the Final Table	Lindgren
Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker	Little
Winning Poker Tourneys: Vol 1	Lynch
Winning Poker Tourneys: Vol 2	Lynch
Winning Poker Tourneys: Vol 3	Lynch
Kill Everyone	Nelson
Kill Phil	Rodman
Tournament Poker	Sklansky
Getting Lucky	Sparks
The Poker Tournament Formula Vol 1	Synder
The Poker Tournament Formula Vol 2	Synder
Amilkin Odds Book	Amilkin
Killer Poker by the Numbers	Guerrera
Casino Math	Hannum
The Math of Hold'em	Moshman
Bets: Computers and Math Modeling	Skiena
Weighing the Odds in Hold'em Poker	Yao
A Rubber Band Story	Angelo
Machiavellian Poker Strategy	Apostolico
Poker Nation	Bellin
Super/System	Brunson
Get the Edge	Burton
Casino Poker	Carson
Championship NL and PL Hold'em	Cloutier
Cooke's Rules of Real Poker	Cooke
No Limit Texas Hold'em	Daugherty
Poker Wizards	Dunnett
Online Ace	Fischman
Las Vegas 2010	Fodors
Little Green Book of Hold'em	Fong
The Poker Aficionado	Fornatale
Why You Lose at Poker	Fox
Poker is the Name of the Game	Gibson
The Complete Idiots Guide to Poker	Glazer
Little Green Book	Gordon
Poker: The Real Deal	Gordon
Ace on the River	Greenstein
Winning at Internet Poker for Dummies	Harlan
Poker for Dummies	Harroch
Bad Beats and Lucky Draws	Hellmuth
Play Poker Like the Pros	Hellmuth
Outplaying the Boys	Hulbert
Poker	Jacoby
How to Cheat Your Friends at Poker	Jillette
Why Shouldn't a Woman Wear Red in Casino	Joseph
Aces and Kings	Kaplan
Secrets the Pros Won't Tell You	Krieger
The Poker Players Bible	Krieger
Poker Strategy and Winning Play	Livingston
Poker Strategy Proven Principles	Livingston
Little Red Book of Gambling Wisdom	Lyons
Fundamentals of Poker	Malmuth
Poker Essays	Malmuth
The World's Greatest Gambling Scams	Marcus
Winning Texas Hold'em	Maroon
The Making of a Poker Player	Matros
Poker According to Maverick	Maverick
Complete Guide to Winning Poker	Morehead
Pro Poker Strategy	Moshman
Power Hold'em Strategy	Negreanu
The Smarter Bet Guide to Poker	Nestor
The Tao of Poker	Phillips
Zen and the Art of Poker	Phillips
An Introduction to Poker	Reuben
The Zen of Gambling	Root
Scarnes Guide to Modern Poker	Scarne
Scarnes New Complete Guide to Gambling	Scarne
Poker as Life	Schreiber
Winners Guide to Casino Poker	Silberstang
The Theory of Poker	Sklansky
Winning Poker	Sklansky
Hold'em on the Come	Slotboom
Inside the Gamblers Mind	Spanier
Thursday Night Poker	Steiner
Real Poker Night	Stephenson
Read 'em and Weep	Stravinsky
Dealer Choice	Thackrey
Decide to Play Great Poker	Vorhaus
Killer Poker Online	Vorhaus
Killer Poker Online 2	Vorhaus
Poker Night	Vorhaus
Poker: A Guaranteed Income for Life	Wallace
The Big Book of Poker	Warren
Ghosts at the Table	Wilson
Idiots Guide to Gambling Like a Pro	Wong
Dirty Poker	Marcus
24/7 Las Vegas	Martinez
Busting Vegas	Mezrich
Bad Bet	O'Brien
Welcome to the Pleasuredome: Las Vegas	Spanier
Guide to Sports Betting	Sturgeon
Casino Gambling	Tamburin
Beat the Dealer	Thorp
Las Vegas Behind the Tables 2	Vinson
Confessions of an Ivy League Bookie	Alson
Take Me to the River	Alson
The Biggest Game in Town	Alvarez
How I Raised, Folded… and Won Millions	Duke
Big Deal	Holden
Bigger Deal	Holden
Positively Fifth Street	McManus
Bringing Down the House	Mezrich
Moneymaker	Moneymaker
Amarillo Slim In a World of Fat People	Preston
The Hand I Played	Spanier
Diary of a Mad Poker Player	Sparks
Enemy Number One	Veitch
How to Win the WSOP	Walsh
All In	Yang
The Education of a Poker Player	Yardley
Broke	Adams
Rounders	Canty
Shut up and Deal	May
The Superuser	Moshman
Dead Man's Hand	Penzler
Las Vegas Noir	Pierce
High Stakes	Randisi
Under the Neon Sky	Rankin
Deadman's Poker	Swain
Loaded Dice	Swain
The Color of Money	Tevis
The Hustler	Tevis
The Picasso Flop	Van Patten
Low Limit Texas Hold'em	Abulencia
Foolproof	Allen
Foolproof Workbook	Allen
Real Poker II: the Play of Hands	Cooke
Professional NLHE Vol 1	Flynn et al
Small Stakes NLHE	Flynn et al
Harrington on Cash Games	Harrington
Harrington on Online Cash Games	Harrington
Playing the Player	Miller
Small Stakes Hold'em	Miller
Heads-Up No Limit Hold'em	Moshman
Illustrated Guide to Texas Hold'em	Purdy
Don't listen to Phil Hellmuth	Schmidt
52 Tips for Texas Hold'em	Shulman
Hold'em Poker for Advanced Players	Sklansky
Advanced Degree in Hold'em	Swayne
Dynamic Full Ring Poker	Sweeney

As you can see, this is a ridiculous amount of books to select from. What should I pick from this collection to focus on? Great question, and one that I don't have a fully-formed great answer to, but let's start with what I shouldn't read.

I do know that I can eliminate the cash game books and general purpose poker books from my prep list. I've got most of these fundamentals down, and I think I'll just confuse my game if I continue to mix up cash and tournament strategies.

For obvious reasons, I can also ignore all the stud, PLO, and split-pot game books, as these have no relevance to my upcoming WSOP trip. And the first-person non-fiction accounts, while entertaining, aren't going to teach me much if anything about how to be a better live tournament player.

Poker fiction is also pretty much useless, too, as is anything written by anyone named Moneymaker, Duke, Hellmuth, Yang, or Slim. Negreanu's books are also not so great.  Same with the general gambling tomes.

The math and odds books I own are all pretty much fantastic, but I frankly know most of the important stuff in those books already; maybe just a quick review of some of the basics is in order.

On the MTT front, I think the Harrington tournament books, while chock full of solid ABC advice, are getting long in the tooth given today's well-educated poker populace. I've also read these multiple times, and I'm not sure what else I can glean from them.

This leaves a shorter list to pluck from, but it still doesn't quite narrow the list down enough. I think the areas that I'm weak in are: a) modern MTT-specific strategies and tactics; b) live tells and hand reading; and c) some mental/tilt/emotional control advice for long multi-day tourneys.

Now I just have to pick the reference materials that will help me shore up in these areas. That's the next step. [And, please, if you see something on this list (or know of a really good MTT-specific book that isn't on this list), please drop me a line. I'm all ears.]

And for what it's worth, I think I need to re-think my entire how-to-prep approach. What I'm currently doing isn't focused enough or MTT-specific enough. So what I'm now thinking is to get from here to the WSOP is simplification, with an emphasis on just four basic areas:

1. Read (and re-read) 3-4 modern MTT-specific books;
2. Watch 1-2 MTT-specific vids per week;
3. Get my fat ass in shape; and 
4. Play lots of poker, live and online.

Mr. Multi also offered a great suggestion today that I try blogging my recaps/hand-histories of SnGs and MTTs that I play between now and then. The idea is to review the HHs and see if I can spot weaknesses. I also encourage readers to send me their thoughts on these hand histories, too.

Finally, I may invest a few bucks into an expert modern-style MTT coach to help identify trouble areas in my game. This part is a little uncertain, and won't take place in any case for a few months.

The bottom line is I need to get better, and I need a real, focused plan. Simply reading hundreds of poker books as the mood strikes just ain't gonna do it anymore for this bug.

On to the next installment in this WSOP journey...

All-in for now...
-Bug