Message Board : Harrington On Hold'em III - Thank you Todd, HJ and AKQJ10! -- Hand Reading

Todd,

Answering my question about books on hand reading you said:

 “Luckily there is already one out there.  Harrington on Hold 'em III is all hand analysis.  50 or 60 examples that you can play along with as a quiz.  It's my favorite poker book ever.  By far.  Not even close.  And I really like Ed's books.”

When I finished HOH I and HOH II  the first time I went straight to HOH III The Workbook.  That was on July 10, 2006.  I worked the first 11 problems and my scores were so abysmal that I knew I was missing something: either poker understanding or lack of horsepower to understand the content of everything I had read.  I quit, and started reading other books, playing online, and in more tournaments.  I read HOH I and II again. 

I was really afraid to return to HOH III, afraid that I'd find that I was just as bad or not much better than before.  I found reasons not to pick it up again. 

On August 3rd, 2008, because of your advice, Todd, I returned to HOH III.  Oh how I wish I had continued through the book the first time so that I could compare my recent scores with those of 2006 for the whole book.  I am not there yet, but I AM NOT AS BAD AS I HAD FEARED!  I'll admit that a few of my answers on some of the complicated math questions were intuitive guesses or estimations, but here are my comparisons of my two attempts on the first seven problems ( X/Y = X points scored out of Y possible points):

1) 2006 3/3 - 2008 3/3

2) 2006 3/4 - 2008 3/4

3) 2006 5/12 - 2008 10/12

4) 2006 15/26 - 2008 20/26

5) 2006 3/11 - 2008 10/11

6) 2006 9/25 - 2008 17/25

7) 2006 9/16 - 2008 15/16 

The first time through the problems were as hard as Japanese Arithmetic.  Now I see some light at the end of the tunnel.  But, as your reading of the hand I submitted before illustrated, I have a long, arduous road ahead.  Now I feel invigorated and ready to attack the material.

It would have been wonderful to have worked the whole book in 2006 and to compare the scores this time with those results.  Then, every year or two I could work through HOH III and have a baseline for comparison of my hand analysis comprehension.

Thanks to you, HJ, AKQJ10 and others for pointing the way.

Natchez