After featuring Tuesday what many people believe to be the runaway titles for the top two books on poker, it’s time to shed some light on a handful of books that are still viewed as classics, even if they’re not among those top two. Among these titles you will find books aimed more at specific aspects of the game of poker rather than the overall strategy of the game. These kinds of topics are also the kinds of things that certain players might develop more in their game to create some strong points of their poker style.

Caro’s Book of Poker Tells – The Psychology and Body Language of Poker
Authored by poker professional Mike Caro, this book serves as an in-depth study as to the body language of poker players and what certain behaviors often indicate. Nearly 200 pictures accompany the text in this book to give detailed written and visual descriptions of things poker players do at the table to send indicative body language.

The Mathematics of Poker
School is in session as co-authors Bill Chen and Jerrod Ankenman give a detailed, but simple to understand explaination of some of poker’s finer points from a mathematical standpoint. As is the case with understanding any complexities within the game, knowledge is power.

The Theory of Poker: A Professional Poker Player Teaches You How to Think Like One
As has been the case with many of these titles, the book was authored by a professional poker player. This time it’s David Sklansky offering up his input on the finer points of multiple styles of poker, detailing certain concepts and theories of each game to give a deeper understanding of how to better perform the readers’ own games.

How to Cheat Your Friends at Poker: The Wisdom of Dickie Richard
Co-author Penn Jillette, better known as a magician and comedian, joins up with Mickey D. Lynn for this book that aims to teach exactly what its title would indicate. Again, knowledge is power!

Again, thanks to Diane Dilov-Schultheis from Yahoo! Sports for compiling the full list, which goes deeper than just these four books, along with the top two books by Dan Harrinton and Doyle Brunson.

To read Dilov-Schultheis’ analysis on each of these titles, as well as the rest of her list, head here: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/best-poker-books-part-three-172300131–spt.html

While Doyle Brunson is regarded by many as the greatest poker player to ever live, a big part of his legacy was the book he authored on poker strategy. Even after Brunson revealed many of his own strategies in his book, he managed to evolve his game using new strategies to continue to compete at the highest of levels.

But as time has gone on, where does Brunson’s book rank among the best poker books of all time? Writer Diane Dilov-Schultheis has compiled a three-part series of ranking the best poker-related books of all time. While her series is five-part feature breaking down the top 15 poker books of all time, we’re going to focus more on the cream of the crop titles. In ranking these books, Dilov-Scultheis used a compilation of several different ratings and ranking services to determine which books would be ranked where.

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From humble beginnings as an invitation-only tournament with only seven entrants, the World Series of Poker has come along way. Now the entrants number in the thousands and the prize for coming out victories has gone from a single silver cup, up to as high as $12 million.

The last decade especially has seen poker propelled into the mainstream of the sporting world, with a handful of poker greats becoming household names, television broadcasts on major cable networks and a major upswing in entrants and final prizes. Names such as Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth and Chris Moneymaker don’t draw blanks in too many people’s minds.

To go with this, our friends at Yahoo! Sports have put together a list of the six greatest WSOP champions ever, and their reasons for these rankings. It’s a great read to help learn some history behind the evolution of poker, how it grew into what it is today and the people who carried that torch into the mainstream.

Check out the full article and rankings here: http://sports.yahoo.com/top/news?slug=ycn-11090514

Many of you Triplejack players out there may have played enough hands that you don’t need the rundowns on the basic points of poker. But for those of you who are just getting started off in the Newbies lounge, you didn’t think we were going to just leave you hanging, did you?

On top of our tutorial of “How To Play Texas Hold ‘Em,” we’ve also supplied you with a list of poker tips straight from the man himself… The one… The only… ZenBlender!!

If you click on the “Help” tab in the Triplejack lobby, you can find the “Poker Tips by ZenBlender” section, complete with 35 poker tips aimed at helping you find your way a lot quicker in the poker world than you might otherwise have. Some of the tips include…

• There is no “right way” to play poker, but you should make plays for good reasons and avoid doing things on a whim or “just because”.
• Folding the best hand is a smaller mistake than calling with the worst hand.
• Suited cards are highly overrated.  With 2 suited cards, you will make a flush by the river only about 6% of the time, and you could still be beat by a higher flush or a full house!
• Making bets and raises is a good way to get clues about the strength of your opponents’ hands.  When you check or just call, you aren’t learning anything new about what hands your opponents’ might be playing.

And those are just a few of the gems that you can find through Triplejack’s help section. While quality experience will likely go further than anything else you could read, having any kind of idea as to how to manage a situation when you see it on a poker table will make you that much better.

Highlighting the guests who will be taking part in Celebrity Poker Live will be a former Backstreet Boys member, a former Major League Baseball All-Star, the actor of an iconic film character, as well as many more. Since closing the book on his baseball career, Jose Canseco has gone on to blow the whistle on steroid in baseball, been a reality TV star and will now add poker to that resume.

AJ McClean hasn’t commanded the spotlight since his boy band days, but will now look to rebuild his reputation along with his chip stack. Carl Weathers will look to play the role of poker champ after etching his name into American film history long ago as boxing champ Apollo Creed, the primary rival to Rocky Balboa.

These are just a few of the high-profile celebrities who will be taking part in Celebrity Poker Live, all of them with plenty to prove as poker players. But that begs the question; what celebrities out there have already proven themselves as poker players?

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We all know Triplejack is a great place to both play some poker and to hang out and mingle, but did you know of all the diverse statistics that are kept on players?

There are two places you can go to view statistics on either individual players, or on the entire Triplejack community. In the lobby of Triplejack, click on the “Rankings” tab to drop down a slew of options to view different types of statistics. Among them is the “Star Player” ranking, which is a combination measure of all-time points and the player’s level on Triplejack. You can also view who has racked up the most all-time points on Triplejack (shout out to “__ELITE__” for holding down that current title), as well as who currently claims ownership to the most Jacks in the whole community.

And all those are just among the top three options to choose from! Check up on those leaderboards regularly and familiarize yourself with the names on there. You just might find yourself sitting at a table sometime with a Triplejack celebrity. And who wouldn’t want the chance to claim bragging rights over them if you can knock down their chip stack a little bit while playing with them.

Also don’t forget that you can click on the other players at your current table and view their player stats as well. This wouldn’t be a bad idea to do before you sit down, just to get a little bit better of a feel of what you’re up against at that table!

If you’re feeling ambitious, take a run at getting your name on those all-time leaderboards! What have you got to lose, right?

This is the second part of the two-part series on the best pocket pairs of cards you can have in a poker game.

Today’s focus is more heavily geared toward seating position at the poker table and which cards offer the best odds and the best flexibility for controlling the pot. Depending on where you are positioned at the table, you will have an opportunity to get a feel for your own odds, as well as make an early read on opponents. Because of this, different hands have different values depending on seating position.

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This will be part one of a two-part series based on the best starting hands you can be dealt in poker.  Obviously a good starting hand comes with no guarantees for victory, but knowing which pocket cards give you the best chance for victory can do wonders in keeping your chip stack high.

The following is an excerpt from a series of strategy articles on Yahoo! Sports about starting poker hands and how to utilize both what you are dealt, as well as your current table position to your advantage.
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Why You Should Not Play Any Two Cards in Texas Hold’em

One of the hardest things to do during a Texas Hold’em poker hand is to throw away your cards and any player who wants to win playing poker will be throwing away most of the cards dealt to them during a poker session. Just remember that all it takes is one big pot to make you a winner and there is no sense wasting your time or money in pots where your chances of winning are slim to none. A good poker player is very patient and will actually play in very few hands. However, this poker player wins the hands they do play in the majority of the time as long as they do not waste time playing bad starting hands.
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In the case of many pocket hands, players will stay in to see the flop when sporting a low pocket pair. In that scenario though, the player is essentially banking on hitting three-of-a-kind to win the hand. With other players calling their way to the flop, it is likely that someone will can boast a pair that would beat a lower pocket pair.

Because of all this, being very selective can do wonders for keeping your chip stack intact. Another benefit would be the opportunity to bluff your way to a victory here and there if the other players at the table have caught on to you only playing on the very best of pocket pairs you get dealt.

To read the rest of part one of this two part series, check out the full article at Yahoo! Sports here: http://sports.yahoo.com/top/news?slug=ycn-11042972