Hey everyone, I am flying down south and need to pick up a book for the airplane.

I have heard some really good things about Dan Harrington's new book but I am worried that it will just be about playing tight and waiting for a big hand. This is pretty much the opposite of what I want to learn, how to play marginal hands (daniel and gus types) effectively.

I have not thoroughly read SS1 and dont want to go out and buy it since SS2 is so close to coming out....

What do you think I should do??

Pony up and read all three.

The only current games covered in SS1 are Stud and Holdem. The Stud hi-lo chapter is written for the near defunct no-qualifier games which really changes the advice within. Stud high is not in SS2.
Draw high and single draw lowball aren't out there much. The SS2 limit holdem section is better than Bobby Baldwin's original one (though Baldwin's is still good) and NLH in SS2 is a revision of SS1's, no added value in having both. As much as SS1 is a seminal work, you can get by on just SS2 UNLESS you play a decent amount of stud high-only.

Also, if you don't have 50-80 bucks for books, what kind of roll are you playing with? SS1=30 bucks, no clue on Harrington, and if you can play above 1-2 at a break even level, you can get SS2 for free in like a week.

Harrington does cover all styles a little bit, breaking them down into what they are and how they play. Most of the preflop play he discusses though is how he would play the hand preflop, which is mostly just folding. He is very helpful in how to play after the flop, but if you play very loose, your image might dictate something else, i don't know.

The book is geared toward Tournies though, so alot of what he says is quite accurate when it comes to whether or not to call based on what the other people have done, and I don't remember seeing farha or the other loose players going against it very often either year I've seen the world series. I think the book is very worth reading and worth it's money. You can combine the tourny theory with the loose no limit style of Doyle in ss1 to make it work.