Tournament Poker for Advanced Players

David Sklansky

Okay, so the question you need to ask yourself is: am I an advanced tournament player? I'll answer the question for you partially right now: you're not on David Sklansky's level (unless you're Sammy Farha and you're reading this, in which case, I bow to your superior firepower). But you don't have to be in the stratosphere to be good. Pick up volume III of Harrington on Hold'em, take the quizzes, see how you do. You should be able to figure out from the descriptions of each level whether you qualify.

And qualifying matters. At one point in this book, Sklansky glosses over a fundamental concept, and as an aside, says that if you don't know what he's talking about, you're not ready for this book, and you deserve to lose. Harsh, but true. (Shades of Dick Mitchell in the horseplaying world, but Sklansky's far more blunt.) If you run into something you don't understand, you should probably peruse a few other books, and put in some hours of practical experience, before attempting to set up shop here. Otherwise, you're going to be in way, way over your head when you try to apply these concepts. (Harrington, whose books make liberal use of Sklansky's applied concepts in this book, is a good start in one specific area: while Sklansky explains the Gap Concept and devotes a few pages to talking about it, Harrington harps on it, with copious examples, and makes it somewhat clearer. And you need to understand the Gap Concept.)

After all that, if you've got enough going for you that you understand what Sklansky's on about, there are a number of nuggets of wisdom here that will be beneficial to the tournament player. Some of them will seem familiar, especially if you're reading it for the first time now; a number of authors (including Sklansky) have cited this book in more recent works, and have addressed a number of these concepts in their own work. This is not to say there's nothing new here for you if you're well-read in the area; you'll find something you need. And you do need it.