The Theory of Poker: A Professional Poker Player Teaches You How To Think Like One by David Sklansky
|
List Price: Our Price: $16.94 You Save: $13.01 (43%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $5.39 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Theory of Poker: A Professional Poker Player Teaches You How To Think Like One
Book Review: THIS IS IT
Summary: 5 Stars
Sorry Brunson and Caro, I'm gonna save people some money and summarize your books right here.
BRUNSON: Play aggressively and make the other players react to what you're doing. Lead the betting or get out.
CARO: If an opponent projects strength, he's probably got a weak hand. If he feigns weakness, watch out. Loud, flashy dudes take more risks than quiet accountant types.
Now, use the aforementioned knowledge with the mathematical theory Sklansky spells out and you've got as good a chance of being lucky as everyone else at the table. The "math" here basically consists of doing a quick calculation of the strength of your hole cards in conjunction with what's on the table and what's likely to come up. For example, If you have two suited (let's say diamonds) cards, one being an ace, in your hand and two diamonds on the board at 4th street (I'm talking Hold 'em, here), you have an approximate 25% chance that fifth street will be a diamond, to give you a virtual lock on the hand. Knowing this (25% chance of ending with best hand) one can determine an appropriate amount to bet/call. If the pot will end up being $100, it is appropriate to risk up to 25% of that ($25) in hopes of hitting the flush. If someone else's bet, however, requires you to match more than 25%, it's not worth the call. It's basic high school math applied to wagering in poker.
CASE AND POINT: Last year, there was a Poker Book Legends tournament broadcast on TV. Sklansky, Brunson, Doyle and other note-worthies were at the table. And they each played according to the style dictated by their respective books. Brunson played aggressively. Caro constantly goaded his opponents in an attempt to get some sort of readable reaction.... and Sklansky just sat there quietly, waiting for high percentage hole cards, seemingly ignoring everyone elses actions. Pure math. Sklansky walked away with everyone's money.
Book Review: This is Tentative 5 Star Review
Summary: 5 Stars
Okay, this book has wonderful information within it. Almost nothing Mr. Sklansky states within the book is bad information, and he uses relatively easy language. The problem many may have with the book is that while there are many simple learning tools that will help every reader immediately, this book is not one of them. FIRST AND FOREMOST, THIS IS NOT A BOOK FOR A HOLE'EM PLAYER. If you're looking to learn Hold'em only, DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK YET! Even if you are looking to learn more than games than Hold'em, I would suggest 'SuperSystem' first. My reasoning is simple, in this book, Mr Sklansky bounces from game to game to illustrate his examples. For a player who is trying to establish a winning approach to the game, this book may very well confuse you with so many examples and will not build confidence.
From my previous statements, one might wonder why I would give this book a 5 star rating, and the answer is because to those whom can follow the book, it's essentially the handbook to every basic principle in the game. I would compare 'The Theory of Poker' to a school professor(and I will note this SPECIFIC book only and not the author or his other works) who does not dumb down his lessons for the lesser committed students, but whom will give a student the most out of the class if that student is completely dedicated. The catch is, this professer is teaching a third or fourth level class that without the necessary prerequisites, the student will be lost. I would guess that only one out of about six poker players trying to figure out if this is the right book for them would be correct in deciding it is, but to that one person, this is a MUST-HAVE! To those five people out of the six, if you have to ask whether or not you are ready for the book, the one person who is ready wouldn't have to ask. That person would be asking is the book worth reading, and the answer is yes!
Book Review: Absolute great book for Poker, but not a specialist.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the best book on how to think about poker, and how to play poker, generally speaking. If you plan on seriously approaching more than one game of poker, there is no excuse for not reading this book several times, no matter how good you think your memory is.
I hate to say it, but if you plan on playing only one game of poker (with the exception of no limit holdem), than you really don't need this book. There are plenty of books out there that cover whichever game you are trying to learn, and the Sklansky or 2+2 books usually do a good job at covering the parts of this book that apply to that particular game.
If you are mainly playing no limit holdem, then this might be the best book for you to get, but you still will need lots of experience to understand what the book is talking about. That particular game doesn't really need hand requirements, and doesn't really need absolute rules limited to that game, other than that game's actual rules. What that game needs is a complete knowledge and understanding of how to think through a hand, on every street, which is what this book is about, but it's lessons are as advanced as a graduate school course. For no limit holdem, this is required reading, but most people will need another book or two to accompany it to help make some sense out of it without risking going broke too many times.
This book is must reading, but it seriously takes a studious approach to this book for it to really help that much. I mean like a semester of reading it and writing papers on it just so you know you understand it. Do it for your senior seminar class or your english class. If you don't take this book that seriously, it could seriously cost you more money than you ever expected. Don't buy it if you only will read it once or twice. Be warned.
Book Review: Poker's best textbook for general concepts
Summary: 5 Stars
"Every time you play a hand differently than you would have played it if you could see all your opponents' cards, they gain; every time you play a hand the same as you would have if you could see all their cards, they lose." [This is an excerpt from what Sklansky humbly termed the fundamental theorem of poker.] Statements like these will probably leave the average player, new to reading about his or her game, somewhat puzzled, but this is the main value of this book. It gives you a set of terms to describe conditions and actions in a poker game, and then tries to make you think about what you do and why. In the beginning, Sklansky says that this book does not try to answer, "What do you do in this particular situation?," but "What do you consider in this particular situation before determining what to do?"
It uses examples from every form of poker found in a casino, but it does not deal with any one form in particular. For this, a few good choices include the 'Advanced Players' series from Two Plus Two Publishing, and 'Super/System' by 1976-1977 World Series of Poker Champion Doyle Brunson and his collaborators. Sklansky's object is to show that winning poker comes down to correct determination of your odds given cards seen and unseen, the size of the pot in play and the effect of less tangible, psychological factors on the odds set by the first two elements.
It's not the easiest reading, but the language therein will be used by most serious players of the game in discussions away from the table. Get 'Poker for Dummies' by Lou Krieger and Richard Harroch first, as well as a basic text for your favorite game, like 'Winning Low-Limit Hold'Em' by Lee Jones. After a few months of play, open this book to reevaluate your game and what you thought you understood about poker.
Book Review: Won't change your game overnight, but a must read
Summary: 5 Stars
As many have noted, the general idea of what Sklansky tells you isn't revolutionary. It's downright simple. Basically, if you could know exactly what's in someone's hand, there would be a correct play that would be better than all others, and give you the best chance of winning. Each time you play a hand differently than this you are giving your opponent an advantage. And each time you play it correctly, you are giving yourself a better chance of winning.
Of course you can't actually see the cards in your opponent's hand. But starting with this as the goal, you begin to realize what kinds of questions you should be asking each time your enter a hand and what kind of information you want to find out in order to give yourself the best chance of winning.
A lot of the specific information in this book has been disseminated through a variety of sources and you may find yourself reading something that you think you already know or think somebody else said. Well guess what? It started here. But like any information the further you get from the primary source, the more likely it is to have been corrupted by someone's misinterpretation or attempt at improving upon the original idea. It's really one of the best texts for the fundamental theory of poker and to help ground your decision making.
No you may not use this like you would Doyle's Supersystem to change your game immediately, but it's the kind of important information that your game would be hollow without.