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Tournament Poker For Advanced Players

Rating: 8/10

Cost: $29.95

The Nuts: One of “the” books to have with you at all poker tournaments.

The Muck: Not really a bad thing, but you’ll want to read this book about four times to grasp most of what Sklansky is discussing.

Recommended For: Advanced players

In David Sklansky’s “Advanced Players” series, this is definitely the book that is intended for advanced players. Early on, Sklansky keeps reiterating that you need a solid foundation of good live cash game poker playing before making the switch over to tournament poker. He’s right. If you don’t know how to play good poker, don’t read this book.

Okay, so you do know how to play good poker and you want to be a great tournament poker player. Sklansky builds his book around ten key differences between regular cash games and tournament poker. His insights into tournament poker are spot on, and he added very little poker fluff to his writing.

Although Sklansky was a college drop-out, his theories and calculations on poker are not always easy to comprehend at first sight. True to his innate love for mathematics, this book is filled with in-depth analyses of “Expected Value,” “The Gap Concept” and how tournament poker chips change value during the course of the tournament.

Sklansky is not entirely “cut and dry” in this book however; he does have a little bit of a sense of humor. After you’ve been wading through each chapter, reading every footnote carefully, and finally get halfway through the book, Sklansky gets to a chapter on moving all-in. Here’s his footnote attached to the term “all-in”: “If you don’t know what that means, you are not ready for this book.”

One drawback for this book is the interjection of Seven-Card Stud and Omaha into what is otherwise a predominantly Texas Hold ‘em poker book. Sure it’s great to know about those other games, but when you’re in the mindset of Texas Hold ‘em, they can become distractions.

The real gems in this book are the sections devoted to hand quizzes and the Q&A. In the hand quizzes section, Sklansky sets up believable scenarios and then gives in-depth explanations. The Q&A is broken down chapter by chapter and tests your reading retention. Unlike some of Sklansky’s other books, these questions are fairly well thought out.

If you play tournaments or are thinking of playing your first tournament, this book should be at the top of your list. It’s a book you will keep coming back to after every tournament you play. Sklansky gives you the tools to perform your own analyses of the key decisions from your tournament play. You just might want to have a notepad and couple pencils nearby.

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