Customer Reviews

Tournament Poker for Advanced Players (Advance Player)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I play a lot of tournament poker-- about a hundred small- to large-buyin live tournaments, and hundreds online, each year.

David's book has excellent, easy-to-understand explanations of key tournament concepts. His description of why the value of a chip changes during a tournament is clear, concise, and spot-on, and what he calls the "gap concept" is something that every solid tournament player understands intuitively.

"Advanced Players" is a misnomer, though. If you've played a few dozen tournaments, you probably know most of what is in this book. I was hoping to see a mathematical analysis of such things as tournament equity, all-in equities, and special considerations for different games and tournament formats, and it wasn't there. I think the book is moderately good, though technically light.

David isn't really a tournament expert, and it shows. He places far too much emphasis on moving up the payscale, and not nearly enough on playing to win. I understand that he gave exactly this sort of performance in the 2002 WSOP main event-- getting into the money, then basically blinding off his stack without playing many hands.

If you're serious about tournament poker you should read this book, but you should do so with a critical eye-- I believe it does contain some misinformation. It's certainly better than the first embarrassing tournament offering from Two Plus Two.

The ambiguity in the name of this book is something that confuses a lot of people, including some reviewers. The target audience of this book is ADVANCED poker players who have NOT played much in tournaments. Experienced tournament players might get something out of it too, or use it as reference, but they are NOT who the author had in mind. So, if you are looking for advanced tournament tips, skip this one, save some money and aggravation, and drop me a "thank you" note. :-)

This said, the book accomplishes what it is set to do rather well. There is a large number of very solid poker players who almost never play in tournaments simply because the price of learning tournament basics through first-hand experience is rather high. On the other hand, explaining tournament basics to an advanced player is easy, or at least Sklansky makes it seem this way. If you are a good player thinking of playing tournaments, read this book -- it has answers to most of your questions.

Tournaments and cash games require different strategies. In fact, many winning cash players avoid tournaments, and many successful tournament players (including a few famous champions) do poorly or even avoid cash games.
Chris Ferguson, winner of the 2000 World Series of Poker, is one of those champions. With his immense talent he could certainly beat most cash games. However, because he has an ideal tournament strategy, he concentrates on them because he has a bigger edge. Chris has called it: "The best poker tournament poker book ever written."
We've all read that tournaments make unusual demands, but they have never been clearly defined, and nobody told us exactly how to adjust to them. I've read nearly all of the tournament books, and they all disappointed me. Their greatest weakness is teaching basic poker strategy. You and I already know that strategy, but what else do we have to do?
This book answers that question. Unlike other tournament books, it does not try to teach us how to play good poker. Sklansky wrote: "This book ... will explain how your play should differ when in a tournament from how you play in a regular game... This book will show you exactly where strategy changes, compared to normal games, are indicated, and why. What this book will not do, however, is teach you how to play good poker. It assumes that you already do that. The changes that you make in a tournament won't help you much if you don't already play well."
The table of contents clearly shows this difference. There are no chapters on types of games (such as Omaha or hold'em), or how to play on third street, or any of the subjects of most poker books.
Instead, the entire focus is on subjects that matter only in tournaments. A few chapter are titled: "Prize Structure Implications," "When Will Your Table Break Up?," "Adjusting Strategy Because the Stakes Rise," "Just Out of the Money," "The Last Table," "Down to Two Players," and "Making Deals."
My favorite chapter was "The Gap Concept" because it affects so many hands. He wrote: "The difference between the hand you need to call an opener with, and that with which you would open yourself, I call the 'Gap.' ... in a tournament, this Gap is often extremely high. In other words, in a tournament it is often right to open raise with hands far inferior to those with which you would need to call someone else who open raised. ..." Dan Negreanu, a world class tournament and cash player, recently praised this chapter in "Cardplayer" magazine, and he also stated that it is: "the first book that clearly explains exactly how and why your strategy changes in poker tournaments."
Since I live in Las Vegas and write about poker, I meet lots of talented players, and everyone praises this book. Parts of this review were taken from my "Poker Digest" series, "Darwin at the poker table." Darwin's central principle is that situational changes create new demands, and only those who adapt to them survive. Poker is a game of information management, and all new, high quality information will make the competition tougher and threaten people who do not adapt to it.
Thousands of good players have already read this book, and thousands more are going to read it. They will gain an edge over those who don't.
You may think that one book cannot have that much impact, but the historical facts are quite clear. His previous books, especially "The Theory of Poker" and "Hold'em Poker For Advanced Players," have revolutionized poker. Virtually every winning player has read his books, and most of them follow his advice. Even his critics concede that you must read his books to understand what other players are doing.
My "Poker Digest" series was based on the Darwinian principle that only those who adapt well to change will prosper or perhaps even survive. New information inevitably makes the competition tougher. If you play tournaments, you can be sure that many of your opponents will read and use this book. If you don't buy and study it, you're asking for trouble.

The major problem I had with this book was the fact it mostly covered limit holdem. There was only one chart on statistics
and it does not cover no limit holdem in depth like I expected. There was few helpful tips from the book. Introducing the "gap" concept-where you play loose when the table is tight. And strategic betting when you are about to get eliminated from a tournament other that that there isn't a lot of applicable stuff here. I will look to sell this book. For tournament books stick with Mcevoy.

I must admit after reading some of Sklansky's other books I was a little disappointed. As other reviewers pointed out this book seems more for beginners than for "advanced" players. If you are a beginner this is certainly a book for you. However if you have read some other books on poker and tournaments in general and have played some tournaments then this book will not be very helpful

Poker seems very simple if you see it from the standpoint of "the high hand wins". The thing that makes all variations of poker infinitely more complicated is the human factor. Add the variation of draw poker and the unknowns of what the end result increase geometrically since every hand changes with each new card that comes out. To balance out the impossible task of having to commit to memory every possible factor that could take place, players must base decisions on probability/odds of their hand in comparison to any other possible hand.

Every poker book in existence offers tips on probability of certain hands and how to play them against categories of opponents in various situations. Since the mood of the player population is in constant turmoil and with every book that is released, many players create strategies to counter any newly discovered information that becomes effective. There will never be an end to poker books and new information.

The point that I always stress when it comes to poker is that information is your Ace. It is impossible to have too much information or too many poker books. Tournament Poker for Advanced Players covers strategy on situations that could come up in various tournaments like plays that would work in no-limit as opposed to the same ideal that wouldn't work in limit. It is already assumed that you have at least an amateur to intermediate understanding on poker play.

Is it possible that there would be a situation where pocket Aces should be dropped? Yes, if there are 4 players left in a tournament and you are last in chips, the 3 players go all in on a hand. Just by dropping out of the hand, you are almost assured to get 2nd place. If you happen to lose, then you're out at 4th place, the difference in the prize purse could be several hundred thousand dollars so it is quite possible that you are justified to drop pocket Aces! This is just one example of a topic covered in Tournament Poker for Advanced Players.

If any poker book gives you a piece of information that helps you earn a pot or save a stack of chips, it easily pays for its cover price and in turn that information becomes at worst free. From my standpoint, this book is not a gamble but required reading for any tournament player.

Guys and Gals,

After a break in period online playing poker, my play started to improve to the point where I was slowly earning money. Of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone and started reading poker books.

I was particularly interested in playing better tournament poker, since the site I go to had $6 buy-in single table tournaments, and I could get a good half hour of poker in for ONLY $6.

I was winning about 1/3rd of the single table tournaments I played, but I wanted to make final tables of multitable tournaments. Just making the final table of a fairly low buy in multi would win my back all I lost when I first started playing online in the ring games. I had placed well in multi, but never in the money. I bought Sklansky's book.

I read about his "System" and the "success" stories he had with his system. His "improved system" is a move all-in or fold system based on the size of the blinds, the amount of chips at risk, the # of people yet to act including the blinds, and the # of people that limped in. With a raise in front of you the only hands you don't fold are AA, KK, or AK.

Like a moron I decided to put my own money on the line and try to use his "improved" system. Time and time again I'd do the quick calculation, and then look at my holdings.

Before very long (4-5 levels) my calculation would dictate - according to his system - that I go all-in with a hand I honestly would never call a blind with, much less put all my chips in.

I mean look, Sklansky is obviously an accomplished player, and his statistics and odds calculations are right on the mark. But his "system", which is admittedly experimental, could never work unless you caught an extremely lucky run of cards. Let's face it - if you catch that 1/10000 run of cards - you don't need to know what beats what - much less need to use a "system".

Skip pages 122-133 of his book and you'll save yourself a lot of money.

I agree with the other reviewers that this book is not terribly useful for advanced tournament players. Sklansky's Hold 'Em Poker for Advanced Players is a classic of the genre, but this is not the natural follow up for advanced players looking to up their tournament game.

For that purpose, I recommend the groundbreaking two-set Harrington on Hold 'Em books that embrace and extend the Sklansky theories for tournament play. Everything other reviewers said they hoped would be in this book are in Harrington's book. If you've never played a tournment before, this is a decent (although somewhat dated -- written in the pre-Internet poker era) treatment.

Bought this book and the tournament poker book by McEvoy/Cloutier at the same time.. and the other book is much, much, much better... If you have basic knowledge of poker, and any common sense at all, the information in this book is stuff you already know. I highly reccomend the other book, though..

With all of the books currently on the market about poker and, specificly tournament poker, this is not the one I would recommend. Sklansky's books about limit poker are excellent reads, however, this book is lacking of any advanced poker theory. For beginners, I would recommend any books by Tom McEvoy and T.J. Cloutier. For advanced players, I would definitely recommend the Harrington on Hold 'em books by Dan Harrington, both volumes. These are probably the best books on the market about no-limit hold 'em with some great ideas for the more advanced player. But leave the Sklansky book on the shelves.