Wisdom of the olds
Nov. 26th, 2016 02:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bloodygranuaileSomewhere in between my project to read poker strategy books in order to be better at poker and my project to read books on the history of poker and gaming so that I understand my current field better, there sat the decision to read David Sklansky’s The Theory of Poker.
The Theory of Poker is older than me, although it has since been updated a few times. I have read about it in a number of the other, more recent poker-related books I’ve gone through this year. I know it was still being used widely as a resource when the poker boom kicked off fifteen years ago or so; Kenny Hallaert mentioned it when I interviewed him earlier this fall, saying it might still be useful for beginner players.
One thing that’s instantly noticeable about this book is that it was clearly written before no-limit hold’em became the game of choice for everyone and everything. While this can get a bit confusing for a reader who really only knows NLHE at all (i.e. me), it does allow Sklansky to illustrate concepts in multiple different ways in different games. Since this book is light on math (by poker book standards, at least—obviously it’s got a bunch of stuff about pot odds and basics like that) and more about how to reason through various poker plays, such a setup is fairly useful for showing how the concepts work. There’s a lot that’s explained that I would now consider to be very basic information, but I’ve also been reading beginner-level poker books pretty much all year so I suppose it’s good that some of it’s starting to sink in.
It’s not the most enjoyably written poker book I’ve read, featuring neither the goofy jokes of Phil Gordon’s little books nor the sarcastic cracks of Alexander Fitzgerald’s Myth of Poker Talent, but it’s pretty straightforward and accessible, usually erring on the side of over-explaining rather than conciseness. It’s basically a textbook.
This is also the book that introduced the awkwardly lengthy but still very important Fundamental Theorem of Poker, which I already knew about because it’s been cited in at least five other books that I’ve read this year. The Theory of Poker explains many, if not most, of the hands illustrated within it by relating it back to this fundamental theorem, ensuring that you’ll never forget it no matter how un-pithily it’s worded.
Even though so much of what’s covered in here is also covered in subsequently written poker texts, I’m still glad to have taken the time to read this book itself. How much it will help me out remains to be seen; unfortunately, this is a library copy so I probably won’t be going over it multiple times with a pencil and highlighter like I’ve been doing with some of the other poker strategy books I’ve found. (Somebody who got this book from the library before me did go over it with a pencil, but some people have, like, no manners.) But I definitely have a better sense of what everyone else is talking about when they’re talking about this book, and that’s pretty important for getting the most out of everything I read.
The Theory of Poker is older than me, although it has since been updated a few times. I have read about it in a number of the other, more recent poker-related books I’ve gone through this year. I know it was still being used widely as a resource when the poker boom kicked off fifteen years ago or so; Kenny Hallaert mentioned it when I interviewed him earlier this fall, saying it might still be useful for beginner players.
One thing that’s instantly noticeable about this book is that it was clearly written before no-limit hold’em became the game of choice for everyone and everything. While this can get a bit confusing for a reader who really only knows NLHE at all (i.e. me), it does allow Sklansky to illustrate concepts in multiple different ways in different games. Since this book is light on math (by poker book standards, at least—obviously it’s got a bunch of stuff about pot odds and basics like that) and more about how to reason through various poker plays, such a setup is fairly useful for showing how the concepts work. There’s a lot that’s explained that I would now consider to be very basic information, but I’ve also been reading beginner-level poker books pretty much all year so I suppose it’s good that some of it’s starting to sink in.
It’s not the most enjoyably written poker book I’ve read, featuring neither the goofy jokes of Phil Gordon’s little books nor the sarcastic cracks of Alexander Fitzgerald’s Myth of Poker Talent, but it’s pretty straightforward and accessible, usually erring on the side of over-explaining rather than conciseness. It’s basically a textbook.
This is also the book that introduced the awkwardly lengthy but still very important Fundamental Theorem of Poker, which I already knew about because it’s been cited in at least five other books that I’ve read this year. The Theory of Poker explains many, if not most, of the hands illustrated within it by relating it back to this fundamental theorem, ensuring that you’ll never forget it no matter how un-pithily it’s worded.
Even though so much of what’s covered in here is also covered in subsequently written poker texts, I’m still glad to have taken the time to read this book itself. How much it will help me out remains to be seen; unfortunately, this is a library copy so I probably won’t be going over it multiple times with a pencil and highlighter like I’ve been doing with some of the other poker strategy books I’ve found. (Somebody who got this book from the library before me did go over it with a pencil, but some people have, like, no manners.) But I definitely have a better sense of what everyone else is talking about when they’re talking about this book, and that’s pretty important for getting the most out of everything I read.