Tournament Poker for Advanced Players by David Sklansky

Paperback: 245 pages
Publisher: Two Plus Two Publishing LLC

If you are an advanced poker player who has not played much in tournaments, this is definitely the book for you.

I've read Sklansky's Tournament Poker for Advanced Players a few times now. Each time I've read it I've found something useful that I hadn't noticed before. I am an experienced mid limit poker player. I play a lot of 15-30 Holdem and Seven Card Stud. However, I would really prefer to play tournaments as a professional.

I know how to play poker. I was looking for a book that explained the nuances of Tournament Play. Sklansky's book does all of that. The "Gap Concept" is something that is known among experienced poker players. But Sklansky puts it on paper and explains its effect during poker tournament play. His explanation of the Gap Principal is worth the price of the book alone.

Sklansky also does a good job in explaining the value of chips and how that value changes throughout the poker tournament. He goes on to explain when it is advisable to be aggressive and when one should sit back and try and survive. The book is definitely written in general terms and must be read a few times to glean the important information contained within. If you plan on giving Tournament Poker a shot and already know how to play poker well this is a book for you.

Tournaments and poker 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 poker 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 poker 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 poker 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 the above 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 poker 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 holdem), 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 poker hands. He wrote: "The difference between the poker hand you need to call an opener with, and that with which you would open yourself, I call the 'Gap.' ... in a poker tournament, this Gap is often extremely high. In other words, in a tournament it is often right to open raise with poker hands far inferior to those with which you would need to call someone else that open raised. ..."

Dan Negreanu, a world class tournament and poker 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."

You may think that one poker book cannot have that much impact, but the historical facts are quite clear. His previous books, especially "The Theory of Poker" and "Holdem 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.