REVIEW
Hold'em
Poker for Advanced Players has certainly
been one of the most influential poker
books ever written, it has literally changed
how people have played this game. Moreover,
this book has, in large part, set the
standard by which other poker books have
been judged. Now, a much expanded new
edition for the 21st century has been
released.
The
book starts with several short preliminary
sections, including the Forward by expert
player Ray Zee, the Introduction, and
a section called "Using This Book". The
reader is warned immediately that this
book should not be read casually. It is
intended as a text book on Texas Hold'em
and will need to be studied as a text,
not read as one would a novel, if the
reader is to maximize the benefit of the
material within.
Then,
the first of eight sections begins, covering
the play of the first two cards. This
includes the now famous hand ranking table.
The authors recommend which sorts of hands
to play in various positions but emphasize
that it is not sufficient to just play
well before the flop to be a winning player.
The second section covers various important
concepts about which the Hold'em player
must be aware, including Semi-Bluffing,
Slow Playing, the Check Raise, Inducing
Bluffs, and many more. The third section
covers a wide variety of topics, including
playing when a flush draw flops, playing
trash hands, playing against a maniac,
etc.. Most of these sections were classics
when they were written. They're even better
now that they've been updated to more
closely reflect the sorts of games that
are commonly found in card rooms today.
Sections
four through six cover playing in all
sorts of non-standard games, and this
is the area where the book has been most
greatly expanded since its original printing.
We learn about playing in loose games,
including so-called "No Fold'em" games,
playing short handed, and playing in other
unusual circumstances. All of this information
is very interesting and has been updated
to be much more closely aligned to the
sorts of games commonly found today. Of
course, there is much more that could
be said on some of these topics, such
as playing in spread limit games, but
the authors cover a lot of territory already.
I especially like the new sections that
cover considerations in playing some especially
tricky starting hands, like AQoff.
Part
seven includes commentary on other skills
the successful Hold'em player will want
to possess, such as reading hands and
applying psychology. Finally, the last
section, Questions and Answers, provides
a quiz covering much of the material presented
in earlier chapters so the reader can
test themselves to see whether they've
understood what the authors were trying
to communicate. I've always felt that
this was one of the strongest sections
of this book and other publications by
Two Plus Two, and I'm glad to see that
it has been greatly expanded in the most
recent edition. The book ends with some
concluding remarks, an appendix on calculating
probabilities, and a glossary.
Of
course, Sklansky and Malmuth have never
shied away from controversy. There was
plenty for Hold'em players to debate in
the first edition of this book, and there
is certainly much one could fairly argue
about in this edition. Although I wouldn't
compare my strategic understanding of
the game to the authors, there are strategies
suggested in this book that I'm not certain
are optimal, and I'm sure many people
will argue the minutia of these many times
over. However, I'm less interested in
the specific merit of the play of a single
controversial hand than I am in the strategic
concepts the authors are trying to teach.
While I might quibble about whether that
strategic concept is applicable in an
example that they provide, I never get
the feeling that the strategic concept
itself is questionable. One of the great
things about Texas Hold'em is that there
are so many possible ways to play a given
hand, and that great players can disagree
on these points. The way one can tell
a great player from a mediocre one is
whether they can accurately read the situation
and take into account the strategic concepts
that need to be applied at the moment,
much more so than whether they bet, raise,
check or fold. One would be well advised,
in my opinion, to keep this in mind while
reading this book.
Clearly,
this book is a classic, and I doubt there
are very many successful limit Texas Hold'em
players playing today who do not own a
copy of one of the earlier editions. Certainly,
those that plan to play Hold'em well should
own a copy of this work and read it several
times. The big question is whether owners
of previous revisions of this book should
upgrade to the 21st Century Edition. Note
that this is the third update of this
work, the original was published in 1988,
it was updated in 1994, and the current
version was released in the summer of
1999. I have only the 1988 and 1999 editions,
so I can only speak to those.
By
my count, 150 pages have been added to
the 182 page 1988 edition. In addition
to new sections, there are minor changes
to reflect how the game has evolved over
the years and to emphasize concepts that
caused some conclusion in earlier editions.
Overall, given the changes that have been
made to the 21st Century Edition from
the first edition, I would recommend that
those people who are serious about their
Hold'em game and have read the 1988 edition
upgrade their copies of this book. Although
I do not have enough information to make
the same claim for the 1994 edition, I
wouldn't be at all surprised if it was
worth upgrading from the second edition
as well.
Capsule:
Hold'em
Poker for Advanced Players is one of the
classics of the poker literature. This
book is extremely well written, and it's
hard for me to believe that many players
are likely to master today's games without
having read and studied this text. Further,
the 21st Century Edition is, in my opinion,
enough of an improvement over the first
edition that those who have already read
the 1988 version should buy and read the
new edition as well.
Nick
Christenson
Gambling
Book Reviews
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