REVIEW
Mason
Malmuth has been one of the most prolific
poker writers over the last twenty years.
Every few years, he collects the best
articles he has written, revises them,
and publishes them as the next installment
in his Poker Essays series. Poker Essays
Volume III represents what Malmuth thinks
were his best essays to have appeared
in the magazines Poker Digest and Card
Player as well as on the Two Plus Two
web site over the last five years.
The
articles are divided into seven sections,
more to break up the book I think than
because the categories are all that important.
The sections include General Concepts,
Technical Ideas, Strategic Ideas, In the
Cardrooms, Hands to Talk About, The Ciaffone
Quiz, and Two More Quizzes. If these categories
seem familiar, it's because five of them
have appeared in all three volumes of
the author's Poker Essays series.
As
one would expect from Malmuth, most of
these essays are quite good, although
they tend to not be as fundamental as
the authors work in Gambling Theory and
Other Topics or even the earlier Poker
Essays books. This shouldn't be too surprising,
as the author has laid the groundwork
for his ideas on poker in his previous
works. The articles in Poker Essays Volume
III are predominantly focusing on refining
ideas Malmuth (sometimes with David Sklansky)
has presented in earlier books, or they
compare or evaluate key concepts or situations.
Because
of this, the reader would probably be
best served by reading a great deal of
the Two Plus Two catalog before attacking
this book. I would suggest that reading
and studying Hold'em Poker for Advanced
Players, Seven Card Stud for Advanced
Players, Sklansky's Theory of Poker, and
Gambling Theory and Other Topics before
working on Malmuth's latest. However,
this isn't strictly necessary. Also, while
it would make some sense to read the first
two volumes in the Poker Essays series
first, this isn't critical for understanding
his latest book.
There
are places in Malmuth's essays where I
might mildly disagree with the author
on certain points and strategies, although
in those cases one probably be well advised
to put more stock in what Malmuth has
to say than in my statements, and Malmuth
points out several places where his ideas
have been especially controversial in
the essays themselves. However, even if
several of these ideas turned out to be
strictly incorrect, I still don't believe
it would detract significantly from the
book. When one is attempting to master
a complex field of study, whether it's
poker, medicine, physics, etc., key breakthroughs
do not come when a student passes some
threshold of knowledge, but when they
have acquired the tools to think about
problems in an expert way. Whether raising
with 87 suited in late position in a Holdem
game is correct or not isn't very important.
What is important is that a player can
evaluate these situations in an expert
manner. What Poker Essays Volume III provides
are examples of the sorts of thought processes
that are important in mastering the game.
It's not at all important that a poker
student remember every specific situation
that Malmuth writes about, but it is important
that they do the sorts of analyses that
Malmuth does quickly at the table and
thoroughly away from it.
Over
the years, Malmuth has also greatly improved
his writing. In my opinion, his statements
are more precise than they were a decade
ago. Further, he goes to some lengths
to diffuse tangental arguments and cover
alternative situations which makes the
theses of his essays manifest. Poker Essays
Volume III is a very readable book whose
ideas are clearly communicated. I also
think it's a very good book, although
almost certainly more useful to relatively
advanced poker students. While I strongly
recommend reading the "core" elements
of the Two Plus Two catalog first, this
is a worthy addition to a serious poker
player's library.
Capsule:
Poker
Essays Volume III provides a collection
of articles which are excellent examples
about how to think about poker at an expert
level. This book is geared toward advanced
players and is a quality extension of
the Two Plus Two core poker catalog. I
recommend it.
Nick
Christenson
Gambling
Book Reviews
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