Tournament Poker for Advanced Players

Rating:
Summary: TPFAP - A Very Solid Contribution by David Sklansky
Review: The poker playing public's appetite for bigger and higher-stakes poker tournaments seems almost insatiable. As these events have become more popular, several authors have taken a crack at writing the definitive book about tournament poker, and to date, none have excelled in this task. Now David Sklansky, a supremely talented poker writer, makes his attempt to tackle this topic.

As this is part of Two Plus Two's "for Advanced Players" series, the reader is assumed to be familiar with basic poker tournament protocol and understand how to play ring game (non-tournament) poker well. While some introductory information is still included, it is kept brief. Less experienced players would be well advised to read books such as Texas Holdem for Advanced Players and a more introductory tournament book, such as Poker Tournament Strategies.

After the introduction, Sklansky starts with new material, including an explanation of an important principle he calls "The Gap Concept". Simply stated, in a tight game it is often correct to fold hands to a raise that a player would have raised with if nobody had already raised before it was the player's turn to act. While this principle has been written about before and will certainly be familiar to any winning mid-limit poker player, this is the best explanation of this phenomenon, why it occurs, and how to use it to advantage. It is especially important here, because poker tournaments tend to feature tighter play than ring games.

Sklansky then moves on to discuss some general tournament ideas, including how to adjust one's play at various levels of a tournament, how players might adjust their play depending on when or whether their table will be broken up, and playing (and playing against) short stacks versus large stacks. Some of this advice has been discussed in other books or articles before, but much of it hasn't, and Sklansky always provides strong arguments to support the positions he takes.

Next, Sklansky addresses other tournament issues including deal making, last longer bets, and special circumstances surrounding no-limit events. This last topic includes an explanation of a no-limit Holdem strategy he calls "The System". This is an intriguing simple strategy for playing in these events. All of these topics in the book thus far cover 134 pages in the book.

Next, the author provides a set of hand quizzes. This is less of a review than an extension of some of Sklansky's key principles found in the book, so it should be thought of as more information, just in an unorthodox format. However, these quizzes are followed by more than 35 pages of questions and answers (assembled by Mason Malmuth) which are designed as a review tool for the rest of the book.

Sklansky's ideas are always well thought out and usually thoroughly explained. However, there is more that could be said about many of the topics he discusses. For example, he explains how to evaluate whether a two-person deal at the end of a tournament is fair or not, and why there can be no single fair deal when three players remain. However, there is a great deal more that could be said about this. This is an area where simulations could provide some additional suggestions, and formulae for coming up with ranges for appropriate deals for multiple players could be worked out. I would have appreciated it if this topic, as well as others, had been dealt with in more depth. Depending on how one wants to count it, there is about 130 to 190 pages of original material in this book. I think even more information would have made this book better.

Nonetheless, the information that is contained in this book is very good. This is simply the best single source of information on poker tournaments written to date. Tournament Poker for Advanced Players manages to be the first book on this topic of which any gambling publisher can be truly proud. More could have been said about many topics, and this is by no means the last word on the topic, but Sklansky's effort is a very valuable one for tournament players, well worth its price.

If you are a new poker player and would like to start playing poker online at www.partypoker.com - make sure you use the bonus code: "AMAZON25" and you will receive $25 free on your first purchase at www.PartyPoker.com. You may also use the bonus code: "Amazon100" for a 20% bonus up to $100. If you already play at PartyPoker, you can also play at www.Pokerroom.com. Use the promotion code "100BONUS" and you will receive 20% up to $100.
Good Luck and Play Well,
PokerMan

Rating:
Summary: Solid book on tournament play
Review: There is no doubt that you can learn a lot from a David Sklansy book. This book is a solid book on tournament play. There are a lot of tricks of the trade when playing in a tournament. Some things in this book you would never think about during a tournament but it is these things that will make you a winner. There are times during a tournament where you can make a move and there are times where you can be a little more patient. This book will show you these things and more. It will pay for itself the first time you reach the final table.

Also, go to www.geocities.com/pacificpokerbonusoffer and click on the link and sign up with pacific poker and receive 25% on your first deposit. You won't even have to play a hand and the money will enter your account! Pacific Poker is home of the worst players on the internet so take advantage!

Rating:
Summary: great book
Review: this book helped my game very much. sklansky teaches from basic to advanced and covers most the aspects of the game.. i was able to use this to make a good amount of money online at

partypoker.com

use the following sign up codes:
PP20EXTRA for up to 100$ bonus on first deposit (20% bonus)
PP25EXTRA for $25 on First Deposit

Rating:
Summary: Not impressed
Review: This is not Sklansky's best work. The books does have 2 or 3 good concepts but the rest of the book is vague. I wish he had combined this useful info in another book. The rest of the book is junk, with some filler quizes and crap advice. I mean geesh...his discussion on final table play is horrible.

Rating:
Summary: Very Enjoyable Book¿Now Get To Playin!!!
Review: This was a very Enjoyable Book. It provided important and useful concepts about the game of Poker. I learned new concepts, which identified some leaks in my game. Leaks in your game can come from anywhere!!! Leaks can originate from lack of aggression, overcalling raises, misreading opponents and any other number of ways. So this book helps. Many people look at poker the wrong way. They think to win they need to do all of this super fancy plays and mindblowing stunts. Well folks...there are not that many options in poker...you fold, call or raise. So its really hard to do thinks that will just fool your opponents all the time. To win at poker it is mostly limiting your mistakes and getting all that you can from winning hands and minimizing losses on losing hands...that's it

Ive been playing for about 5 years now and love the game. Ive read many poker books and found this one to be very good. So I would suggest you buy this book and maybe a couple others and get to playing. There's really no excuse anymore - since anyone can access the internet.

If you are a new poker player and would like to start playing poker online at www.partypoker.com - make sure you use the bonus code: "AMAZON25" and you will receive $25 free on your first purchase at www.PartyPoker.com. You can also use the Bonus Code "AMAZON100" and you will receive a 20% bonus up to $100! If you already play at PartyPoker, you can also play at www.Pokerroom.com. Use the promotion code "100BONUS" and you will receive 20% up to $100

Rating:
Summary: Don't play tournaments without it.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Questionable poker tournament recommendations
Review: Written by a widely respected poker writer, this book has many good points. However, portions of the book would lead one to conclude that he doesn't have a great deal of experience actually playing in tournaments.

In most tournaments, first place is worth twice as much as second place, four times as much as third place, and six times as much as fourth place. Therefore, in the final stages of the tournament, it is often more important to facilitate eliminating other players than to maximize the number of chips that can be won during the course of a hand. Thus it is dead wrong to suggest that some Omaha High-Low hands are so strong that a player should always raise with the hand. That suggestion, which may be appropriate for a live game, could be disastrous in the last stages of a tournament.