David Skalansky as a poker player

[scrummie2]

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Yeah, but the WSOP isn't a supersatellite. The pay does increase and pretty drastically as you get near first place.

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One of Sklansky's examples from the book makes sense for a time to fold say AA or KK. Say there are two tables left, but one more person busts and the tables will be merged. If you have a huge chip lead on one table and the short stack goes all-in against your AA, he argues that folding might be the right decision because someone with that huge a chip lead can just keep stealing every blind with minimal gap raises. I.e. taking the guy out (and merging the tables) has negative EV as it means you can no longer run over the table you're on.

[motorholdem]

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Big tournament wins doesn't define how good of a player you are.

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Boy, would Phil Mickelson ever agree with that one (well, up to last year -lol)

In Holdem, it depends on "who" is seeking the definition.

The General public probably uses this as a benchmark.
Pros and semi pros may evaulate their peers on play in cash games
The very elite players probably evaluate opponents based on "who" they have the most difficult time against.

There is no criteria, but I think it is important to take into account the peer/public contrast.

In baseball, for example, there are some .280 hitters who are clutch, and some .330 hitters who are not. The majority of fans may not consider this, but you can bet the players (on both teams) know who to respect more when it's time for a clutch play.

I think this analogy holds true in Poker, where you may find a list of the top 30 players (as voted on by the players themselves) may have some suprises when compared to big tourney win lists or money rankings.

IMO, peer recogition would be the ultimate benchmark, as this is most informed and qualified group to make the evalauation.

[InfernoLL]

Folding aces is a huge deal. It is almost always incorrect. This includes on the bubble in an MTT, IMO. If Sklansky were a tournament specialist whose only income came from grinding out money finishes in these events, maybe lower variance is preferable to higher EV. But he isn't one of those players, so folding AA preflop on the bubble is horrible play.

As to the example where 2 tables will become one if you bust the short stack, this seems like a bad example. If the short stack has shown that he is willing to go all in there, it seems unlikely that he is going to stop doing this because he manages to steal the blinds once. You should already have been stealing blinds, and the short stack saw this and decided to move in anyway. Basically, you can't create a situation where it would be correct for the other players to go all in against you every hand because you'll fold the best hand and try to make up for it later. This is starting to sound like the Phil Hellmuth play where he folds pair over pair because he thinks he can outplay people in small pots, rather than take an 80% chance to double up immediately.