Sklansky's tournament book

[shaniac]

After Dan Negreanu's endorsement of Sklansky's tournament book, I was wondering if other 2+2er's would agree.

I have had moderate success in small local tournaments but still have a lot to learn and many concepts to firm up. Was gonna try my hand in the smaller Foxwoods NL tournies...Is this book a worthwhile buy?

thanks,
shaniac

[Moose]

.. that is to say, full of excellent technical information but a little hard to digest the first time through. Of particular note are the excellent examples on how the prize money implications will distorts the decisions one may make late in a tournament.

Curiously, the book is peppered in places with some very snide and demeaning insults (the worst of the lot being along the lines of ".. [T]hese hands comprise 13 percent of the hands you will be dealt. If you don't know how this is calculated, you are not ready for this book. Close it and put it down. And, I hope you lose."). I'd have expected such from Mason, but certainly not from Mr. Sklansky.

Strategy-wise, the only problem I take umbrage with is "The System", which basically details a strategy for beginners to no-limit, where one simply moves all in pre-flop with a selection of hands once the blinds become suitably significant to the average stack. It didn't take long, at the many tournaments I tried it, for the other players to catch on and lower their calling requirements significantly, but "The System" assumes that your raises will continue to get other players to lay down hands pre-flop that they just simply don't do once they see you go all-in preflop thrice over the last 15 hands. Perhaps I was doing it too early, but my "System" raises were 8x-10x the big blind, so that seems about right.

Basically, if you can handle reading Sklansky, it's worth every penny.

M.

[Mackie]

He tells us there were special instructions for playing in the big blind - but never tells us what they are! Um, you advertise the book contains "the system", I expect the complete system for my $$$.

There was one other contradictary thing I remember picking out of the book but I don't remember the exact details now - it had to do with mucking KK pre-flop in NL, saying at one point given a certain set of circumstances you should have your head examined if you don't, and in another spot says you're crazy to do so. I remember thinking the situations described were similar.

[YourMom]

T.J. Cloutier says 10x BB is an average stack, and I have to agree. You shouldnt narrow your preflop raising to just going all in until you are at 5 or less BB I think. If you have less than 5 bb however, you must go all in or fold, but if you have 6 or up you can put in half your stack. The reason being you can raise at least 3 BB preflop, a serious raise, and also still have enough on the flop to actually deter a call. So it is better to just automatically bet the flop after your half raise preflop (and thus maybe steal a pot) than to just go all in preflop. This only applies to small tourneys as you say you play in, I have no idea about the large ones

[Greg (FossilMan)]

The "bible" of tournament poker is still to be written, but this book is FAR better than anything else out there yet. It details most of the important things to consider when varying your play from excellent ring play to excellent tournament play. However, I suspect many readers would like more of the applications for those considerations to be spelled out for them.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

I have used the system included in the book in many freerolls,including the WPO warmup which im now qualified for round two, with the following mods: check big blind if not all in and go allin if nuts fold otherwise, and unless AA or KK never allin twice in a row(too likely to get called) I dont it in real money and only do slighty better,i estimate that with about 6-8 more mods the system would work as good as or better than my reg play.