Title: The Theory of poker – a professional poker player teaches you to think like one
Author: David Sklansky
Facts: The book contains 272 text pages and some appendixes. The book is published by Two Plus Two Publishing LLC.
About the author: David Sklansky is number one in poker theory. He has written about 10 books about gambling and card games. He is one of the people behind two plus two publishing. He showed at the World poker tours “poker by the book” that he is a great player when he won the tournament beating Doyle Brunson heads up. He is known for his mathematical skills.
Review: The Theory of poker is a book that is a bit different from some of the other books. Sklansky choose to write about poker with a general approach. He doesn’t beat around the bush. He just explains its al about winning the money that is out there. And probably that’s why you are looking at this review. You want to become a better player and win the money!
His aim with the book is to provide the reader with an greater understanding of the game no matter if its Hold’em, Omaha, five-card stud or Razz. He tries and succeeds in capture the basic nature of poker. He explains strategy and theoretical parts of the game and in many cases I got an “aha” experience when I read the book. A lot of the feelings I had about the game Sklansky put words to.
An interesting part of the book is the “fundamental theorem of poker”. Study this book and think about it and you will realize it so simple so anybody could come up with it. But I think that geniuses are the one who can make the complex look easy. Most of the book is easy to read and to understand. Of course you can tell that Sklansky loves his mathematical approach to the game. A big part of the book is about odds. He covers pot, effective, implied and reversed implied odds. Al the things you need to have in your toolbox to become a great poker player. But an even bigger part of the book are about deception and different types of plays, i.e. when to give a free card, when and how to semi-bluff and how to defend yourself when you believe someone is trying to make a move at you. The odds part might be a bit hard to read. This might be especially true if you are not used to use math or statistics on a daily basis, or maybe have forgotten what you learned in school. But we suggest you really put your mind into it and read it a couple of times. The studying will pay of in the long run.
There are also chapters about analyzing a table from different angels. How is the ante structure? Are the players loose or are they playing tight? This will teach you how to find your opponents mistakes and the most important how you take advantage of them.
The chapters about bluffing are very significant to describe the structure of the book. Of course he explains when and how to bluff. But Sklansky doesn’t stop there. He goes further and explains why bluffing is such an important part of the game, using theories and statistical methods to prove it.
The book is a keeper. This book is an academic way to get into the game of poker. Even if the theory and the mathematical part of poker only covers a bit of the complexity of the game you need to master them to be able to get a chance to improve other parts. And its were this book earns its space in your bookshelf. I suggest that this book is included among the 3 first poker books you study. You will probably get wiser by reading it and when you understand the theory you can go further. Both in making money but also avoiding mistakes and analysing your game.