Product Description

Texas Hold ’em is not an easy game to play well. To become an expert you must balance many concepts, some of which occasionally contradict each other. In 1988, the first edition appeared. Many ideas, which were only known to a small, select group of players, were made available to anyone who was striving to become an expert, and the hold ’em explosion had begun. It is now a new century, and the authors have again moved the state of the art forward by adding over 100 pages of new material, including extensive sections on "loose games," and "short-handed games." Anyone who studies this text, is well disciplined, and gets the proper experience should become a significant winner. Some of the other ideas discussed include play on the first two cards, semi-bluffing, the free card, inducing bluffs, staying with a draw, playing when a pair flops, playing trash hands, desperation bets, playing in wild games, reading hands, and psychology.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11609 in Books
• Published on: 1999-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 332 pages

About the Author
About David Sklansky

David Sklansky is generally considered the number one authority on gambling in the world today. Besides his ten books on the subject, David also has produced two videos and numerous writings for various gaming publications. His occasional poker seminars always receive an enthusiastic reception, including those given at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City and the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

More recently, David has been doing consulting work for casinos, Internet gaming sites, and gaming device companies. He has recently invented several games, soon to appear in casinos.

David attributes his standing in the gambling community to three things:

1. The fact that he presents his ideas as simply as possible (sometimes with Mason Malmuth) even though these ideas frequently involve concepts that are deep, subtle, and not to be found elsewhere.

2. The fact that the things he says and writes can be counted on to be accurate.

3. The fact that to this day a large portion of his income is still derived from gambling (usually poker, but occasionally blackjack, sports betting, horses, video games, casino promotions, or casino tournaments).

Thus, those who depend on David’s advice know that he still depends on it himself.

About Mason Malmuth

Mason Malmuth was born and raised in Coral Gables, Florida. In 1973 he received his BS in Mathematics from Virginia Tech, and completed their Masters’ program in 1975. While working for the United States Census Bureau in 1978, Mason stopped overnight in Las Vegas while driving to his new assignment in California. He was immediately fascinated by the games, and gambling became his major interest.

After arriving in California he discovered that poker was legal and began playing in some of the public cardrooms as well as taking periodic trips to Las Vegas where he would play both poker and blackjack. In 1981 he went to work for the Northrop Corporation as a mathematician and moved to Los Angeles where he could conviently pursue his interest in poker in the large public cardrooms in Gardena, Bell Gardens, and Commerce.

In 1983 his first article "Card Domination — The Ultimate Blackjack Weapon" was published in Gambling Times magazine. In 1987 he left his job with the Northrop Corporation to begin a career as both a full-time gambler and a gambling writer. He has had over 500 articles published in various magazines and is the author or co-author of 12 books. These include Gambling Theory and Other Topics, where he tries to demonstrate why only a small number of people are highly successful at gambling. In this book he introduces the reader to the concept of "non-self weighting strategies" and explains why successful gambling is actually a balance of luck and skill. Other books he has co-authored are Hold ’em Poker For Advanced Players, written with David Sklansky, and Seven-Card Stud For Advanced Players written with David Sklansky and Ray Zee. All the "advanced" books are considered the definitive works on these games.

His company Two Plus Two Publishing has sold over 400,000 books and currently has 26 titles to its credit. These books are recognized as the best in their field and are thoroughly studied by those individuals who take gambling seriously.

Customer Reviews

Something You Cannot Read Just Once
This book is extremely good for gaining a solid foundation of Texas Hold 'em. I read it on and off for around 6 months and realized that while I learned some valuable lessons and picked up important bits of information I need to read it over and over again to truly take in everything that is being said. For me it is like a good movie that you see once and figure you saw it all only to watch it again and pick up something new, then a while later watch it again and see even more that was missed.

I highly recommend this book for students of the game. This is essential reading if you want to compete seriously. Even if you think you know it all and the book makes sense, read it carefully and understand that many serious players have read, re-read and learned significantly from this and the other classics. It will help your game.

read, study, play, reread
Hold 'em Poker for Advanced Players is simply the best single volume study of Hold 'em as it is played today that I have ever read. It is endlessly informative, rich in detail and illustrations, complex in its treatment of complicated concepts, and insightful in every important way. It omits nothing of any importance to the game.

The book begins with a consideration of general starting hands requirements, adjusted for playing style, position, etc., and follows through on the play of each, as well as general considerations for each type or class of hand, and its relation to the innumerable factors impacting expectation or the play of other. Once this analysis is dealt with, Sklansky deals with a whole series of more individual or isolated cases or concepts and miscellaneous topics. The important details considered are too many to list here; Hold 'em played well is an enormously complex game, and Sklansky addresses it from every angle.

Sklansky's writing style is very dense. He does not blather on about his personal experiences, drop names, or chat; he instructs in the style of a particularily dry math or statistics professor. He is direct, thorough, and exhaustive (sometimes exhausting). You will not read this book in one sitting and become a professional caliber player. You need to play, then return to the book and read much of it again; upon doing so the reader will find, again and again, that now he finally really understands some new concept. It is a work of extremely subtle and complex analysis.

Nobody playing Hold 'em for money today can do without this book.

You'll get a big edge
I really am not a fan of the reviews, but I feel that I have the obligation to recommend this book because if you read it, you will understand better the others players' game, and the best of it you'll get a big edge over them.