Slot Review of Hold'em Poker for Advanced Players, 21st Century Edition
Hold'em Poker for Advanced Players has certainly been one of the most influential poker books ever written, it has literally changed how people have played this game. Moreover, this book has, in large part, set the standard by which other poker books have been judged. Now, a much expanded new edition for the 21st century has been released.
The book starts with several short preliminary sections,
including the Forward by expert player Ray Zee, the Introduction, and a section
called "Using This Book". The reader is warned immediately that this
book should not be read casually. It is intended as a text book on Texas
Hold'em and will need to be studied as a text, not read as one would a novel,
if the reader is to maximize the benefit of the material within.
Then, the first of eight sections begins, covering the play of
the first two cards. This includes the now famous hand ranking table. The
authors recommend which sorts of hands to play in various positions but
emphasize that it is not sufficient to just play well before the flop to be a
winning player. The second section covers various important concepts about
which the Hold'em player must be aware, including Semi-Bluffing, Slow Playing,
the Check Raise, Inducing Bluffs, and many more. The third section covers a wide
variety of topics, including playing when a flush draw flops, playing trash
hands, playing against a maniac, etc.. Most of these sections were classics
when they were written. They're even better now that they've been updated to
more closely reflect the sorts of games that are commonly found in card rooms
today.
Sections four through six cover playing in all sorts of
non-standard games, and this is the area where the book has been most greatly
expanded since its original printing. We learn about playing in loose games,
including so-called "No Fold'em" games, playing short handed, and
playing in other unusual circumstances. All of this information is very
interesting and has been updated to be much more closely aligned to the sorts
of games commonly found today. Of course, there is much more that could be said
on some of these topics, such as playing in spread limit games, but the authors
cover a lot of territory already. I especially like the new sections that cover
considerations in playing some especially tricky starting hands, like AQoff.
Part seven includes commentary on other Slot skills the
successful Hold'em player will want to possess, such as reading hands and
applying psychology. Finally, the last section, Questions and Answers, provides
a quiz covering much of the material presented in earlier chapters so the
reader can test themselves to see whether they've understood what the authors
were trying to communicate. I've always felt that this was one of the strongest
sections of this book and other publications by Two Plus Two, and I'm glad to
see that it has been greatly expanded in the most recent edition. The book ends
with some concluding remarks, an appendix on calculating probabilities, and a
glossary.
Of course, Sklansky and Malmuth have never shied away from
controversy. There was plenty for Hold'em players to debate in the first
edition of this book, and there is certainly much one could fairly argue about
in this edition. Although I wouldn't compare my strategic understanding of the
game to the authors, there are strategies suggested in this book that I'm not
certain are optimal, and I'm sure many people will argue the minutia of these
many times over. However, I'm less interested in the specific merit of the play
of a single controversial hand than I am in the strategic concepts the authors
are trying to teach. While I might quibble about whether that strategic concept
is applicable in an example that they provide, I never get the feeling that the
strategic concept itself is questionable. One of the great things about Texas
Hold'em is that there are so many possible ways to play a given hand, and that
great players can disagree on these points. The way one can tell a great player
from a mediocre one is whether they can accurately read the situation and take
into account the strategic concepts that need to be applied at the moment, much
more so than whether they bet, raise, check or fold. One would be well advised,
in my opinion, to keep this in mind while reading this book.
Clearly, this book is a classic, and I doubt there are very many
successful limit Texas Hold'em players playing today who do not own a copy of
one of the earlier editions. Certainly, those that plan to play Hold'em well
should own a copy of this work and read it several times. The big question is
whether owners of previous revisions of this book should upgrade to the 21st
Century Edition. Note that this is the third update of this work, the original
was published in 1988, it was updated in 1994, and the current version was released
in the summer of 1999. I have only the 1988 and 1999 editions, so I can only
speak to those.
By my count, 150 pages have been added to the 182 page 1988
edition. In addition to new sections, there are minor changes to reflect how
the game has evolved over the years and to emphasize concepts that caused some
conclusion in earlier editions. Overall, given the changes that have been made
to the 21st Century Edition from the first edition, I would recommend that
those people who are serious about their Hold'em game and have read the 1988
edition upgrade their copies of this book. Although I do not have enough
information to make the same claim for the 1994 edition, I wouldn't be at all
surprised if it was worth upgrading from the second edition as well.
Capsule:
Hold'em Poker for Advanced Players is one of the classics of the
poker literature. This book is extremely well written, and it's hard for me to
believe that many players are likely to master today's games without having
read and studied this text. Further, the 21st Century Edition is, in my
opinion, enough of an improvement over the first edition that those who have
already read the 1988 version should buy and read the new edition as well.
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