Reviewing books

I got an email from somebody asking me about Sklansky on Poker He asked if I'd read it.

I haven't read it. But I read Sklansky on Razz long ago in its original edition. I think it's the best Sklansky ever. Sklansky on Poker is a collection of short works of Sklansky and includes a reprint of Slansky on Razz

My correspondent has wondered about the book because he'd read a bad review of it on 2+2 by one of the resident idiot posters and suspected that meant it was probably a good book. From the review:

The section “Sklansky on Razz” is certainly the best material on that game in print, but it’s a game that’s rarely spread anymore. As for the other essays, they were even at the time of publication little more than Theory of Poker simplified and explained for beginners. The examples and many of the concepts are specific to fixed limit games, and some even more restricted to obsolete games like jacks-or-better five card draw.

Obsolete games?

I think the typical 2+2 sage is looking for a book that says a lot of "If A then do X". That kind of potential reader probably wouldn't like Sklansky on Razz.

It's been a very long time since I've read Sklansky on Razz (over 20 years) but there are a couple of key points the reader should take away from what I remember about the book.

One is the importance of never forgetting what they think you have, or what they think you might have. The other is that a draw is sometimes in better shape than a made hand, even heads up.

Those are poker concepts, not Razz concepts, although Razz is the perfect game to illustrate that. (KK)A45 might well be a much better hand than (23)A89 in a matchup with those two hands. That's a scary looking board for the made 9. Also (23)A44 actually is way ahead of (23)A89 although it's still drawing.

Important concepts made clear when you look at it from the viewpoint of razz.

Sklansky on Razz is pretty much basic stuff but it's important basic stuff. Stuff that's important to all poker players, not just Razz players.

Sklansky on Razz

I think Sklansky on Razz is one of the best books ever written on poker. It was a Gambler's Book Club published pamphlet that is long out of print. It's since been incorporated into Sklansky on Poker.

I don't have my copy any more and it's been a long time since I read it.

To me the key concept Sklansky pushed in that pamphlet was more the kind of thing you'd have expected from Caro rather than Sklansky. Back in those days Sklansky represented a mathematical approach to the game and Caro represented a psychological approach to the game. In Sklansky on Razz he preached the normal edict of Just Play Tight, but he grounded that in the idea that you should play tight from the point of view of the opponent. The strength of your hand comes from your upcards, from the range that an opponent would put you on. If you played tight with respect to the cards your opponent could see, and aggresviely represented nut cards as your downcards, then the opponent would tend to put you on very strong hands. Your downcards almost didn't matter.

Of course you could take that too far, but as a general guiding rule it's a powerful concept. Represent the hand that your opponents will fear. It's not just a Razz concept, it's a poker concept. For example, in hold'em if you raise pre-flop your opponents will almost always put you on AK and you can play accordingly on later streets.

Focus on what your opponents know about your hand and how that influences their thinking. That's the lesson from Sklansky on Razz

An old post at Anything But Hold Em points to an old 2+2 thread that questions whether Sklansky on Razz is outdated. If you think the book is about Razz then I guess maybe it is outdated. Games with both a forced bring-in and a forced raise were common back then (low card bring-in, high card then had a forced raise -- or the other way around, I don't remember which). That makes for a very different game.

But the book isn't really outdated. It's a book about poker, not a book about Razz.