David Sklansky is perhaps the most prolific poker strategy writer of all time, three times over World Series of Poker Bracelet winner, and a comprehensive authority on all things gambling. In fact, when he was working as a casino consultant he had a business card titled “Resident Magician.”
The “black sheep” in his family found poker while attending the University of Pennsylvania and was quickly drawn into the world of professional gambling.
Although the distinguished mathematician briefly worked as an actuary before poker, it wasn’t long before he arrived in Las Vegas, and was not only winning at the card tables, but also finding success as a blackjack card counter and sports bettor, and was looking Always about exploits in the casino. Games and promotions. He even invented his own game, which later became Caribbean Stud (and turned into a $30 million headache).
He eventually caught the attention of casino owner Bob Stupak, working with him on Vegas World and later the Stratosphere, which Sklansky convinced him to build, forever changing the skyline of the Las Vegas Strip.
Sklansky wrote his first book on poker in 1976, applying his mathematical expertise to a then-unknown game called Hold’em. A few years later, Doyle Bronson invited him to write the chapter Hi-Lo Lover super/system.
But it is Sklansky’s work in 1978 that has long been recognized for building the foundation of poker theory. It is considered the best-selling poker book of all time. Poker theory It is the bible of game strategy, which applies to all forms of poker. In this book Sklansky wrote terms like “implied odds” into existence, which changed the way top players thought about the game.
Through a partnership with Two Plus Two Publishing, Sklansky has since gone on to write nearly two dozen books on various forms of poker and other forms of gambling, including an updated look at Poker theory It applies to No Limit Hold’em. At one point, he joined JK Rowling as the only other author to have three different books on Amazon’s Top 100 list simultaneously.
The 76-year-old recently joined Poker stories podcast To talk about His last book, Mini No-Limit Hold’em Stakes: Help them give you their moneywhich is designed to teach players when and how to deviate GTO Play to maximize their profits through feats.
Excerpts from the interview appear below, but you can listen to the entire episode here, Apple, Spotify, or any podcast app. In addition to all the strategy talk, highlights include stories about dodging punches from Floyd Mayweather, challenging Donald Trump to a million-dollar board game, a rigged mayoral election, and all five times he was held at gunpoint.
Card Operator: optimal game theory (GTO) Poker is not a new concept.
David Sklansky: the Poker theoryany [I wrote] In 1978, he had a chapter on game theory. There was a book written, I think, a few years later, by a guy named Norman Zada who had a PhD in mathematics. Game theory has been used throughout. Then there was another PhD in mathematics named Nesmith Ankeny, and he wrote a book about poker based on game theory.
The only difference between the game theory I wrote about and the game theory you hear about these days is that I held it until the last round of betting, when there would be no more cards to come. Game theory involved bluffing versus not bluffing, which made… [the concept] A little easier to explain.
Since then, they have used computers to come up with ways to use them GTO In the most difficult situations.
CP: The game tree now contains hundreds of variables that take into account things like stack sizes, table position, bet size, and board texture.
s: There are a lot of different things, and you can learn a lot from them [solvers]. However, the reason for my series of GT-NO columns, in general, is to show you why you shouldn’t actually use them GTO To play poker.
CP: Players need to know when to deviate from this GTO He plays.
s: Which always happens when you play against everyone but the best players. Now, it doesn’t hurt to know GTOBecause if you knew GTO, you know what your fallback position will be. But you shouldn’t even use your backup position unless you have good reason to believe your opponents are very strong.
What GTO What it does is make your opponent’s decision after you have acted with great difficulty. Or the way they describe them makes them “indifferent.” So no matter what he does, no matter how he plays, you will win what your cards are worth.
The problem is that you have to win more than your cards are worth to win. And if you know how the other guy plays, you’ll know him.
The most obvious example is this GTO He will tell you that when someone else bets on the river, you must call them with your middle hands a certain percentage of the time to prevent them from making easy tricks. But suppose you were playing with the man, and saw that he never bluffs. If you follow GTO And call this guy, you’re wasting a lot of money.
vice versa. Presumably, you are the one who decides whether or not to cheat. You see this guy never folds. GTO He will tell you to fool him a certain percentage of the time.
CP: To remain balanced.
s: Being “balanced” is a GTO Understandable because GTO Too afraid that someone else will find out how you play. You have to constantly play in a way that doesn’t make it easy to know what you have, but that’s ridiculous.
How many times have you faced a bad player, and made a big bet where everyone at the table knows you have him? Except for the guy facing the bet. He doesn’t know that. Maybe he doesn’t have the willpower to throw his hand away.
This is the basis for our new book (written with Mason Malmuth) and for the column.
CP: Mini No-Limit Hold’em Stakes: Help them give you their money; That’s about as exploitative as you can explain it, isn’t it?
s: You can also go further, and some of the best players do, which is to manipulate your opponents into playing worse. By the way you act at the table, by the way you play certain hands, you can actually make a player who usually plays decently, start playing worse.
Let’s face it. I won’t mention names, but there are people who perform very well in tournaments and just don’t have any idea about it GTO, but they are not educated even in simple poker calculations. There is a certain person in my mind who is on record saying that the AKP is a branch [a favorite] The AK is more than convenient because it can do two streams instead of one.
This is someone who has done very well in tournaments, to say the least. Because when he’s in these big events, many of his opponents are bad players. There is something about poker that is different from almost any other game.
In golf, if I was beating you by six strokes and getting better, now I’m beating you by nine strokes. But not only am I better against you, I’m now better against everyone.
This is not true in poker. The techniques that take me from good to very good, if I use them against bad players, will make me do worse.
CP: There seems to be a common complaint from average $1-$2 and $2-$5 players that some of the advanced concepts they hear about from the wizards in the PokerGO studio don’t work for them at lower stakes.
s: Some plays that seem ridiculous to good players work against bad players. In one extreme example, we had a friend who could make a lot of money just by paying whenever he got two aces. In a $1-$3 game, he was paying $500 there, and people were calling him saying there was no way he could get aces.
I mean, that’s a crazy play, and no expert would ever tell you to do something like that, because it’s so wrong in theory. But if someone were to turn around and call him…
CP: You can do this until it stops working.
s: Even the best players often confuse obvious mistakes with important ones. By this I mean that there are errors that are indisputable, but they only cost you a small amount. It’s not just about how bad the bugs are, but how often they appear.
There’s this idea that when you’re first in the bowl, you should always lift it. But this is a foul against very bad players. There may be a situation where you want to limp into an early position with certain hands for several reasons.
I actually gave eight different reasons for this, but the biggest one is that the people in the blinds are probably actually trying to play well. I mean, if you raise it, they will [stay disciplined and] Fold their bad hands. But if they don’t lift, and then they fail a little, they tend to get themselves into trouble.
So why would you want to fire someone who will lose a lot of money to you later? This is one of the keys to helping them give you their money. The opposite is not helping them play well.
now, GTO He hates it because GTO He thinks people will eventually find out what you do. But they don’t know what you do. If they could, they would. When you’re not playing GTOYou can be exploited. But the only people taking advantage of you are in Bobby’s room at the Bellagio.
The better your opponents are, the closer they will get to you GTO do you want to play. On the other hand, if you can find a game that has some really bad players, you will make more money in the long run when you play exploitatively. ♠
