Nick Christenson

by Nick Christenson

 In many ways we can consider this the third installment in HP’s “Kill” poker book series, and, in fact, its French title is Kill ElkY. The book is divided into several sections with some chapters primarily written by different members of the authoring team. The book begins with a qualitative exegesis by ElkY on how he approaches the current tournament scene. The strategy provided is designed to exploit what ElkY sees as weaknesses in most contemporary players’ games. The explanation comes off as a bit jumbled at times, and it seems rather counter-exploitable, but there are a lot of interesting suggestions here.

David Sklansky is best known as an author of gambling articles and books. However, I suspect he considers himself to be a general thinker for whom gambling problems represent just some of his many interests. He has written articles on diverse subjects including crime and punishment, race relations, and general expertise, and some of these were collected in a previous book called, Fighting Fuzzy Thinking in Poker, Gaming & Life. Written with psychologist and noted poker author in his own right, Alan Schoonmaker, DUCY?

52 Ways to Cheat at Poker
by Allan Zola Kronzek
Plume (2008), 192 pp, $13.00
ISBN 978-0-452-28911-6

Oops! I Won Too Much Money
by Tom Schneider
Brown Books Publishing Group (2006) ISBN: 1-933285-37-0 218 pp, $24.99

In order to make money playing limit hold'em, one must play well. In order to maximize money playing limit hold'em, one must also strive to convince other players that you don't play as well as you really do. At least, this is the thesis to the book, Play Poker Like a Pigeon and Take the Money Home, by an anonymous author.

Many poker professionals have been catapulted to fame by their performance on televised poker.

Amarillo Slim Preston, among others, has been quoted as saying "Poker is a game of people," and to a lesser extent about cards.

If this is true, and poker players generally take this as an axiom, then we must conclude that the history of poker is much more about the people who played the game than the hands they played. Certainly, this is the approach taken by Des Wilson throughout his examination of the history of the game in his book, "Ghosts at the Table."

Online poker has introduced many new developments to this beloved game.

One of these is the advent of intentionally short-handed tables. Despite the popularity of these games, few books have been devoted to examining the special circumstances surrounding short-handed play. One of the few to do so is Limit Hold'em: Winning Short- Handed Strategies by Terry Borer and Lawrence Mak, with assistance from Barry Tanenbaum.

In 2005, the book Kill Phil caused quite a stir in the poker community. It advocated a "push or fold" nolimit hold'em tournament strategy that, while sounding simplistic, is remarkably effective. In late 2007 a new volume appeared from most of the same team that brought us Kill Phil. This book, Kill Everyone, provides even more advanced information on playing strategies in nolimit tournaments, as well as suggestions for playing sit- 'n-go tournaments and short handed cash games.

The title of the book, Your Worst Poker Enemy comes from a Stu Ungar quote, and it means that our own internal shortcomings are the biggest obstacle we face to improving as poker players. In Ungar's case, this is undeniable, but I believe it's true for every other poker player as well. In this book, Schoonmaker explores the road blocks that we set up for ourselves that prevent us from being the best poker players that we possibly can be.