This volume is a collection of articles written by David Sklansky that have appeared in various publications including "Card Player and "Poker World magazines. A few have never before appeared in print. Most of the articles are about poker or gambling. However, David has branched out into other areas that lend themselves to his unique style of analysis. "Poker and Gaming" topics include Being a Favorite, Are Great Players Born?, Talent Versus Discipline, Will Power, The Importance of Position, Never Go Broke, When Time is Not of the Essence, and Is Your Wallet Fat Enough? "Life" topics include What It Is that Makes an Issue Controversial, Coincidences, Some Thoughts on Dying, Legitimate Grievances, and Crime and Punishment.

The rules of poker are a lot like life--and who better to deal the winning hand than a dedicated player who has learned many of life's most important lessons at the poker table?

This volume is a collection of recent articles written by David Sklansky that have appeared in various publications including Card Player, Poker World and the Two Plus Two Poker Strategy Magazine. A few have never before appeared in print. Most of the articles are about poker or gambling. However, David has recently branched out into other areas that lend themselves to his unique style of analysis and some of these essays are contained in this book. From the original book, Poker and gaming topics include Being a Favorite, Are Great Players Born? Talent Versus Discipline, The Importance of Position, Never Go Broke, When Time is Not of the Essence, and Is Your Wallet Fat Enough? Life topics include What It Is that Makes an Issue Controversial, Coincidences, Some Thoughts on Dying, Legitimate Grievances, and Crime and Punishment. This expanded addition also contains 32 additional essays, many of which address no-limit hold 'em. Essays for the Expanded Edition include Pros Versu

A New York Times bestseller • A New York Times Notable Book “The tale of how Konnikova followed a story about poker players and wound up becoming a story herself will have you riveted, first as you learn about her big winnings, and then as she conveys the lessons she learned both about human nature and herself.” —The Washington Post It's true that Maria Konnikova had never actually played poker before and didn't even know the rules when she approached Erik Seidel, Poker Hall of Fame inductee and winner of tens of millions of dollars in earnings, and convinced him to be her mentor. But she knew her man: a famously thoughtful and broad-minded player, he was intrigued by her pitch that she wasn't interested in making money so much as learning about life. She had faced a stretch of personal bad luck, and her reflections on the role of chance had led her to a giant of game theory, who pointed her to poker as the ultimate master class in learning to distinguish between what can be controlled and what can't. And she certainly brought something to the table, including a Ph.D. in psychology and an acclaimed and growing body of work on human behavior and how to hack it. So Seidel was in, and soon she was down the rabbit hole with him, into the wild, fiercely competitive, overwhelmingly masculine world of high-stakes Texas Hold'em, their initial end point the following year's World Series of Poker. But then something extraordinary happened. Under Seidel's guidance, Konnikova did have many epiphanies about life that derived from her new pursuit, including how to better read, not just her opponents but far more importantly herself; how to identify what tilted her into an emotional state that got in the way of good decisions; and how to get to a place where she could accept luck for what it was, and what it wasn't. But she also began to win. And win. In a little over a year, she began making earnest money from tournaments, ultimately totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. She won a major title, got a sponsor, and got used to being on television, and to headlines like "How one writer's book deal turned her into a professional poker player." She even learned to like Las Vegas. But in the end, Maria Konnikova is a writer and student of human behavior, and ultimately the point was to render her incredible journey into a container for its invaluable lessons. The biggest bluff of all, she learned, is that skill is enough. Bad cards will come our way, but keeping our focus on how we play them and not on the outcome will keep us moving through many a dark patch, until the luck once again breaks our way.

Many poker players can make good decisions at the table with a reasonable frequency. Nevertheless, there are numerous situations where even very experienced players behave in predictable ways. These deeply-ingrained habits lead them to make mistakes. The problem is that these situations won’t often arise at the table by chance – you have to make them happen. Exploitative Play in Live Poker is a ground-breaking work that teaches you how to create the circumstances where your opponents will be likely to blunder and how to exploit them when they do. To achieve this you will need to put to one side starting hand charts, balance and GTO (Game Theory Optimal) play. Instead you will incorporate new concepts that may well place you outside your comfort zone. However, your style will now be forcing the other players at the table outside of their comfort zone and, unlike you, they won’t know how to adapt. Learn how to: Counter the auto-continuation-bettorDevelop a powerful donk-betting strategyUse the overbet, the check-raise and the three-barrel effectively As well as being a highly successful player, Alex Fitzgerald runs a poker consultancy that serves more than 1,000 professional poker players in 60 countries. As part of this work, he has very likely trawled through more hand history databases than anyone else. This gives him a unique insight into how players really play, especially when placed under pressure and forced into unfamiliar situations.

“Right out of the gate, the entire game was designed to empty the pockets of those rich, celeb-loving LA suckers.”—Houston Curtis Leonardo DiCaprio. Alex Rodriguez. Tobey Maguire. Ben Affleck. Matt Damon. John Cassavetes. What do these people have in common? Not just fame and fortune; all these men are also alumni of the ultra-exclusive, high-stakes poker ring that inspired Aaron Sorkin’s Oscar-nominated film, Molly’s Game. But Houston Curtis, the card shark who co-founded the game with Tobey Maguire, knows that Sorkin’s is the whitewashed version. In Billion Dollar Hollywood Heist, Curtis goes all-in, revealing the true story behind the game. From its origins with Maguire to staking DiCaprio’s first game, installing Molly Bloom, avoiding the hookers and blow down the hall, and weathering the FBI investigation that left Curtis with a lien on his house, this is the no-holds-barred account of the world’s most exclusive Texas Hold ’Em game from the man who started it—with all the names and salacious details that Molly’s Game left out. With the insider appeal of Rounders, more A-listers than Ocean’s 11, and the excitement of The Sting, Billion Dollar Hollywood Heist is the untold, insider’s story that makes Molly’s Game look tame.

“Poker Nation is a travelogue to the quirky world of competitive poker, an exploration of poker obsession and addiction (not necessarily the same thing) and a primer on mathematics, poker lingo and technique. Entertaining and accessible.” —USA Today Journalist and poker fanatic Andy Bellin takes readers on a raucous journey into the shut-up-and-deal world of professional poker. From basement games to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, you'll look over his shoulder as he learns to count cards, read a legendary player's body language, hang in there when the chips are down, and take his beatings like a man. Even if you don't know the difference between a flop and a river card, Bellin keeps you in the game with his portraits of the colorful players, dreamers, hustlers, and eccentrics who populate this strange subculture. Along with learning what goes on behind the scenes in illegal poker clubs, you'll get great advice on how to play Texas Hold'em, today's game of choice for big-money players.

If you have never heard about poker, then you must be wondering... "What's the big deal?" Poker is an sport out there which is purely based on skill... That over 100 million people are interested in... These people gather offline and online and play this game with real money... The guys who play it skillfully make so much money that they literally never have to work again... It is possible to join this world instantly and play with these people... What makes poker truly amazing is that it is more than just an addictive strategic game, it is an art. In poker you don't just play the cards, you actually play against another person. Once you learn the game, you can come up with many clever ways to outsmart your opponents. The fact that you can make so much money defeating a player, just adds to its appeal. Once you learn how to play poker like a pro, you won't believe how many easy players are out there who have zero poker skill simply because they think poker is a game of luck. This is actually also one of the reasons why winning money in poker is so easy. With so many players playing poker for fun, or simply so many players just having no clue how to play the game strategically, it makes easy picking for sharks who know what they are doing. With the Advanced Concepts of Poker, that you will learn in this book, we continually earn the kind of money most people can't imagine.