The first time I came across Sklansky, I thought I'd finally found the answer. When I found an old copy of David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth's book, Hold'Em Poker for Advanced Players, I raced home to pore over Sklansky's musings like an acolyte studying sacred text. I'd played in a lot of home games, but my fellow undergraduates in the Student Union had rarely called hold'em, and here at last was a book that would tell it like it was. Armed with my special knowledge of hold'em, game of the future, I would destroy the cowboys and farmers I was up against in LaCenter, Washington (a tiny hamlet north of Portland, Oregon, where I lived at the time). There was a lot of wild play in that 1- to 3-dollar game, not to mention plenty of multi-way, multi-bet pots and people showing down some really questionable hands. And I was pretty sure most of the rubes I was about to shear had never read books on poker.

After thoroughly Sklanskifying myself, I managed to change my style of play virtually overnight. My mantra became WWSD: What Would Sklansky Do?" And the answer? "Play at least one hand a day, whether you need to or not." Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration. But if you're playing poker the Sklansky way, you are playing mighty tight, and you're spending hour after hour sitting quietly and waiting for the virtual nuts.

Sklansky's advice had an immediate effect on my playing: my presence in a pot became a complete action killer. Those guys may have been farmers, but they weren't dumb. I remember raising once with pocket queens in late position, and the guy on the button showed me pocket nines and mucked it, saying, "You have to give action to get action." And that was a good result compared to the times people did give me action.

I got chewed up in multi-way pots when I found myself holding top pair, top kicker on the flop. I'd come out betting and finding the action capped coming back to me against four opponents. WWSD? Fold. Later I suffered serious gambler's nausea when I realized that I'd mucked the winner and the guy raking in the chips had some stellar holding like pocket fours. Eventually I learned to just ignore large sections of Sklansky's book and my win rate shot up like a rocket.

Sklansky may have let me down, but every once in awhile, I'd find myself going back for another dose of his teachings. And every time I did, I'd start another losing streak. Superstition? Maybe. More likely, Sklansky is fine for pro versus pro, but outside places like the Taj Mahal in AC or Binion's in Vegas, his advice simply doesn't work. Sklansky just isn't suited for the kind of games that I, and most people in America or the multitudes online, usually play.

The Chips Do the Talking

In an ordinary game around your kitchen table, the pattern of raising has a genuine conversational element, but it's all a bit vague. Say I put in the first raise. What I'm saying there is, "Hey, I have a pretty decent hand." You reraise me, so you're saying, "Well, that's great. But I think you're gonna be thoughtfully impressed by how much my hand is going to kick your hand's ass." Then I reraise you, you reraise me, etc. We understand each other's general meanings in this "conversation," but nothing gets too specific.

Not so in SklanskyLand. Say I'm on the button in a full ring game, and everyone has folded to me. I raise and then you reraise me out of the big blind. I cap it. Here's what the Sklanskian "dialogue" between us looks like:

My first raise: "Heads up, folks, I got a strong hand here."

Your reraise: "Really? I have a high pocket pair, probably Kings or Queens."

My second raise: "Well, I hate to break it to you, but I have Aces."

Not exactly the kind of conversation you'd encounter in the 10-20 hold'em game I play at downtown Manhattan's Club X in (not its real name as poker is illegal in New York). First off, having everyone fold to the button is rare. A hand that's chopped because it's down to the two blinds generally happens less than five times a night, some nights not at all. Things get especially interesting when players know each other. So let's put some personalities in here.

It's still me raising on the button, but the guy in the big blind is Adolpho (also not his real name), an older, portly, genial Italian guy I've played against at various clubs in the city for years. What's his play like? Put it this way: Adolpho is so wild and aggressive, he makes me look like David Sklansky, and I am a very aggressive player (so much so that when I sit down, there's often a mad scramble to fill the nearest open seat to my left because people don't want to have to guess what I'm going to do in a pot with them).

In the scenario outlined above, where I'm raising on the button, Adolpho's reraising, and I'm capping it, the "conversation" would be understood thusly:

My first raise: "Hey, Adolpho, what's up? I'm raising, but I probably have absolutely nothing. You know, just stealing the blinds."

Adolpho's reraise: "Buddy, don't worry about it. I'm raising back with a monster: Q-3 of diamonds."

My reraise: "Wow, good hand. But I should tell you I probably have an unsuited ace or maybe even pocket 2's here. But I could still have nothing and just be gambling with you."

If we set up a teleporter and beamed in some seasoned old grinders from SklanskyLand to play at Club X, they would keel over, clutching wildly at their stuttering pacemakers, upon seeing that kind of play. But knowing how to play a guy like Adolpho is just the tip of the iceberg: you have to know how to play a table full of Adolphos.

When Good Players go Bad

The other night I was playing in a 10-20 half-kill, which was really a 15-30 game that played like a 20-40. Why? Because every pot was so huge, the next pot was automatically a half-kill unless there was a tie and it was split. We had Aimee and Jim to thank for this setup. Aimee, a soft-spoken brunette literary agent, and Jim, a balding young real estate guy with a sharp sense of humor, were sitting next to each other, and they both play so aggressively, they almost redefine the limit of how aggressive it is physically possible to be. They also hate each other. So Aimee would raise with nothing, Jim would reraise out of contempt for her, and then, unless someone else did, Aimee capped it out of spite.

Which was wonderful for my discipline. We've all been there: after sitting at the table a while, you catching yourself thinking about playing that J-8 of hearts in early position because you're bored and, hey, you never know. But with Aimee and Jim, you did know. Almost beyond doubt you knew that you were going to have to pay 60 dollars pre-flop for that J-8, and even if you flopped top pair, you couldn't be sure where you were because Aimee and Jim were going to continue raising until their fingers fell off or they collapsed from exhaustion.

What kind of hands did they show? 10-3 off, 5-8 off, and those were some of the nicer hands. If you took control of the betting, you'd better believe you were going to get called down to the river if they caught even the tiniest part of the flop. You could be in there with pocket kings to a Q-7-2 rainbow flop, but if Jim has the deuce (which he's already playing like it's the nuts), you'd better pray he doesn't hit his raggy kicker or another deuce 'cause you can bet your ass he's going to call you down to the river to get it, and checkraise you if he hits. (What Would Sklansky Do in a place like Club X? Gnaw his own arms off and run screaming around the card room, blood gushing from his useless shoulders.)

Don't get me wrong: Sklansky's obviously a bright guy who's spent a lot of time thinking about what works and what doesn't. But when he says, "If you hold JJ and the pot has been raised and reraised before the action gets to you, you should fold," I can't help but giggle. At Club X, the first raise could be A-5 suited and the reraise could be pocket sixes. And that's if people are staying disciplined.

When the Lunatics Take over the Asylum

If you're a Sklansky disciple and you find yourself at any of the many local card places around the country where they play wild, no fold'em hold'em, eventually you will end up in a lovely, padded white room munching brightly-colored pills and muttering to yourself over and over again, "How could she call the flop? How could she call the flop?"

What should you do, then, when you're at a table full of maniacs? Well, you'll have to read Poker Personalities: Identifying and Beating Maniacs to get the nuts and bolts of it. But for now, think of it as two roads diverging in a wood. One road is the Sklansky road, and I don't recommend you take it. But if you insist, you'll need a bankroll that's deep enough to take some monster hits, and a lot of Sklanskyites just don't want to take all the beatings they're in for. As the man himself says, "You may want to find a softer game." (So he's recommending what? Playing with pros? Playing against toddlers? Bizarre.)

There is, however, another way. Let's call it Kamikaze poker as that's exactly what it'll seem like to people who are used to a wait-for-the-nuts kind of style. In Kamikaze poker, you have to be willing to play smaller cards, a hand like 6-7 suited, in almost any position. Because in Kamikaze poker, what's most important is reading the maniac.

The key mistake people make when they play against someone with an unorthodox style is to dismiss him, thinking, "How can I not beat this guy? He plays like an idiot." Well, maybe he does and maybe he doesn't, but the real question is, what kind of idiot is he? My article on poker maniacs will help you figure that out.

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