RIP DAVID SKLANSKY
I know David lived in Reno for a while. Does anyone know how long he lived up there and why he left Vegas? I wonder if he had any decent success playing up there.
I loved his books. Why did people hate him so much? I know a few folks in here who have anger management issues didn’t like him.
RIP. Bit of a dodgy fella but can't deny what he did for the game.
Mason,
Do you have a favorite memory of David to share? Or a fun story of your time together that would memorialize your long time co-worker? Is co-worker the right word, or should we say friend? It’s hard to tell.
I guess I need to say something. First, thanks to all the people who reached out to me personally. I truly appreciate it.
As far as David, he was a mixed bag. I guess whatever you thought of him, I agree. He wasn't as bad as some of you think. He certainly wasn't as wonderful as he believed. So I say mourn his loss or celebrate it.
I shall do both.
Mat,
I never met David, but I met you once years ago when I was a mod on 2+2. I got a drink with you at the double deuce saloon in Vegas along with tuq (is he still around?) and another 2+2er whose name I can’t remember. This was over 15 years ago at this point, so you would probably have zero memory of it, but my only in person interaction with you was a positive one. So that’s to say, my condolences to you. It is never easy to lose a parent no matter the situation or what your relationship was. I hope you are well.
Always enjoyed the thought-provoking threads that he started on here, even though some of them went over my head. And of course the epic Theory of Poker. And he added terms like "Sklansky Bucks" forever to my vocabulary.
Obviously a really smart guy who made a tremendous contribution to the thinking man side of poker and gambling in general. RIP.
I guess I need to say something. First, thanks to all the people who reached out to me personally. I truly appreciate it.
As far as David, he was a mixed bag. I guess whatever you thought of him, I agree. He wasn't as bad as some of you think. He certainly wasn't as wonderful as he believed. So I say mourn his loss or celebrate it.
I shall do both.
Hope you're doing okay in this time. I lost my father a few years ago so I know what it's like, even if you have complicated feelings about him.
I never met David, so anything else I could say would just be rehashing things other people have already said.
"De mortuis nil nisi bene" on English "Of the dead, say nothing but good", people figured that out 600 BC. Light and shadow always stand in the same time in front of the door, let's honor the light. Respect the mourners, whatever unsettled **** you have had with DS, it's gone!
I like this!
RIP
Mason,
Do you have a favorite memory of David to share? Or a fun story of your time together that would memorialize your long time co-worker? Is co-worker the right word, or should we say friend? It’s hard to tell.
My favorite memory is not quite with David. In 1994, we went through his then titled book Winning Poker and made a bunch of fixes and updates (to reflect the way the game had changed since the early 1980s), and changed the title to The Theory of Poker.
While this work was going on, a friend called me wanting to get my opinion about a seven-card stud hand he had played, and I gave him my answer. A little later my friend called me back and read a paragraph out of Winning Poker which disagreed with what I had said. I responded by reading him the same paragraph, but now updated, out of what was to become The Theory of Poker (which no one had yet seen) which supported my original answer.
Link to the book please, Amazon if possible
Always enjoyed the thought-provoking threads that he started on here, even though some of them went over my head. And of course the epic Theory of Poker. And he added terms like "Sklansky Bucks" forever to my vocabulary.
Obviously a really smart guy who made a tremendous contribution to the thinking man side of poker and gambling in general. RIP.
skalnskys best addition, for me, was "invisible antes". I had been trying to explain this to people when showing why 2 blind NLH is such a dumb game that would kill itself when it burst on the scene in 2004 but no one got what i was saying. sklansky describes it correctly and succinctly (but still no one got it). that said, this is a prime example of "the market can stay illogical longer than you can stay solvent" if you would have bet against the staying power of NLH and the stupidity of its adherents.
My favorite memory is not quite with David. In 1994, we went through his then titled book Winning Poker and made a bunch of fixes and updates (to reflect the way the game had changed since the early 1980s), and changed the title to The Theory of Poker.While this work was going on, a friend called me wanting to get my opinion about a seven-card stud hand he had played, and I gav
I want this entire thread to be masons (non) memories of david. that are beyond epic in irrelevancy and tone-deafness. GIVE US A REAL ONE MASON!!!!
He's probably looking up at us, smiling.
DUCY?
RIP
Always appreciate the intellectuals who produce risky original thoughts.
I guess I need to say something. First, thanks to all the people who reached out to me personally. I truly appreciate it.
As far as David, he was a mixed bag. I guess whatever you thought of him, I agree. He wasn't as bad as some of you think. He certainly wasn't as wonderful as he believed. So I say mourn his loss or celebrate it.
I shall do both.
Man, respect for this
Sorry for the emotional complexities of your loss
RIP
My favorite memory is not quite with David. In 1994, we went through his then titled book Winning Poker and made a bunch of fixes and updates (to reflect the way the game had changed since the early 1980s), and changed the title to The Theory of Poker.While this work was going on, a friend called me wanting to get my opinion about a seven-card stud hand he had played, and I gav
A person you worked with for 40 years dies; you're asked to share a memory or story of him and this is the story? You couldn't think of one story or memory of the guy? Instead you told a story about yourself?
I have to give David credit for my entire career in poker. While I learned more about the game from many sources, he was the OG source for my success.In 1995 I was a new lawyer in Chicago. Prior to that, I had attended law school at the U. of Minnesota. Rather than a typical student job to make extra money, I was a card counter at the relatively new tribal casinos in the are
Amazing story FossilMan, thanks for sharing. I've always been a big fan of you. 👍
Greg's story is something I would expect someone who was close with the deceased to share. Fantastic words about a man you might have (barely) known.
But tbh, I apologize for throwing shade at Mason. Not because he didnt deserve it, he certainly does. But moreso because it takes away from the purpose of the thread.
Mat, I dont know you, but as someone who also can relate to a tumultuous relationship with their father, i say condolences for your loss. Grieve as you should and make your peace brother.
I picked up my first copy of TOP in April 2003 (Amazon remembers) and joined these forums thanks to the little advert on the back page shortly after. It was definitely a life-changing moment for me as an angry and disillusioned 15 year-old at the time. I didn’t see much point in studying, going to uni, or working hard to succeed in the rat race. Alcohol and drugs were the main things that I found exciting at the time.
Reading TOP and spending time on these forums was absolutely transformational for me. Obviously, getting into gambling as a kid is pretty much always a bad idea, and not one that I would ever recommend. But the whole idea of Sklansky bucks, combined with this forum and the perfect timing of the poker boom gave me things to be hopeful about. One poster in particular I remember called davidross would post weekly updates on his journey with going pro and playing limit holdem on Party Poker. So inspiring. I was first interested in tournaments, and FossilMan was one of the key posters in that part of the forum. I remember being disappointed about your early exit from the Main in 2003, but was then so happy for you when you went all the way in 2004! Another inspirational story. I devoured all of the forum content that I could in my last two years of (high) school, with Nate Silver being another early poster on the limit holdem forums that I particularly remember. I remember going to a disused computer lab in school to read the forums while bunking off from my school’s daily assembly. I also then chose my undergraduate degree based on the 2+2 books, picking a split program of economics (TOP’s game theory chapter) and statistics (Mason’s books in particular).
Anyway, 15 year-old me would be completely blown away by the things that I have been able to achieve since then. It obviously took a while to stop being so young and dumb, but I managed to make and save enough from online poker to provide the freedom that I was looking for. I began to look for potential next steps in late 2010, and ended up on writing a poker book as something to try to signal to others that poker was a serious thing for me (as we all know the “but how much did you lose?” answer to attempts to impress people with details about net winnings). My first book then came out on 2+2 in the same week as Black Friday. That great timing, plus my lack of a marketing strategy, meant my books never sold well. But they always seemed well thought of by people at the top of the game, and I have for example noticed the distinctive sleeve in the background of Galfond and Polk’s youtube videos!
My own 2+2 book definitely gave me what I needed, as it helped me get onto a Master’s and then PhD program. This led on to my career as an academic specializing in gambling. There are a bunch of ironic similarities between academia and poker, such as bad runs of grant rejections, but it’s something that I love, with the slightly slower pace of thinking being perfectly suited to me. While I was never known much outside of the limit holdem forums here in poker, I’ve definitely become a recognizable name in my chosen area of research. Most of my research focuses on gamblers who lose and who experience harm, but there’s a real thread of ideas from Sklansky running through my work (e.g.,
from 2020). I remember a co-author going into a meeting with British policymakers in Westminster and valiantly trying to educate them about Sklansky bucks! My undergrads tend to get it, though.
A favourite paper of mine and the one most closely linked to these forums is a study from 2023 where we interviewed 19 of the all-time greats from online poker. This is a paper that showed my own growth, as my biggest leak in my poker days was definitely my shyness and inability to network effectively (and which as the research showed was a part of our interviewees’ success). This study was so much fun talking to and learning from such incredibly accomplished people. We have a bunch of other findings which I think that people here will find interesting – look at me, the master of the hard sell now 😉
Thanks David and thank you to the rest of the 2+2 family!
RIP David. You knew a few things, thanks. Thoughts are with Mat.
Hope your parrot finds a good home.
We can appreciate what DS did for poker and poker knowledge, while also still know of some disturbing things.
The truth is, there isn’t one of us here that wouldn’t be beyond shamed if our darkest transgressions, our life blunders, our deepest regrets, were suddenly made public knowledge for all to see. We all have warts in our lives, DS’s were made public, and yes they were awful.
He did a lot for poker and Matt summed it up best about the complicated man.
He made some poor choices later in life that were hard to watch, and a long life inside the gambling world has a way of doing that to people.
The bolded is a hard fact for a lot of gamblers to accept, but I think it is mostly true. For the better part of two decades on 2+2, I've heard people talk about all the great and virtuous people they have met through years or decades of gambling. I'm not saying that those people are lying, and certainly there are some good people in the gambling world, but I think a lot of people confuse "X helped me out financially when I was in a tough spot or loaned me a decent chunk of money on a handshake" with "X is an overall good person."
