RIP DAVID SKLANSKY
oh wow, i googled "barry greenstein's ace on the river passage about a well known poker author folding in the sb" and gemini gave me that passage as the top result
Here's the actual quote as I have it:
In 1992, I was playing in the best $75-$150 hold'em game in which I had ever played. One player was playing like such a maniac that he raised before the flop every time it was his turn. If it was two bets to him, he made it three bets. If it was three bets to him, he made it four bets, which was the cap. After a few rounds, the other players knew not to raise with their good hands. They would limp in, try to trap a few callers, and wait for the maniac's raise and then they would reraise. A well-known poker writer was sitting to the maniac's right. For seven consecutive rounds, the poker writer called in the small blind only to be knocked out before the flop when the maniac raised and some other player reraised. The maniac went broke after the seventh round of this, so I don't know how long this would have gone on. I was surprised that the poker writer, a supposedly winning player, had so little table feel. He must have played using strictly memorized guidelines. He would look at his hand, let's say 10 ♥ 4 ♥ or Q ♠ 8 ♦, and after consulting his mental chart, he would decide that the hand was worth a call in the small blind. Then, when it came back to him, he would decide the hand did not qualify for two more bets.
You'd know better than I would, I imagine, but I also don't see much motivation for him to lie here. And I've played enough poker to know you can see all sorts of weird **** over a long enough time frame, and he's played a lot more than I have.
Barry is also probably broke. His website appears to have been hijacked.
ty nath
RIP David, I really enjoyed your books
Barry is also probably broke. His website appears to have been hijacked.
Don't know if he is broke broke, but he seems to be grinding mid stakes limit. Probably went through huge amounts of sponsorship money, etc.
He probably isn't marketing anything, so doesn't see the need to maintain his website.
Barry is also probably broke. His website appears to have been hijacked.
Don't know if he is broke broke, but he seems to be grinding mid stakes limit. Probably went through huge amounts of sponsorship money, etc.
He probably isn't marketing anything, so doesn't see the need to maintain his website.
That’s sad, man.
Here's the actual quote as I have it:
You'd know better than I would, I imagine, but I also don't see much motivation for him to lie here. And I've played enough poker to know you can see all sorts of weird **** over a long enough time frame, and he's played a lot more than I have.
Thanks guys for the clarification. I figured I might be unclear on the explanation of the hand. Also, when I first heard the player was Sklansky it made perfect sense so I never revisited the question.
I don't think BarryG is fictionalizing it, as the story work fine without the 'famous poker author' bit.
I remember one stud hi hand with Dave where I was on the steal with an A door, picked up a 4-flush (2 buried) on 5th, random split low pair on 6th and made trips on the river. He'd put in the raise on 5th and I of course popped him back on the river. I flipped the hand without shuffling the hole cards intentionally, and it was like something in his brain just snapped. You co
Gary Carson had a similar abstract story. It went something like, 5 card draw with the owner of the club. He would blind reraise the opener. Then he would look at his cards, keep one and draw four. And yet, there were still people who respected his raises.
The good news is Gary said he liked David 🙄
Just stumbled upon this in my Dropbox.
Understanding Sklansky dollars is worth more.
Maybe his greatest legacy?
The pic exists in good fantasy. We feel it's real.
Nice outfit, David.
My contact with him here was limited. In fact, the first time he mentioned me, I was surprised because, as far as I knew, he had no idea who I was. But in those brief interactions, I always found David to be an unnecessarily complicated man. He treated his opinions as effectively flawless, and when disagreement arose, he framed it as a defect in the other person rather than any uncertainty in the question itself. Even in areas that are inherently speculative, like how Honus Wagner would translate to the modern era, he presented his view as the correct one and positioned dissent as misunderstanding.
And when he did agree with you, it rarely stood on its own. He had a way of reframing that agreement to preserve a hierarchy, making it clear that while your general point might pass, other parts of your thinking were still lacking. It wasn’t just about being right; it was about control, keeping people off balance and forcing them to engage on his terms.
In some of his more recent postings, that instinct became explicit. He would publish power rankings of poster IQs, then openly admit that some placements were not based on merit but on how insulting others would find it to be ranked below certain people. The list wasn’t just a ranking, it was a weapon. Even if you were on it, you could never be sure whether it reflected respect, manipulation, or one big joke at your expense. That was the effect he wanted: uncertainty, hesitation, second-guessing. He was the intellectual version of locker room intimidation, “Hey, I’m just messing with you… or am I?”
He always wanted to keep you guessing, unless the question was whether his viewpoint alone was correct. In that case, he'd quickly reprimand and remind you of the fact. He did a lot for poker, and it’s rather sad he’s unlikely to ever be more than a footnote, largely because he turned every interaction into a test no one could pass. In the end, his brilliance was inseparable from his need to dominate, and that’s what will make him remembered as much for his personality as his contributions.
Did anybody else first learn from David in the book Super system? He provided expert strategy on seven card stud hi/lo in that book.
I want to see these poster IQ power rankings!
My contact with him here was limited. In fact, the first time he mentioned me, I was surprised because, as far as I knew, he had no idea who I was. But in those brief interactions, I always found David to be an unnecessarily complicated man. He treated his opinions as effectively flawless, and when disagreement arose, he framed it as a defect in the other person rather than any
None of this is news. After his death, even his best friend and son said that he basically had gone batshit crazy.
My contact with him here was limited. In fact, the first time he mentioned me, I was surprised because, as far as I knew, he had no idea who I was. But in those brief interactions, I always found David to be an unnecessarily complicated man. He treated his opinions as effectively flawless, and when disagreement arose, he framed it as a defect in the other person rather than any
So you're saying he created the concept of message boards? Guess we all owe more of ourselves to him than we thought....
In truth, I've found his most pervasive legacy to be "Sklansky Error" - lay out infallible logical steps to get to the absolute "CORRECT" solution, while refusing to understand that all logical constructs begin with a couple of posits you must start with as unprovable assumptions, and that the arguments is really saying IF x THEN y. And being instant that Y must be true because everyone knows x is true (or even neglecting to understand that x was assumed).
He's definitely not someone i would call "brilliant." Being obsessed with iq is a pretty good tell that someone is not brilliant. Reading his non poker posts should shatter that illusion.
He got to poker when it was an obscure niche and, with Mason's help, wrote some very good poker books. It sounds like he was very good at gambling and made a lot of money from that and his books.
I doubt they knew poker would blow up as it did, but even so, they recognized it was a niche in need of high quality content and they produced it.
He got to poker when it was an obscure niche and, with Mason's help, wrote some very good poker books. It sounds like he was very good at gambling and made a lot of money from that and his books.
In the AMA Matt said he doubted he made any substantial money from poker once he started making money from books in the 90s. Based on my encounter, that seems right. I don't see how he could have been so mentally fragile and won much.
My contact with him here was limited. In fact, the first time he mentioned me, I was surprised because, as far as I knew, he had no idea who I was. But in those brief interactions, I always found David to be an unnecessarily complicated man. He treated his opinions as effectively flawless, and when disagreement arose, he framed it as a defect in the other person rather than any
Pretty well said RR. I never bothered trying to understand most of David's musings as they were always a way to flatter his enormous ego. He loved that people would have to ask him what his post meant and state they dont understand-i think it got him off...which is sad.
Despite being here for 21 years (****ing crazy) ive never actually read any Sklansky material. Go figure
I have not read all of David's books, but from what I have read I got a sense he was holding back information that could have gone a lot further in beating tough games.
In a tournament book IIRC one passage (I paraphrase) that the only way to beat a "better player" was to go all in and hope to get lucky.
Maybe this was his way of separating players of lesser ability (i.e. readers of his books) that they were not capable of progressing to compete fairly against tough players. Or, his way of keeping the income stream of better players safe. Or, not introducing advanced topics that perhaps he was uncomfortable describing.
Often he would describe difficulty understanding certain concepts as a percentage of the general population. For example "this concept should be understood by 10 percent of random adults."
He was really amazing with ideas and theory, as indicated by "Theory of Poker" still being one of the better selling poker books.
He tends to state things authoritatively that are not clearly true. It is more obvious with his recent books. He does have good ideas, but I wouldn't take his advice literally. That is the way to read all of his books.
It seems like a lot of players who write/wrote a lot of books or make a lot of videos are not big winning players. Examples are Little and McEvoy.
I didn't really understand if he was playing 100/200 or whatever mixed 20 years ago, he probably was at least close to break even at it. So why couldn't he grind 10/20 or 20/40 mixed? Sure the games are tougher and the mixes different, but that is a big difference in stakes. It also shouldn't be hard for a former top player to learn to beat 2/5 NL or 2/2 PLO or whatever.
He was really amazing with ideas and theory, as indicated by "Theory of Poker" still being one of the better selling poker books.He tends to state things authoritatively that are not clearly true. It is more obvious with his recent books. He does have good ideas, but I wouldn't take his advice literally. That is the way to read all of his books.It seems like a lot of players wh
The legend is that David would come in behind the button, take a round of free hands, then rack up and change casinos. He is the reason that we have the current rules on posting.
