Okay? Thanks for the update on the book's history, I guess.

But that wasn't the point of my post. I'm asking about the 2023 edition, and who will be writing it. As I said, I have seen that you have spent a good deal time in the Bellagio limit holdem games in recent times, and we've even played on a few occasions this year.

I have not seen David at all. That's not to say he hasn't been there, but I haven't seen him, nor have my friends/associates I have asked about the matter.

It is my belief that anyone writing a 2023 limit holdem book should be logging a lot of hands in modern games. It would be helpful if they log such hands both online and live, as well, as the playstyles are different in those two type of venues.

On a side note, I don't think there's much market for a limit holdem book in 2023. This isn't a slam on limit holdem itself. Like you, I enjoy limit holdem in cash games far more than I do NL holdem or PLO. However, the fact is that it's a dying game. If it was still popular like it was in the early-mid 2000s, I'd probably have written a book on it myself by now.

The book is written by David Sklansky and myself. I still play a lot of limit hold 'em and are well aware of the changes. David has always based his advice on the logic of counter strategies of any changes that may have arisen and doesn't need to have played thousands of hours against those strategies to come up with the best way to play. When the book comes out you can read it.

MM

sklansky is one of the best at exploiting people!

I was looking at the TwoPlusTwo post for the book Hold 'em Poker for Advanced Players -- 21st Century Edition and immediately noticed this statement:

"I'll post a link to the Amazon page."

I have a problem with this. Anyone who reads it is going to think that Jeff Bezos personally wrote this book.

Perhaps I'm too sensitive, but I wish stuff like this wouldn't be written.

ICWUDT

Hi Everyone:

Quick update.

The book is finished and type-set. It has been sent to our index builder and we expect to have the index by Sept. 10. Then it goes, at the same time, to our kindle builder and cover designer. Once that's done, it goes up on Amazon which should be approximately the beginning of October.

Mason

It has always amazed me that some people who know little about our publishing business are always telling us what we should publish and not publish.

At this moment, we are well into the process of moving all out books into KDP Amazon. (Probably a two to three year project, and we're about half done.) As part of this process, we're reformatting each book where needed, redoing most of the art work (usually card pictures) in each book, re-editing and proof reading each book (which allows us to fix many small errors), and then redesigning our covers to meet the Amazon parameters.

Since we're doing all of this anyway, it becomes fairly easy to rewrite and expand some of our books since a lot of the work required to produce a book is being done anyway.

Mason

While Jeff Bezos did not help in the rewriting of this book, your comment is not as off as you may think. We're now using Amazon for many things that Bezos/Amazon, in a sense, is involved in if you want to get a copy of this book.

Mason

In fact, you are being waaaaaaay too sensitive.

Looking forward to this. I reread the 21st century edition recently, and felt like a lot of core material had aged well, given my understanding of the game (which is also somewhat aged)!

I'm excited to see the new edition also, especially given the way cold calling and multi-way pots have become more prominent in recent years, challenging many players with rehearsed strategies for tight aggressive games, and making some classic LHE plays and concepts relevant once more. I trust Sklansky's analysis even if his recent experience has been in other variants and this book will be near the top of my Christmas list.

I'm also looking forward to reading the new edition, especially since my old copy has been in storage for the last 10 years and I could use a refresher even of the parts that haven't changed.

Hi Rob:

You shouldn't have to wait long.

The kindle builder has the book and our cover designer has the book. Once both of these are done, it should go up on Amazon. So, the book should be available in about two weeks.

Mason

Kindle and paperback both available on Amazon now.

Hi Everyonr:

Just a reminder that this book replaces Hold 'em Poker for Advanced Players. Here is the correct Amazon page:

https://www.amazon.com/Limit-Hold-Po...s%2C143&sr=1-1

Mason

I am about halfway through the 2023 edition and so far, it has been interesting. I read an older version of this book 20ish years ago but of course, limit hold 'em strategy has developed significantly since then and I was not sure how well the new edition would reflect the reality of today's games. That said, much of what is written is still relevant and can give players a solid understanding of relevant concepts. I can see a lot of players being critical of the preflop strategy suggested and it's important to consider that the original book was written with 10 handed games in mind that were commonplace at that time. Many of the strategies suggested (e.g. limping JJ utg and considering it a set mining opportunity) seem crazy for an 8 or even 9 handed game but make more sense when applied to a 10 handed game where it is significantly less likely that JJ will stand up unimproved.

Reading it has been a fairly arduous task so far because with all my poker books, I hand-write notes to myself in the margins to highlight points I think are good and explain areas where I am in disagreement with the author. As someone who's studied and played limit hold em for many years, I find myself writing extensive notes to suggest what I would do to exploit particular strategies recommended, propose alternative approaches that seems less exploitable, and so on. That said, Sklansky has a mathematician's mind that he applies with great precision to each gambling game he studies and I think this book's a good place to start if interested in learning limit hold 'em.

You might want to reread what you read. This is what it says starting on the bottom of page 28 for playing jacks in early position (and the bolding is mine):

One hand that we have not yet addressed is a pair of jacks, (or tens, or nines, or possibly eights). If no one has opened in a ten-handed game, and you’re in an early position, it’s usually best to raise with jacks in a tight game and to just call in a loose-passive game. With two jacks you would prefer either to have no more than one or two opponents in the hope that your hand holds up without improvement, or to have as many opponents as possible when the majority of your profits come from flopping a set. If the game is eight-handed, then just go ahead and raise. And this is true with the other pairs mentioned.

Mason

Yes, as compared to 20 years ago, today’s limit Hold’em strategy revolves squarely around finding an actual limit Hold’em game being spread.

Open limping with JJ will seem crazy to modern players regardless of the game dynamic. It looks like in that specific circumstance, the book noted that the scenario is really only applicable in a 10 handed game and so open limping is a strategy that players who have only played 9 handed or fewer may have never considered. But there were several other strategies mentioned where it seemed like the author was referring more to 10 handed dynamics than a 9 or 8 handed game and where it wasn't noted in that paragraph specifically that it was referring to 10 handed games and so I wanted to reiterate that (even though it's mentioned in the book) to prevent newer players from immediately writing off the preflop section as bad without considering this.

8-16 and 20-40 limit Hold'em are still spread daily here in Arizona.

Another example is where it says you should usually just call AQo in late position if there have been several limpers in front of you. This may have been applicable in old 10 handed games where players were apt to limp AK up front but in today's games, you're almost certainly going to have an equity advantage against the field (plus you have positional advantage) and so raising AQo in this spot will virtually always be correct.

The book says a lot more than what you have indicated here (and the stuff about someone possibly limping with ace-king is from you and not from us). In fact, there is a 30 page section on playing in loose games. The discussion on only calling with ace-queen offsuit has to do with giving up some expectation before the flop hoping that you'll be able to gain it back plus some more on a later street.

On page 210 it says the following:

This is a bit of a two-edged sword. If you’re playing against extremely terrible opponents, it’s hard not to raise with pretty good hands because even though you’re costing yourself money on the later streets, you’re gaining so much before the flop because your hand is usually so much better than theirs. In other words, if people are coming in with absolutely everything, you have got to raise with the AQ (offsuit) simply because your hand is so much better on average than so many of the other players.

Years ago we use to occasionally get posts like yours which would state something that we either didn't say or at least take it out of context so that it looked like we were saying something we didn't say, and then the poster would explain why we got it wrong. Is this what you're doing?

If you want to disagree with something that we state, I'm happy to discuss it. But don't imply we said something that we didn't say.

Mason

As I previously stated I'm only halfway through the book so didn't get to page 210 yet to see that expanded explanation. It's true that AK being limped wasn't mentioned in the book, I just assumed it was a consideration if overlimping AQ was correct, given that it's the only non-paired hand that dominates AQ.

I'm not trying to be contentious and I'm glad you have the opportunity to correct any mischaracterizations of the strategy that I present.