[TenPercenter]

I am playing in a 100 person NLHE tourney Thursday night. The winner gets a $10,000.00 seat at the WSOP main event. Second? A set of steak knives. Third place gets thrown out into the street.

So I really need to take first.

I have a bad habit of not winning tournaments. So I decided to go out and look for HOH yesterday, but couldn't find it in stock anywhere. So I bought a $30 Sklansky book, Tournament Poker for Advanced Players.

I've read other Sklansky books and found them nearly useless to me since they focus mainly (or completely) on limit poker. No one I know will play limit anymore and frankly I dont want to either. I remember playing nickel ante, quarter limit dealer's choice, always thinking "this isn't really poker because you can't scare anybody."

The Sklansky books are also dry and mathematical. I need "dumbed down" explanations of why you should do X in XX situtations. I have heard that HOH was better in this regard... but I couldn't find it anywhere.

Well, I figured that since this Sklansky book is called "Tournament Poker" then it should be focuses on NLHE, hat everyone plays now (everyone meaning me and anyone that Iknow, play with, or see laying on TV). Checked publish date and it was 2002, updated 2003. That's good.

Well, it turns out it's much like other Sklansky books. And the math really started lcoking down my brain early. Like in the Chapter headed "Prize Structure Implications." He tells me in a few sentences about how you basically want to be careful and let OTHER players go broke without taking too much risk.

Now I can understand that concept pretty easily. Let others go broke; be careful. But what does he do? He procedes to go into EQUATIONS about it! Literally, There are four equations following that first two paragraphs, the fourth equation being this: "$948 = (.46)($300) + (.36)($1,800) + (.18 )($900)"

Now I'm no dummy, but I can't do that kind of math on the fly. I can't even see how that helps me understand that I want to let other people go broke first, and be careful that I don't go broke. Just explain it to me like I'm some guy that plays poker, not like I'm a math major at MIT.

(I had to change the title of this topic since I started out wanting tips on a 100 man tourney, but it turned into a rant on Sklansky)

Now I'll continue my quest for a copy of HOH (and HOH2).