Poker Players & Poker Authors
“Do you prefer to be known as a great author or to be known as a great player?”
That was one of the questions Mike Johnson posed to David Sklansky on this week’s Two Plus Two Pokercast.
“Well, it depends on how you partition it out,” Sklansky replied. “I would rather be considered the best author and possibly the 30th best player than the other way around, assuming the money was equal. But I wouldn’t want to be considered a great author and merely a mediocre player.”
You might notice Sklansky doesn’t quite respond to Johnson’s question here. Johnson didn’t ask whether Sklansky wanted to be known as the “best” author (or player), just whether he’d prefer to be known as a “great” author (or player). (To be fair, Johnson did preface the question with a compliment suggesting Sklansky was indeed one of the best poker authors.) It does nevertheless sound as though Sklansky places a higher value on being known as a great author than he does being known as a great player — with the proviso that it wouldn’t be so hot to be known only as a great author and a crummy player.
Also curious here is how Sklansky instinctively makes financial reward a determining factor in making his decision. Again, he wasn’t asked which of these would make him more money, but it sounds like he is implying that if it were the case that one or the other was more lucrative, that factor would affect how Sklansky would decide which he’d rather be.
Seems to me that the money would have a lot more to do with whether one was the best player, and relatively little to do with whether he or she was the best author. Best-selling books ain’t necessarily the best-readin’ ones, right?
Sklansky then elaborated a bit, but to be honest, I’m not quite sure what he’s saying for most of this. I’m adding it just in case it helps clarify for anyone else Sklansky’s position here:
“One rea♠on why that’s true is because to be the best author means you have to understand things better than any other author or even any other player. To be the best player you may not have to do that. You may just for instance be able to think very quickly. Or you may be able to do things at the table to make other players play badly. The person who knows more about poker than anybody else is something that I would be more proud of than the person who plays it the best, as long as the author also played well as well.”
Here Sklansky talks about “being” a great player and/or author — not “being known as” one or the other. (Again, not really addressing the question as it was posed.)
Dunno about anyone else, but I find this sort of question fascinating — probably because I play poker and also try to write about it now and then. How would you answer the question if it were posed to you? That is to say, would you rather be known as a great player or a great author? Or, if it sounds more appropriate this way, would you rather be known as a good player or a good author? (And why?)
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Comments
True enough amarillo, probably a distinction should be made to say “poker author” or “poker theory author”.
Recognition is an important factor in ego, and Sklansky comes across time and again as having an extraordinarily high ego. Unhealthy IMHO.
His comments are interesting regarding the difference between writing about the game and playing it. In fact it gives me a good idea to write a blog entry expanding on that idea.
I really liked that exchange on the show also. It really points out the difference between being a great thinker and a great player. Sklansky is completely right that having the deepest UNDERSTANDING of the game in no way translates to being the best player, at least not live where table image, tell reading, and adjusting to your opponent are at such a premium. All the great players have a deep understanding but I’m sure that not all people with deep understanding are great players, because it has so much to do with personality, risk-taking and grace under pressure.
I wish they had a “coles” notes for some of his books. I find that the theories presented are the foundations of any solid poker player - I just wish I could understand them on a deeper level than I do.
His books are extremely theoritical and need to be read more than once or twice….
Probably gonna piss some people off with this one, but…the words “great author” imply that Sklansky is a great linguist, prose writer, etc in the high literature vein. When I think of “great writers” I think of people like Raymond Carver, James Joyce, Susan Sontag. In the poker world, maybe Jim McManus, A Alverez, Davis Mamet, Mark Twain. Sklansky is definitley NOT in that group. Sklansky books are infinitely valuable in their content, but they are not all that well written. Not to mention that I’ve found typos in every one I’ve read.
The content he presents has been revolutionary to the poker community. He is brilliant, no question about it, but to say he is a “great author” seems like it’s stretching things a bit because there is a huge difference between high literature and low literature.