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 Poker Essays Volume III is the third installation in Mason Malmuth's series of
excellent Poker Essay books, and this latest addition to the series is just as
interesting and informative as the previous two. For those who are not
familiar with his work, Mason Malmuth is one of the most respected poker
writers in the business and he has been writing great books and articles on
the subject for over 20 years. As with the other two Poker Essays books
published by Two Plus Two, all of the essays within originally appeared in
major poker publications such as Card Player and Poker Digest.
The essays in this book are divided into seven sections: Strategic Ideas,
General Concepts, Technical Ideas, In the Cardrooms, Hands to Talk About, The
Ciaffone Quiz and Two More Quizzes. The titles of the sections more or less
speak for themselves, but you can expect to find countless excellent poker
strategies and concepts throughout the 250 pages in the book, executed in
Malmuth's typical straight forward fashion. If you have not read any of
Mason's work before this is a good place to start, though you should certainly
be familiar with advanced poker, and his other books are a bit more
groundbreaking. If you are just starting out in the game this book and the
whole Poker Essays series will confuse the heck out of you. If you are a
newbie to advanced poker I recommend you read up on some of Two Plus Two's
back catalog, specifically Gambling Theory and Other Topics, Sklansky's Theory
of Poker.
If you have been following Malmuth's work, you will not be disappointed by
Poker Essays Volume III, though you may also not be very surprised either.
While this is a great book and there are some fascinating strategies and
theories held within it, there are also a lot of points where Mason is more or
less rephrasing previous essays. This by no means is the case for the entirety
of the book, but if you are familiar with his work you will get a case of deja
vu here and there. But to be fair, when you have been writing about one
subject for as long as he has, you are going to be bound to repeat yourself
occasionally, and overall the book is filled with new ideas. Poker Essays
Volume III may not be as fresh as Malmuth's work from a decade ago, but it is
still an excellent read. Recommended.
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