Tournament Poker For Advanced Players by David Sklansky
I have not played very much and am not at all an advanced player. But I enjoy learning about the strategy. The biggest lesson I took from it: you need a better hand to call than you do to bet. I might have kind of known this before but Sklansky does a nice job explaining it.
Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis
This one is not about poker. It's about the crazy world of investment banking in the 1980s. Not as spectacular as Moneyball but that's to be expected since Moneyball was about sports, statistics, and valuation--I mean, it was practically written for me! Liar's Poker was still great, though. I found one passage particularly interesting in relation to Moneyball. Discussing the key to Michael Milken's success with junk bonds:
Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor by Sudhir Venkatesh
Venkatesh is the sociologist who (along with Steven Levitt) wrote about crack dealers living with their parents. I started this book quite a while ago and it has been sitting on my "currently reading" pile of books for some time now a little less than half-read. Well, it's time for this book to go back on the shelf. Unfinished. The subject matter was actually pretty fascinating but the writing was really repetitive. I'd love to read a nicely edited second edition.
I have not played very much and am not at all an advanced player. But I enjoy learning about the strategy. The biggest lesson I took from it: you need a better hand to call than you do to bet. I might have kind of known this before but Sklansky does a nice job explaining it.
Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis
This one is not about poker. It's about the crazy world of investment banking in the 1980s. Not as spectacular as Moneyball but that's to be expected since Moneyball was about sports, statistics, and valuation--I mean, it was practically written for me! Liar's Poker was still great, though. I found one passage particularly interesting in relation to Moneyball. Discussing the key to Michael Milken's success with junk bonds:
The ratings services [for bonds], like the commercial banks, relied almost exclusively on the past--corporate balance sheets and track records in--in rendering their opinions. The outcome of the analysis was determined by the procedure rather than by the analyst. This was a poor way to evaluate any enterprise, be it new and small, or old, large and shaky. A better method was to make subjective judgements about the character of management and the fate of their industry.Milken sounds a lot like the foolish scouts who are described in Moneyball. They'd look at things like power, speed, and body type to value prospects while Billy Beane was able to beat the market by focusing exclusively on past performance and placing an immense value on on-base-percentage. So, what's the best way to beat the market?
Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor by Sudhir Venkatesh
Venkatesh is the sociologist who (along with Steven Levitt) wrote about crack dealers living with their parents. I started this book quite a while ago and it has been sitting on my "currently reading" pile of books for some time now a little less than half-read. Well, it's time for this book to go back on the shelf. Unfinished. The subject matter was actually pretty fascinating but the writing was really repetitive. I'd love to read a nicely edited second edition.
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