Brad Booth

[David Sklansky]

I had no idea he was broke. If he is. Furthermore he has always been so pleasant to me that I am quite unhappy to hear the news. So unhappy that I would strongly preferred that he be doing well than that I would have an opportunity to make a point.

But if it is true that he lost all his money in poker, and that it is common knowledge, it does give me that opportunity and I'm going to take it. Regarding two things.

1. He has often stated that he has never read a book on poker. He has recommended my book to many others but he has not only read one but implied publicly that he didn't need to.

2. When I have played NLH with him he often grossly overraised preflop. As much as twenty big blinds. He played superbly post flop so this often allowed him to make that much more. The problem of course is that he depended on players calling him preflop almost as much as they would if his raises were much smaller. And that often happened since he raised this much, often. But those who understood the underlying math realized that they didn't need to play his game. By admitting defeat in post flop strategy and relying on the inescaple fact that ultra tight play almost automatically has to show a profit against big overbettors, his strategy is nullified. Now I don't know if this was definitely a big part of his downfall, but if it wasn't it would have been. As long as he stuck to his strategy.

The bottom line is that Brad may very well been yet another victim of a disrespect for the underlying math that pervades almost all gambling. Whether that be not understanding probability or not understanding volatility and standard deviations.