DUCY? Exploits, Advice, and Ideas of the Renowned Strategist

by David Sklansky, Alan N. Schoonmaker

When Jim McManus, author of the New York Times best-seller, Positively Fifth Street, read our manuscript, he wrote, Whenever I read something by David, I never fail to learn new things about the world. The book is fantastically illuminating, well written, works as a kind of autobiography, and Al's input is effective as commentary.

You will probably feel the same way by seeing how creatively combining math, logic, psychology, and probability theory can solve problems you might have previously regarded as unsolvable. Your ability to identify and even manipulate other people's thoughts and desires should improve, as well as your ability to understand and resist other experts who attempt to do the same thing. And this book will almost certainly put money in your pocket.

The title, DUCY?, was taken from our forums at twoplustwo.com s. To encourage people to think better, David would often ask, Do you see why? before fully explaining his conclusions or advice. Forum participants created the acronym and started using it themselves, and it became so popular that the following definition now appears in the Urban Dictionary:



Abbreviated form of Do you see why? Commonly used on online forums; originated from the Two Plus Two Poker Community.

We believe that the term does a good job of capturing the essence of this book.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology

302 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Sklansky was born and raised in Teaneck, New Jersey, where he graduated from Teaneck High School in 1966.[2] He attended the University of Pennsylvania, but left before graduation. He returned to Teaneck and passed multiple Society of Actuaries exams by the time he was 20, and worked for an actuarial firm.[3]

Sklansky is generally considered[by whom?] a top authority on gambling. He has written many books on poker, blackjack, and general gambling.

Sklansky has won three World Series of Poker bracelets, two in 1982 ($800 Mixed Doubles, and $1000 Draw Hi) and one in 1983 ($1000 Limit Omaha Hi). He also won the Poker By The Book invitational event on the 2004 World Poker Tour, outlasting Phil Hellmuth Jr, Mike Caro, T. J. Cloutier, and Mike Sexton, and then finally overcoming Doyle Brunson.[4]

Sklansky attended the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania for a year before leaving to become a professional gambler.[5] He briefly took on a job as an actuary before embarking into poker. While on the job he discovered a faster way to do some of the calculations and took that discovery to his boss. The boss told him he could go ahead and do it that way if he wanted but wouldn’t pass on the information to the other workers. "In other words, I knew something no one else knew, but I got no recognition for it," Sklansky is quoted as saying in Al Alvarez's The Biggest Game in Town. "In poker, if you're better than anyone else, you make immediate money. If there's something I know about the game that the other person doesn't, and if he's not willing to learn or can't understand, then I take his money."

Sklansky resides in Henderson, Nevada.

Reviews

[Jan · Rating 2 out of 5]

David Sklansky is one of the geniuses of the poker and gambling world, and I looked forward to reading as he cast a wider net, and wondered whether he would suffer from what I call "the blogger's curse." Namely, will his book be more than a rehash of his often delightful and thought-provoking postings on the Twoplustwo forum? Sadly, the answer is no.

While I am happy with Sklansky's basic mission, which is to give insight into how we all could apply more rational thought-processes to everyday decision-making (as well as to crisis situations that don't happen every day), and some of his stories are more entertaining than creepily self-congratulatory, there are several other questions to which I must answer "no," and wistfully subtract at least a star and a half by default from my sympathy total of three point five.

Was this book edited to eliminate dozens of typo's and for grammatical clarity? No.
Was any research done by this auto-didact to perhaps provide a more fruitful starting point for his thought experiments? No, unless you count an hour and a half on Google.

An example of the kind of approach that I found frustrating in this book is that Sklansky reminds me of a "comedian" who always goes for the first, most obvious joke rather than letting the hacks have it and working for something more unexpected -- not to mention funnier.
Take his "rational" analysis of various sociopolitical situations. To go with a non-controversial example, consider his suggestion that we should be allowed to pay to use Handicapped Parking spaces. Duh, we are. It's called a seventy-five dollar fine, and anyone who has read the first five or six words of a Law and Economics textbook could tell you that's no great insight. The shame is that if Sklansky considered opening that book and getting through that first paragraph, his excellent problem-solving skills could probably take over and give us something truly worth reading.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this book deserves a review but only as a way to prevent anybody who's not already a Sklansky devotee from reading it. It's a great example of preaching to the converted because who else is gonna pick up a book entitled DUCY??! If he really wanted to do something "to make a more significant social contribution" (as compared with his career as a poker player & gambler and as a writer about poker & gambling), then he might've come up with a title that has a greater expected value in terms of attracting readers who aren't already familiar with everything he bothers to write in this typically poorly crafted tome. I almost gave this a 1 star rating, but the large number of good belly laughs is worth an extra star.

Maybe i'll write more and maybe i won't bother. In a way i feel it's not worthwhile, but maybe a well-crafted warning could be my significant contribution to society. (it'd definitely be worth more to humanity than the work i do)

[Jesse Richman · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few choice nuggets, buried in a disorganized mess of mostly obvious stuff and over-the-top asskissing by Dr. Alan Schoonmaker.

[Shane Flynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish this book was as good and clever as Sklansky thinks it is. Not sure why they bothered with Schoonmaker's contributions.

Can't imagine non-2p2ers enjoying this at all.

Sklansky is a 'freak and a very weird dude' when it comes to women; disturbingly, he writes as if he views them as slightly sub-human.

[Paul, · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author is a pretty smart guy, I'm sure. But he thinks he is a really, really smart guy. So he continually presents viewpoints that are fairly standard as if he is the only one who has thought of them. He also likes to name things after himself.

That being said, he is pretty good with probabilistic thinking and with math, in general. Unfortunately, this leads him to believe that there are "right" answers to complicated problems, especially when it comes to economics.

So, I didn't learn much, but I did keep reading. Not sure why. Mostly because I didn't have anything else to read.

[Randal · Rating 1 out of 5]

For a review of the content itself, this.
I'm not the target audience for most self-help books, otherwise this might be two stars.
But for why I think it's still one star ... Sklansky keeps denigrating "experts" as people who have memorized rules and procedures but who aren't capable of analyzing their subject. Given what a sloppy, haphazard mess this book is, the very best a nonanalytical thinker who carefully studied this writing could aspire to would be to become an "expert" on aping Sklansky's methods ... not an original, analytical thinker, which is what Sklansky puts forward as his goal.
So fail. It's not so massively bad that I want the slice of my life back that I spent reading it, but it's a waste of paper for most potential readers.

[Fred · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting to see how David Sklansky views the world. Probably not everyone's cup of tea though.