Dr. Al has a unique combination of academic credentials, business experience,
and poker expertise. After earning a Ph.D. in industrial psychology from The University of California at Berkeley, he joined the faculties of UCLA and Carnegie-Mellon University and became a research fellow at Belgium’s Catholic University of Louvain. It is the world’s oldest Catholic University.
He headed management development at Merrill Lynch before starting Schoonmaker and Associates, an international consulting company. He personally taught or consulted in over twenty countries on all six continents. His clients included GE, GM, IBM, Mobil, Rank Xerox, Bankers Trust, Wells Fargo, Manufacturers Hanover, Chemical Bank, Chase Manhattan, Ryan Homes, Sun Life of Canada, and more than two dozen others. Their annual sales exceed two trillion dollars, about 10% of the total American economy.
He has written or co-authored three research monographs and six books on industrial psychology (Anxiety and the Executive, Executive Career Strategy, Selling: The Psychological Approach, Negotiate to Win (two editions) and Is Trump’s Negotiating Style Right For You), one book on coping with college (A Student’s Survival Manual), one on the destructive effects of the Covid lockdown (The Lockdown Will Kill More People Than Covid), and two on how poker develops skills you can use away from the tables (Business Is A Poker Game, and DUCY?). David Sklansky was the primary author of DUCY? These books have sold over 100,000 copies.
The Psychology of Poker was his first poker book. Since its publication, he has written nine more poker books. His poker books have sold over 100,000 copies. A complete list of his books is in the BOOKS tab. His books have been translated into French, German, Spanish, Swedish, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Japanese, and Indonesian.
He has published over 250 articles in business and poker periodicals such as The California Management Review, Expansion, Poker Digest, and Card Player. He has written, and/or played the leading role in four video series. Two were parts of multi-media training programs, Selling: The Psychological Approach and Negotiate To Win. Management by Objectives and Career Development, were produced and used by Mobil Oil Corporation and its subsidiaries.
He is a two-time Jeopardy champion. He was an expert witness about poker psychology in both an administrative hearing and a lawsuit. He played online pokeras a member of Royal Vegas Poker’s team of experts.
The major themes of his work are:
- Be self-critical and accept responsibility for all your results, including your losses and failures.
- Unemotionally and objectively analyze yourself and other people.
- Adjust your approach to fit your own and other people’s styles, strengths, and weaknesses.
- Your ego is your enemy. Protecting it causes countless mistakes.