After noticing two or three new players who posted to rec.gambling.poker that they have read Warren's book and are now applying his advice in low-limit casino games, I felt I should, as a public service, write up my review of this book. I bought it from a casino gift shop just for casual reading material, since I am a fairly experienced player and have already digested most of the major volumes written on the subject. My conclusion is that Mr. Warren, while sometimes sharing reasonable general advice, is not a very deep thinker on his subject, and anyone attempting to follow his guidelines will find it difficult to avoid losing at the game. The author has all of the earmarks of a classical hunch gambler who superficially buys into statistical theory, but who deep down believes in luck and anecdotal learning.

Many pieces of contradictory advice are offered. For example, on page 52, he has a paragraph headed, "Realize That it's a Showdown Game," where he states, "you are going to have to consistently have the best hand at the end to win," followed by, "Forget About Bluffing," with the statement, "somebody will always call to 'keep you honest.'" He does comment that occasionally a favorable bluffing situation will occur. However, on pages 138-139, we are told, "it is correct to attempt a bluff more often when the pot is big" (ignore the anti-game-theory implications of this for the moment, since it is probably true in real-life play), and, "you will usually have the correct pot odds to bluff on the end." OK, either it's a showdown game, or it is usually correct to bluff on the end, but I have trouble with both statements being true. On the next page, 140, he implies that most players won't bluff at a big pot because they are certain you will call, and they will bluff at a small pot. On page 124, he says, "If you are getting terrible pot odds, i.e., you have to call an $8 bet into a $24 pot, and the bettor is a very good player, then you can usually fold the hand without much worry." Hmm.

Another example: on page 96, he gives a list of hands to play under the gun (first seat to the left of the big blind). Aside from the fact that his list doesn't agree - and it's not even close - with most authorities' views, it also doesn't agree with his own views, stated on page 70.

Some of his contradictions are also examples of other kinds of sloppy thinking and bad advice. On page 48, he makes the reasonable suggestion, "play only high cards." But by page 87, his brain has turned to mush, and he decides, "if you experience a period where it seems like nothing but the low cards are winning the pots, then it is a perfectly legitimate strategy change to start playing low cards." Aside from being a contradiction, this "advice" also begs the question - which low cards? How do you define "low?" He goes on to say "the trick is knowing when the cycle ends and low cards should not be played anymore." Exactly - he appears to believe that cards run in cycles, not understanding that the cards really, truly, have no memory. The cycle is over after every single hand, simply because there is no such thing as a low-card cycle. Stick with page 48, on this one. His gambler mentality also came through on page 86, where he talks about playing the rush. He advocates playing every hand until you've lost "two or three" in a row, when you may still be on a rush and the losses don't mean anything, or, "your rush is over." Sorry, but just in terms of which cards you get and what hands you make with them, your rush was over after every hand. The best way to play each following hand, ignoring some psychological factors, is as if the previous hand, winner or loser, never happened. Once again, the cards have no memory, and there is no such animal as a "rush." It is foolish to advocate losing before you admit the fact - that money is just as lost as if you played those bad hands at any other time.

In my games we have a special name for people who decide to play "low" cards and rushes: "loser." In bigger games, they have reserved the label "bankrupt."

In many examples in the text, the author ignores pot odds, misguidedly manipulates statistics to his own ends, and finds false premises to support invalid arguments. You want examples? OK, try these: page 57, Warren says about playing the small blind, "if you wouldn't pay $2 for it, don't pay $1 more for it either." Since the pot odds for each of these cases is radically different (in the extreme case it is the difference between 1-1 even money odds to call a single opponent for $2 and 3-1 odds in your favor to call $1 into a $3 pot), this advice is simply wrong. On pages 81-82, he runs a totally phony exercise (in which the results are predetermined, not randomized), and concludes that "the pot odds were obviously not correct for you to draw to a flush" heads up. He concludes it is a losing proposition, but he fails to take into account both the money already in the pot at the start of the draw and the implied odds, namely the fact that your opponent will likely call when you make your hand. On page 116, he gets very excited about the possibility of raising on the flop to get a free card. As should be obvious, if you raise $4 on the flop and then are allowed to check on the next $8 betting round, you have actually "saved" $4, or at least you've avoided putting that much into the pot. Warren decides that raising for a "free" card is a much better deal than this, however, and states that you actually saved $16, getting to see the turn and river free. Huh? The mechanics of the game are too complicated for us novices to follow - you say I don't have to pay the $8 on the river when I miss my hand, and I get the turn free, even though that's the card that came right after I raised $4? Come again? Since the turn card is paid for on the flop, it is only the river card that can be bought this way, and you don't have to pay that $8 on the end when your hand is busted even if you don't put in the flop raise. But hey, what's a little exaggeration when there's an important point to be made? Incidentally, his examples are not consistent about the betting limits, but for this section we're talking 1-4-8-8, I think.

On page 121, he states your chances of winning the pot when holding an unsuited ace and making an ace high flush draw on the turn are 26.1%. This conveniently ignore the pesky possibility of making the flush while pairing the board and thus losing to a full house, and, more importantly, you must win 100% of the time that you merely pair the ace. I don't think so.

Here are some other juicy ones: on page 168, there is a table showing how often A-2 (Ace-Deuce) suited hits the flop. It lists aces-up, trips, flush, straight, full house, and quads. The conclusion: "you'll totally miss the flop over 95% of the time - assuming that a pair of Aces or Deuces will not help you." OK, apparently we also have to ignore the 11% of the time that this hand flops the nut flush draw. I guess it only counts when you flop the whole flush, right? On the same page, he talks about the advantage of holding big slick (Ace-King) unsuited instead of suited. He claims "you can possibly make one of two flushes when four or more of your suit hits the board," while celebrating that "it's more difficult to flop a four-flush (2.245% versus 10.944% when suited) which in turn makes it easier to fold if you have to." And here I always thought I played those pesky four-flushes because they were profitable.

On page 142, he claims that with a flop of Js, 7h, 3d and a turn of Jc, that anyone holding a 7 or a 3 will usually fold it, not wanting to risk the possibility that you checked a J on the flop. Maybe, but his next statement goes too far: he says, "as funny as it sounds, you can even show your Ac-Kh to a player holding a Seven and he'll still throw it away, because of the pot odds." Say what? Show the man he is now an 8-1 favorite and he'll chuck the winner because, um, why is that again? Oh yeah, because of the pot odds. On the other hand, this seems to pretty well sum up Mr. Warren's understanding of such esoteric subjects as pot odds.

He also states (yes, on page 110) that "calling with a bottom pair with an Ace kicker is a good semi-bluff." I guess if you don't know what pot-odds are, it would be a bit much to expect any understanding of semi-bluffing, however, for the rest of us suffice to say that you can't call as a semi-bluff. That is called chasing. Semi-bluffing, as with all other kinds of bluffing, requires that the player making the bluff is the one doing the betting or raising. Thus, the other players have the option to fold. That's when they don't put their money in the pot.

On the same page, he says that "two out of three times that you flop a split pair, you will have second or third pair," and he goes on to give an example flop of J-8-5. Without doing the whole math with different starting hand strategies, I have to believe that there are more hands that are playable that contain a Jack than contain an 8 or a 5. I'd estimate the odds to be somewhere in the neighborhood of one in ten or one in twenty, rather than two in three. Perhaps he's using the unpublished "any two cards can win" strategy.

I'm just getting started here! On page 75, he tells you about a lesson he twice learned "the hard way." (Don't anticipate! Of course it was also the wrong way, but let me tell the story.) Hero has wired Aces (A-A), raises/reraises pre-flop to get his single opponent all-in, flop misses opponent and contains an Ace making hero trips versus absolutely nothing, then runner-runner appear to make quads or backdoor double gutshot straight. His conclusion is that he shouldn't have put in that last raise pre-flop, leaving opponent with enough chips for a bet, then when hero bets the flop, opponent correctly folds, and hero takes down the small pot. Yeah! Only, wait.... if it would have been a mistake for the opponent to call the flop bet, isn't that exactly the same as putting in the last raise pre-flop? And if the opponent turns out to be making a mistake, isn't that good - in the long run, of course? Wouldn't it therefore be a mistake for hero to overreact to the bad beat and leave weak opponents with more money than they deserve? Nah!

Here's my favorite. On page 67, Warren manages to prove by "reasoning" that A-A is worse (as in less profitable) than A-K. Here's the "line of reasoning" that he uses: "Let's say that you win 100 total bets with each hand. With A-A you lose 40 bets to other hands for a net win of 60 bets. With A-K in the pocket you win the same 100 bets as with A-A but because you don't make anything on the flop you throw it away and you lose only 30 bets with it for a net win of 70 bets." He says the problem with A-A in the pocket is that "after the flop you still have at least a pair of Aces to continue playing with. That's not true with A-K and that's what makes it easier to lose less money with it." He then applies similar reasoning to conclude 5-4 unsuited is better than 5-4 suited - you might make a flush and still lose with the darn suited cards. This man has obviously been burned so often, it's amazing he's still playing poker.

Actually with logical skills like those exhibited here, it really is amazing he's still playing poker. Obviously the flawed premise is the one that says you'll win 100 bets total with each hand. The truth is A-A will win way more than A-K, since the target hand for the A-K is usually a big pair, and holding A-A you already have it. That is when the hand makes money. A-K only hits about one in three times. Yes, it is easier to throw away the A-K, but that's like wishing you never hit your draws, since you might have to play them.

I could go on and on with this. Did you know that K-T (King-Ten) offsuit and A-9 offsuit can be played in middle positions, but K-T suited is only playable in late position? True, according to Warren. That may have been only a typo, but when combined with the reasoning about suited cards above, maybe not. How about this: "most low limit players do not know about playing the overs and when they learn about it they usually like it." Right, they like pot limit. That's why they're low-limit players, right? How about this one: "Most good players like to win their first hand so they can then play with 'your' money and not theirs." Wait, if they win their first hand, isn't that money now "theirs" too? In a table on A-K, A-Q, A-J, A-T suited, he ignores overlap between flopped pairs, flush draws, and straight draws. So the chances of liking the flop are a bit lower than his stated 52.089%. "Be careful when the flop has two or three wheel cards in it [...] it looks like any little card could make someone a wheel and that's probably what will happen." This is the Karmic law of probability - what wheels around probably will. How about this one (really! page 177! I'm not making these up!): "the final size of the pot has to be at least $80 to justify drawing to an inside straight after the flop." OK, I can raise with those inside straight draws to make the final pot size bigger. What limit are we playing again?

Ken Warren "makes his home in Ocean Springs, Mississippi," but although making his living "exclusively through his winnings" at poker, "several Las Vegas poker rooms have asked Warren to skip their tournaments in order to give other players a chance to win as well." Notwithstanding the fact that he "has entirely supported himself playing professional hold'em since [...] 1987," he is also "the other[sic] of two other books."

Yeah, right. I give this one price-odds of 1-15, so that $14.95 cover price should be more like $0.99. If you do buck the odds, expect to spend all your reading time either laughing or being really pissed off - or worse yet, if you are a beginning player, being seriously misled. It is a pretty book, and nicely bound. There, I said something nice about it.

Ralph Dubisch
rdubisch@hotmail.com (Ralph Dubisch)
http://www.angelfire.com/biz2/chesslessons
©1998 Ralph Dubisch

Published with the Author's permission