Ken Warren book review, part 2

This is a continuation of the book review begun here.

P. 127: Warren here gives us his "Golden Rule of Fourth Street Strategy," which is, "If you started with three good cards and catch a bad card while your opponent catches a good card--fold. Yes, I said fold. Cut it off right there. The pot is small and you are now playing with only six cards while he is playing seven-card poker. You don't mathematically figure to catch up by the river and the pot is not offering you the right odds to continue with the hand."

I like listening to Tom and Ray on NPR's "Car Talk" every Saturday morning. When presented with an idea or theory that they think is wrong-headed, their favorite thing to say about it is that it is "Bo-wo-wo-wo-GUS!" Well, that's what I think of Ken Warren's "Golden Rule."

Let's consider my usual $2/4 razz game on PokerStars. There's a $0.25 ante from eight players, plus a $1 bring-in, so $3 in the pot to start with. Suppose we get two limpers (very common scenario). Then my main opponent and I, who both have A-2-3, get into a raising war. Nobody else comes with us, but we cap it at $8 each. That's a pot of $21 going into 4th street. Now he catches, say, a 7, and Stars throws a brick at me, a king. He bets, of course. The pot is now $23. According to the wonderful razz equity calculator found here, my equity in this pot is now 29% to his 71%. But it costs me just the $2 call. I'm getting over 11:1 on the call. Mr. Warren, please explain how this is not the right pot odds to continue in the hand.

Ah, you say, but it's uncommon to have capped betting on 3rd. True. So let's consider a more typical example. Suppose I have 5-4-2 and my opponent has 7-6-A. It's a hand he wants to play, but he's not going to reraise me with it. He puts in the first raise and then just calls my reraise, ending the 3rd street round of betting. Even if both limpers fold, that's still a $13 pot. Now he catches a 5, I get a Q. He bets, making the pot $15. I have about 28% equity, and the pot is offering me 7.5:1 on a $2 call. Sure looks to me like the right pot odds to continue.

Moreover, as I've said several times in these two book reviews, at least at these stakes, a large fraction of players are coming in with one bad down card already. Usually these folks won't raise it themselves on 3rd, but they'll readily call a single raise, because it's only a buck, right? So let's say my opponent this time has J-A-2. He's the third limper. I raise with 2-3-6. He's my only caller. Pot is $8. He catches a 7 on 4th street, I get a Q. He bets, making the pot $10. My equity here is 47%, and I'm getting 5:1 on a call. Mr. Warren's advice is to fold. How does that make ANY sense?

Sure, I can set up parameters in which folding is correct: My opponent has the perfect A-2-3. I have the mediocre 5-6-8. There are no limpers. He puts in a raise, I call. Pot is $7. He catches perfect, a 4, while I get a K. He bets, making the pot $9. My pot equity is only 16%, or about 7:1. I'm getting 4.5:1 on a call. In this exact situation, I'd agree that a call is erroneous. But consider what I had to do in order to make folding the right move: Give myself mediocre cards to start, my opponent the best possible cards, and the pot the smallest that would be plausible. Change just about anything in that formula, and a call becomes correct.

Warren provide exactly zero mathematical support for his blanket assertion that a brick on 4th street means that the correct move is always to fold to a bet. I say it's bogus. Folding is indeed sometimes correct there, but it's often a huge mistake, in terms of the math.

Mitchell Cogert, to his credit, get this point right in his book. He says it depends on the size of the pot, the strength of your draw, and your best estimation of what your opponent holds. That is the only sensible answer.

P. 132: Warren writes, "Smooth draws to low cards are always favorites over 8- and 9-low hands at this point [i.e., 5th street]."

This is just plain false, as Cogert meticulously laid out in his book (appendix, pp. 119-128). For example, (4-5) 6, 7, 8 (the worst 8-low hand) is a 55% favorite against (A-2) 3, 4, Q (the best low drawing hand). I didn't just take Mitchell's word for this--I checked it on the simulator myself, and he is correct. As Mitchell emphasizes repeatedly (pp. 50, 115, and 125), "The player with a made 8 low is a favorite to any drawing hand."

The fact that Ken Warren apparently just repeated what he had heard or read somewhere on this crucial point without bothering to take, oh, about five minutes to run some comparisons himself on a readily available web calculator speaks volumes about his general lack of attention to accuracy in this book, or at least in the razz section.

P. 132 (again): "A four-card 5 or 6 is a favorite against a made 9." Again, this is just plain wrong, and Warren could have demonstrated that fact to himself if he had put in even the most trivial effort to do so. For example, (4-5) 6, 2, 9 is a slight favorite over (A-3) 5, 6, Q. (Cogert gives it as 53% on his p. 122; I came up with 52%.) (A-3) 4, 6, 9 is an even heavier favorite over the same 6-5 drawing hand--Mitchell's book (p. 121) and my run both show it at 61%.

You can't just lump all made 9s together. The second card tips the scales toward or away from favoring the made hand. As Cogert correctly points out (p. 55), a made 9-6 is a "slight favorite over a player who has any 7, 6, or 5 low draw, and a big favorite over an opponent with any 8 low draw." A made 9-5 or 9-4 obviously does even better than the made 9-6.

P. 132 (yet again): "A made 8 is a favorite over any four wheel cards." Well, this happens to be true, but it directly contradicts what Warren wrote two paragraphs before! (I.e., "Smooth draws to low cards are always favorites over 8- and 9-low hands....") Did Mr. Warren not even read over his own work, or think about what he was saying?

P. 140: On 7th street, Warren advises, "Raise only when you're certain your opponent will call with a worse hand."

I'm flabbergasted by this. If I have the nuts (a wheel), and my opponent bets into me on 7th street, I am going to raise, even if I have no idea whether he will call, fold, or reraise. That is obviously the correct thing to do, because there is absolutely no down side to raising. The worst possible outcome is that the two of you cap the betting, discover that you both made the nuts, and split the pot. When you have the best possible hand, you do not need to make even the slightest projection about whether your opponent will call--you just plain raise, regardless, because doing so is all potential gain with zero potential loss. And if he raises you back, you put in another raise, without stopping to ponder whether he will call it. That's all there is to it. I can't imagine why anybody would think there's any other smart strategy. Yet Ken Warren teaches that you should not raise with the nuts unless you are "certain" that your opponent will call.

It is sheer lunacy.


That's the end of my list of specific complaints, disagreements, and observations. I just want to add the general note that it seems apparent that Mr. Warren does not like razz poker. The last thing he adds in his section on razz is that he advises that the reader not play it! "That's right, I said don't play razz." He says razz is a "relatively boring game."

I would like to suggest to Cardoza Publishing that the next time they think a book on some form of poker would be a good publishing venture, they enlist an author who (1) actually knows what he's talking about, (2) actually plays the form of poker that the book will be about, and (3) enjoys doing so, in order that his enthusiasm for it will be conveyed to the readers. Ken Warren fails on all three points, insofar as razz is concerned. He doesn't know the subject well, he apparently doesn't play it (assuming he takes his own advice), and he freely admits that he doesn't like it. All three of those facts show through plainly in the essentially worthless section he wrote on razz. It is full of bad writing, contradictory statements, unjustified and unjustifiable advice, and erroneous statements of fact.

It may be that Warren is far better when writing about straight 7-card stud and the high-low split version. But I doubt I'm going to be finding out. After seeing what a horrendously botched job he did on razz, I don't trust him to give sound advice on any other form of poker, either.

If you're looking for a book from which to learn razz, Mitchell Cogert's is superior in every way, despite its flaws and omissions.