Ed Miller is obviously clueless

In a recent column for Card Player magazine, available here, the demonstrably idiotic Ed Miller* writes:

The “Cold Decked By A Drunk” Beat

There is a loud, drunk person at your $1-$2 table. Every third hand or
so, he moves all-in before the flop. Usually he wins the blinds and a $2 limp or
two. When this happens, he taunts everyone at the table for being scared of him.
Every once in a while he gets called. When that has happened he has shown hands like Jd 5s and 4c 2c . He’s usually up against a big hand, but so far he’s been lucky to win about half of these pots. Whenever he wins, he cackles gleefully. Whenever he loses, he rebuys for $100 from a thick wad of bills.

Ahem! In what conceivable way is J-5 anything like the most powerful hand in poker, the 2-4 (in crubs, no less!)?

On behalf of the Holy Order of the Mighty Deuce-Four, I demand an apology and retraction!


Incidentally, Miller's column continues the hypothetical story like this:

Last time around, drunk guy lost with Qd 4d when his flush
draw missed. He’s sitting on $100, and he moves all-in. Everyone folds to you in
the big blind, and you have Qs Qc . You call. He starts laughing
and says to you, “You’re going to love this one,” and tables Ad Ah.
No queen hits the board, and you lose.

For me, that's no hypothetical. It actually happened. This was back when the Aladdin was in transition to becoming Planet Hollywood and the poker room was temporarily upstairs, at the top of the escalator. There was a drunk Irish guy who was shoving blind every hand. I watched him to be sure he wasn't peeking at his cards first, and he wasn't. About the fifth time in a row that he did that, I picked up J-J. Plenty good enough to call a blind shove. Yep--the luckbox flipped up A-A that time. Arrrggghhh!


*I'm just funnin' here. I actually like Miller's writing a lot. Of all the columnists that churn out stuff for Card Player, Miller is by far the most likely to present a specific tactic or idea that I can actually remember and use the next time I'm going out to play. His book with Sklansky on NLHE also probably did more to change how I think about the game than any other.