Play Poker To Win - Amarillo Slim Preston

[Al Mirpuri]

Play Poker To Win: I read it as an early teen in the early 80s. I thought him a poker playing genius. In 1978, I saw Grease and thought Olivia Newton John the most beautiful woman in the world.

Amarillo Slim is no poker playing genius.

I reread Play Poker To Win yesterday. Slim is risible. Homespun wisdom: guesser's are losers at poker. This is a variant of the Guesser's Disadvantage theory which attempted to explain why the house always won in the end and the player did not. The development of Probability Theory in the C18th (?) by Pierre de Fermat (of Fermat's Last Theorem fame) and Blaise Pascal (Of Pascal's Wager fame) sent the Guesser's Disadvantage into oblivion. Slim fails to recognise and so acknowledge that in the huge Draw Poker pot he wins in Venezuela it is the paucity of his opponents play rather than any great skill on his part that gets him the money. A freak deal puts several pat hands up against one another and the fish show no fear with their calls and raises as Slim picks up a Ten Full House before the draw. It is not even a book for beginner's as his advice for any of the games mentioned is incomplete.

It has little literary merit either, being poorly edited and full of superlatives. It also exhibits a crude sexism. Moreover, in its structure it is highly derivative of the classic The Education Of A Poker Player.

I no longer believe Olivia Newton John to be the most beautiful woman in the world either.