Tom McEvoy's Card Player Articles

[Ed Miller]

Is it just me, or are Tom McEvoy's articles the most inaccurate and poorly thought out pieces of the whole magazine? I've only been playing poker for six months, and yet I remember reading his articles on many occasions and coming to the conclusion that he is simply out to lunch. His article in the most recent issue, "Playing Big Connectors Lower Than A-K" is an example. Gems include:

Explaining why having a suited hand is not really much of an edge over an unsuited hand:

"Unless you have unusual psychic abilities or X-ray vision that allows you to read what’s coming off the deck, you can never know if or when your coveted flush cards will hit the flop. Almost all of us have occasionally succumbed to emotions or hunches — “I just knew the flush was going to come” — and sometimes they’re correct, but usually they are not. Anybody could be a world beater if he always knew what was going to come on the flop, but we don’t know that, so we have to abide by sound game theory and solid strategies about which cards to enter the pot with."

I'd like Tom to tell me what "sound game theory" has to say about what cards to enter the pot with. More discussion about why being suited is overrated:

"When playing suited connectors or even nonconnectors, you should realize that if you flop two cards of your suit, you are still an underdog to make the flush after the flop. You are now committed to call on the flop and usually on fourth street. Thus, if you don’t hit the flush, you are burning up at least two bets, and even more in a raised situation. Also, you might make the flush and still lose to a bigger flush if you’re in a multiway pot. Remember that when you are playing a flush draw in a multiway pot, it had better be the nut-flush draw."

I'm not usually snide or gratuitously critical, but, being the only major poker periodical in the country... you'd think that they would not print outright misinformation.