A Classic Collectible

I'm fortunate enough to own a mint, first edition copy of, "7 Card Stud - The Waiting Game", written by George Percy, published in 1979.

Much like Doyle Brunson's Super System, the book at that time must have been a god-send for any poker player looking to improve their game by a large margin in a short period of time.

When I purchased the George Percy book last year, I tucked it away for safe keeping as a collectible. The book is out of print and is somewhat of a rare find.

The reviews I've read about George Percy's book seemed to have quite an effect on the people who have supposedly read it.  Sometimes friends of the author, the publishing house, or anyone involved directly with the parties who are making money, will write a review that builds the book up to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. It happens quite often on Amazon.com where a new book's initial reviews are all rated 5-stars (five being best), and later as the general public purchases and reviews the book, the truth begins to reveal itself; it wasn't even close to being as great as sliced bread, let alone the crumb of a crouton.

I decided I'd pull Percy's book out and do a review myself. This is what I have found:

Because this book is fairly rare to find, I can say with confidence that the reviews available online about this book were written from word-of-mouth, from a positive twist on its few finer points, or that for a great length of time it was really one of the only 7-card-stud-only strategy books available on the market and was therefore considered a wonderful tool. Mostly I would say that many of the reviews out there came from people who had not even read it.

The book fires out from the get-go that the reader is a losing player. Whether or not this is the case, I was turned off immediately by this approach. When I open a book to learn something I could metaphorically say to the book, "What do you have to teach me?", and I didn't take very well at all to being told, "You're a loser".

Trying to remain objective here, my review of this book is probably going to be contrary to most of the other reviews that have been written about it. Although the book is quite dated, I will come from the perspective of reading this book as both a player who could be new to the game, and also as a player who is experienced with 7 Card Stud strategy, odds and probabilities.

The book contains essential information on the mechanics of the game, and statistical odds and probabilities which have the mathematical formulas in print. It outlines a few situations that could possibly happen and how to deal with those situations. It also goes over a few things about casino play. Definitions of a Brush Man, Dealer, and Shill that any type of poker player would want to know before getting their feet wet in a casino. Too often in the book, the words are written in such a format; to do anything than other than the author says you should do, will make you a loser; Leaving no room for strategy expansion, playing the player vs. playing the cards or improving overall skill. I cannot even begin to stress how many sentences in this book point out that if you do not do xyz, you are a loser.

While the chapters get to the point on basics of play, the book contains a lot of unneccessary fluff. Quite a few pages listed in chart-form, every possible combination of a particular type of hand. Example 1:

Percy proceeded on several pages to take the time and list every possible full house, after explaining that there are 156 full houses that can be made out of a 52 card deck of Aces through Kings.

Full Houses

Aces Full
AAAKK
AAAQQ
AAAJJ
AAATT
AAA99
AAA88
AAA77
AAA66
AAA55
AAA44
AAA33
AAA22

Not only did he do this for aces full, he did it for each rank of cards down the line from aces full, to kings full, to queens full, all the way to 22233--deuces full. Later in the chapter he did the same thing listing all of the 493 possible Ace high flushes beginning with AKQJ9 (excluding the royal flush), AKQJ8, and so forth.

Wasted and unneccessary space to make the book go from 76 pages to 80? Who knows. It was quite ridiculous. I must admit I was tempted to look at each individual listing to see if there were any that were missed. Perhaps if there were ever a day that I felt like counting the spots on the ceiling, I'll pull out Percy's book instead and proofread these pages.

And now onto the strategy:

The book doesn't have much in the way of any defining strategy except what to open with, to play aggressively, and fold when you think you are beaten. The opening hand section is not necessarily specific to what other door cards are showing at the table. It is just a list of playable starting hands in general.

For a new player wanting to get their feet wet and play tightly against other players who are new or do not know the basic strategy of the game, the strategy that Percy provides will work. Basic opening hands, no bluffing, fold when you think that you are beaten, and he outlines the philosophies and attitudes you want to maintain to be a winning poker player.

The nuances about the strategies in this book encompass that one should play very tightly leading inevitably to becoming an overly predictable player. By no means would I recommend that a player who has decent experience with counting cards, suits and outs to use this strategy for very long, although it is a strategy that can be used to switch up the game. To use this strategy with other experienced players at the table can be very costly. Use Percy's strategy for extremely loose games, and games where you know that most of the players at the table are relatively new to 7 card stud.

For the experienced player, this book will have little relevance towards improving your game. The odds charts are a nice feature in the book, however these odds can be found just about anywhere.

At the end of the book he includes 30 Winning Poker Tips. I am exerpting just a few of these here. If any of them are new to you, I'd suggest you find a copy of this book right away:

• Back good hands heavily.
• If you're in every hand, you're a losing player.
• A bet on a straight made early must be protected by a maximum bet - or a raise.
• You are never too old to learn something new at a poker table.
• Become a "reader" of other players and their hands at the table.

I'm sure you can imagine what the rest of the 25 winning poker tips from Percy look like.

Buy the book for kicks, if you're player who is very green to poker in general, or as a collectible as I did. I recommend that you do not buy the book for the purpose of expanding your knowledge of the game.