5 comments about Death on the Flop.

1. Belinda Cooley is having a rough week. She broke up with her fiance after catching him with another woman, she quit her job working for said fiance, and she turned forty.
   
   Her twin brother Ben has just the ticket, a trip to Vegas. He's just entered a pro-am poker tournament and wants Belinda there as a good luck charm. Belinda decides that she should tag along to make sure Ben doesn't lose his shirt.
   
   They've just arrived in Vegas when Belinda learns that Ben has an obsession with one of the pros in the tournament, "Steely" Stan. Without revealing too much, Ben makes it obvious he won't be happy unless he beats Stan.
   
   The first night there, Ben vanishes. When contacting the police does nothing, Belinda turns to Frank, a man she met at the bar earlier that night. Did Ben's obsession with Stan get him into trouble?
   
   Belinda and Frank do what they can to find Ben, but Belinda decides that the best chance they have to learn the truth is for Belinda to enter the tournament and beat Stan. This won't be easy since Belinda has never played before. And the more she plays, the more she realizes that if she loses, she may just lose her life.
   
   The book is fast moving with lots of action to keep everyone hooked to the page. There is really only one chapter that slows things down long enough to teach Belinda (and the readers) how to play Hold 'Em. Other then that, poker is a part of the story without slowing the action down. The characters are good but seem a little bit like stock characters. My biggest problem came with the ending, when several characters behave stupidly just to heighten the suspense. And the poker scenes seemed to have a few details that were wrong.
   
   Frankly, I enjoyed the book in spite of itself. The flaws are enough to make me hesitant recommending it, but I will be getting the sequel when it is published hoping that things have improved.



2. "Death on the Flop" combines a great mystery read with a poker manual. The poker instruction does not get in the way of the action; it is interwoven effectively as part of the story. A high stakes poker tournament is the setting for this well-written mystery. The penalty for losing is a descent into the grisly world of kidnapping and snuff films. The attractive heroine Bee Cooley, aided by hunk Frank Gilbert,learns, along with this reader, how to play Texas Hold Em while solving the disappearance of her brother. I look forward to more Bee Cooley adventures, not just in Las Vegas but in a wide variety of exciting gaming spots. Men and and women alike can enjoy these books!



3. Belinda has been short on luck. She lost her fiancé and her job. She was feeling very forty, very tired, and very unattractive. She needed a vacation. So when her twin brother, Ben, invites her to Las Vegas, she decides, hesitantly, that it may be what she needs. Ben is into Texas Hold'em, and has entered one of the biggest tournaments in the country. Belinda, on the other hand, knows nothing about poker, nor Vegas, nor anything else on the liberal side of life, and so the table is set for a "Bridget Jones meets Viva Las Vegas" story to develop.
   
   Things change when Belinda crosses Steely Stan, an infamous, chauvinistic poker star with a hazy past, who may be involved in much more than just poker. Hours later, she finds her hotel room empty, carpet bloodied, and Ben missing.
   
   She turns to Frank, a mysterious middle-aged security agent whom she met the night before. He knows his way around Vegas and quickly tells her what limited options she has. Too many cops are crooked, so going to the police is not an option, especially if Stan may be involved. So she is forced to trust him and his deep connections as they try to solve the crime together. Part of their plan includes Belinda entering the tournament in Ben's place, which is the best way for the new tandem to keep an eye on Stan. Things get very interesting after that.
   
   For a mystery this is relatively light reading, and I found it quite enjoyable. Not only that, but it's also somewhat educational, especially for someone unfamiliar with the increasingly popular Texas Hold'em. The Vegas background adds color to the story and the main characters are certainly likable, especially Frank, whom one could easily picture as an aging James Bond-type retiring Elvis-like to the bright lights of Sin City. Just when the plot seems to draw to a typical conclusion a series of unexpected twists are thrown in, and the book ends with a bang. Overall, this is a good mystery superimposed on a quite entertaining read. Mystery fans will not be disappointed.



4. Belinda Cooley is having the worst day of her life - she thinks. She caught her fiancé/boss with the 20 something assistant that afternoon, right after her 40th birthday. In her mind, she's now single, unemployed, and over-the-hill. When her twin brother Ben stops by, he is oblivious to her distress in his desire to convince her to accompany him to Las Vegas. Bee and Ben are complete opposites - Bee is OCD, straight-laced, and conventional whereas Ben lives for the moment and enjoys the unpredictable. So when Bee hears of Ben's plans to attend a huge poker tournament, she decides that she will have to go if for no other reason than to monitor her brother's growing gambling addiction. She doesn't realize how dangerous the cards really are...



5. This is neither a mystery nor a poker book, but a romance novel. I'm not qualified to speak on its merits in that genre, it's not one that appeals to me. I only read this book because I was asked to review the recent crop of poker mysteries. If that's what you're looking for, check out The Picasso Flop, a serviceable mystery with lots of fun inside jokes about celebrity poker, or Dead Money, an excellent mystery with a serviceable poker setting.
   
   I'm writing this only because the author included a chapter on poker advice. There are 12 poker hands in DOTF; every one contains a major error (three get the rank of the hands wrong, six are impossible and three contain incorrect strategic advice, not fine points of strategy but non-debatable basic mistakes). If you want the complete list, I have it on my Amazon Blog.
   
   There are certainly bad poker advice books, but even the worst were written and edited by people who had at least played the game. Giving poker advice when you don't know the ranking of the hands nor the mechanics and basic strategy of play shows deep contempt for your readers and their financial well-being. Both author and publisher (Penguin Group) owe the world an apology.

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3 comments about The Science of Poker.

1. This book is a perfect example of how a mathematician with little experience or understanding of poker typically approaches the game. The result, in this case at least, is a complete train wreck.
   
   I'm a professional poker player, a recent college grad, and the owner of about 50 poker books. I was excited but wary when I found this title recently; I've always thought there was a gap in the poker literature on this topic, approaching the game from a more rigorously analytical perspective. Many have tried, but just about all have failed miserably, and this is no exception.
   
   The author, Mahmood N Mahmood, is originally Iraqi, and his incomprehensible writing makes it obvious that he is not a native English speaker. The book is filled with poor grammar, misused words, and awkward, unclear phrasing (at one point he calls a player's hand his 'attainment'). The back cover claims that he retired early in 1992 and became a semi-professional player, but I highly doubt that.
   
   On the first page of the introduction, Mahmood reveals that most of his data comes from popular poker simulation software, and the rest from other poker books. I expected something original. The first title he credits as a source for statistics in this book is "'Super Systems' by Doyle Brunson". The book is 'Super System,' commonly referred to in poker circles as 'the Bible.' Tip: If you're going to try to pretend you know what you're talking about and write a book about poker, don't butcher this name. The second book he cites is "'Formula Won' by Michael J Barry". I spent some time looking but could not find any mention of this book anywhere. It does not appear to exist.
   
   He ambitiously attempts to cover hold'em, omaha, and stud, each in pot-limit and limit forms. Apparently, Mahmood does not realize that pot-limit stud is almost never played, and no-limit hold'em is much more popular than pot-limit.
   
   He refers to Omaha hands such as "A-K-J-T(s)" and "A-J-T-9(o)". It's common convention to describe hold'em hands as "A-Ks" or "T-9o" for suited and offsuit cards, respectively. This convention makes no sense for the four card Omaha hands.
   
   On strategy, he states that A-K-J-T plays best against three opponents, and that A-J-T-9 is better and wants a lot of opponents. He doesn't explain why, although it's fairly obvious that he's basing it off showdown simulation results, which are meaningless for this purpose.
   
   For hold'em, a good example of the terrible advice in this book is a discussion of "Q-7(s)", queen-seven suited. He is assuming you are in late position and that a player you somehow know has A-Ks has raised in front of you. He reasons that the hand becomes profitable and should be played if you can get at least four opponents, because it will win 21% of the time against AKs and three other random hands. This might apply if there was no more betting after the flop and the cards were just turned up, but that's not how poker is played. He also assumes that the other three players have average, random hands even though they've called a strong raise - totally unreasonable.
   
   All of his strategies are based solely on the concept of pot odds - memorizing percentages, and comparing the size of the pot to the percentage chance of your hand winning. If it were that simple, poker would have died off from lack of interest long ago.
   
   I just had an epiphany after writing that last paragraph. When I was first starting out in poker, I heard more experienced players calling Q-7 the "computer hand." When I asked why, they explained that there was an old book claiming the hand was profitable based on computer simulation results, when even relatively new players know that's not true - hence the mocking nickname. This must be that book. The original publishing date is 1988, apparently reprinted in 2003.
   
   For excellent coverage of the general principles behind strong poker play, see "The Theory of Poker," by David Sklansky.



2. I had high hopes for this book - a highly educated author, who turned to poker about 10 years ago. The kind verdict is that it is hard to understand; the unkind verdict is that it is hopelessly and seriously wrong (in places).
   
   I turned eagerly to the section on Hold'em. At the start of ch8 "Starting Hands", it says that "the return on investments of all the high pairs (TT or better) does not improve when more than 4 opponents are contesting the pot. High pairs, therefore, should be played against not more than 4 contestants." What on earth does he mean? You should fold AA just because 5 other guys reach the flop? Reading on does not do much to clarify. I think he means that with AA you should keep raising before the flop. But it is certainly hard to understand, particularly when two pages further on he explains that "Small pairs play best against more than 5 opponents".
   
   I have a maths degree, so I can easily cope with odds calculations, but some of his are at best obscurely presented and sometimes seem wrong.



3. This book is somewhat difficult to read, and adds nothing to what the better poker books teach. I don't think this book will turn you into a losing player, but your money is better spent elsewhere. I sold my copy soon after buying it.