[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Everyone:

Here are two comments I have.

First off, I would argue that HPFAP is the most under-rated book as opposed to over-rated. No book in the history of poker impacted games like this book did. Remember, the original version came out in 1988 when the typical regular was extremely weak-tight, and we have sold over 250,000 copies. So it's influence was certainly felt.

Second, there is no question in my mind that Super/System is the most over-rated book of all time. Before the poker boom began it was basically a forgotten book. Our books, like Theory of Poker, Hold 'em Poker for Advanced Players, and Seven-Card Stud for Advanced Players, as far as I could tell, far outsold it, and no serious player took the advice it contains seriously since there were better sources for all the games it discussed except for no-limit hold 'em which virtually no one played as a cash game for close to twenty years. Then when the boom started, the publicity machine began and you would hear over and over how it was the "bible of poker." If that would have been the case, there would have been no Super/System II.

By the way, don't misconstrue my remarks to say that Super/System I is a bad work. That was certainly not the case. But with the exception of the stud section, by 2003 (when the poker boom started), the rest of the book was completely obsolete. Draw poker, both jacks-or-better and ace-to-five lowball was dead, limit hold 'em had the old blind structure which makes the given strategy flawed for the double blind structure that has been the standard since the early 1980s, razz was basically a dead game, deuce-to-seven no-limit draw was only played by a very small number of people for high-stakes, stud high-low-split was now played as eight-or-better on those rare occasions (usually around a tournament) that it was spread, and no-limit hold 'em as a cash game essentially didn't exist. Yet I saw interview after interview, as well as constant write-ups, that this was the bible of poker.

Best wishes,
Mason