Draw Poker: Play Poker, Quit Work and Sleep Till Noon

[Al Mirpuri]

I have just finished reading John Fox's book (originally published in 1978).

A few thoughts:

Jacks or better, California Draw was much more interesting and difficult than today's two blinds format,

Fox's point count for determining whether to sandbag (check and then raise when someone else opened) or not was truly revolutionary (even if later shown to be flawed by Mike Caro in Supersystem),

For some unfathomable reason, Fox only thought of raising when strong after the draw or calling if you thought your opponent bluffing he never seemed to think a call for value was in order. I take it Fox was not implying that he was 'card reading' was so precise that a player was only confronted with the raise/fold dichotomy after the draw but I have a bad feeling that maybe he was doing just that but he does not state it explicitly,

In one of the poker essays books Mason Malmuth mentions Jacks Back which was played without the bug and was Jacks or better unless passed out when it became lowball. This seemed like a hell of a game to me but no mention of it in Fox's book so if nothing else he was not enamoured of it. Do any of you old-timers remember it?

Finally, what was 'old reliable' the tell so powerful that if your opponent was bluffing it revealed it to you infallibly. A tell so powerful that Fox sold it separately for $25 (in 1978!)? Not that I think such a thing exists but it is interesting that Fox thought so. (It is not the 'weak when strong, strong when weak' tell nor the 'lots of chatter when good silent when bluffing' or 'looks at you when bluffing, looks away when strong', all of which are mentioned in the text so just what could it be?)