Archive for October 27th, 2009

I like old poker books. It’s fun to see how people played, and talked about, the game decades ago. In “The Old School”, I share the best and worst from these antiquated tomes. Sometimes the strategy is laughable, sometimes it is surprisingly astute, but it always provides a unique insight into the history of poker.

Oswald Jacoby was a world-renowned bridge author and player who published 17 books and over 10,000 articles on that and other card games. In Oswald Jacoby on Poker, he turned his considerable card skill to “The Great American Game”.

Originally published in 1940, the book discusses primarily Draw and 5-Card Stud, with some attention paid to 7-Card Stud and to variations of these games. There is no mention of Texas Hold ‘Em, and only the briefest mention of any sort of community card game: Cincinnati, in which players have five cards of their own and five community cards from which to make a five-card hand.

There is also no mention of casinos or professional card rooms of any kind. It seems the intended audience are those playing in friendly games with family, co-workers, or fellow soldiers. Indeed, Jacoby explains how to set the stakes for various games so that they do not prove too high for anyone involved and proposes some means of compensating the biggest losers in any given session.  Read the complete post...