This book holds a nostalgic place in my heart as one of the first really solid products to come out of discussions held on the newsgroup {\tt rec.gambling.poker}, although at that time it was just {\tt rec.gambling}. Percentage Hold’em, subtitled “The Book of Numbers”, is a set of explanations around an enormous number of simulations of how various Hold’em two card starting hands play against other starting hands, in situations ranging from heads-up play to eleven player tables.

The computing power available to the author at the time the book was written was a tiny fraction (probably less than 1/100) of what’s available on the desktop of the average reader of this review. Nonetheless, Case (a pseudonym, although the name the author reveals in the book, Will Hyde, seems almost equally improbable to me) performs enough calculations so that the results are trustworthy. The methodologies are clearly explained so that all but the most math-phobic reader can easily understand how the author arrives at his results.

The bulk of the book is made up of tables. These tables take a given two card starting hand in Texas Hold’em, for example, QJ suited, and ran it against from 1 to 10 random other starting hands 500,000 times each and determined what percentage of the time the given hand won. Of course, a hand that wins 37% of the time against 3 other opponents is probably worth playing. Therefore, Case also adjusts each hand based on the number of opponents playing, with any hand recording a positive number being a positive expectation play. There are additional tables detailing in each of these situations what the distribution of the values of the winning hands are (e.g., two pair, straight) among other information.

Case even goes so far as to advocate this Slot Gacor…

Japan were knocked out of the Confederations Cup on goal difference tonight after a 2:2 draw with Brazil sent the world champions through to face Germany in Saturday’s semi-final.

The heroic last stand of the Japanese will go down as one of their finer performances of recent years however and but for a controversial offside call in the first half they might yet still be in the competition.

Going in to this game Zico’s men could have adapted the title of a James Bond film as their motto: ” A Draw is Not Enough”, knowing Brazil’s superior goal difference would take them through in the event of a tie. Thankfully for the 44,922 on hand in the Rhein-Energie Stadion, both sides gave good value for money with skilful play and top-notch goals in a game difficult to take one’s eyes off.

The opening exchanges saw Kaka, Ronaldinho and Adriano rev their turbo-charged engines with hints of things to come but Japan shocked probably even themselves by netting in the fourth minute. Mitsuo Ogasawara released Akira Kaji on the right and the flying wing-back hit the ball firmly into the corner for what looked a valid goal only for the referee’s assistant to hoist a late flag. TV replays would later show this was a far from conclusive call.

A minute later Adriano fired off his first salvo of the evening, hitting the side-netting from a Leo assist and soon the game assumed a frenetic end-to-end character. Any side that allows Kaka and Ronaldinho the space and time Japan did in the first half invites trouble and the inevitable goal arrived after ten minutes’ play. Ronaldinho set off on what would be several counter-assaults during the evening with only Robinho in support but soon found three teammates had swelled the attack …