In order to voice and make a good argument for what’s likely to be an unpopular stance, you need to have a few things going for you. Backing up your opinion with facts, statistics and other relevant data is the fastest way to gain credibility for your cause. Another factor that helps is to stand by your stance, even if the face of what is certain to be harsh criticism from those who disagree with you.

Unfortunately, the author of the maverick poker advice book “Play Poker Like A Pigeon … And Take The Money Home,” does neither. Which is too bad because, as both a journalist and a writer who enjoys a well-informed commentary, I think the writer makes a few strong points as he dissects – and for the most part disses – the popular poker world as we know it.

This could have been a pretty successful, for lack of a better term, anti-establishment poker piece, but the author lost his credibility – and my respect – throughout by making numerous factual errors and spewing several other unfounded claims.

What’s more, the author’s insistence on remaining “anonymous,” which he says is a must, lest the revelation of his identity ruin his poker career, seems to be the equivalent of writing political propaganda on a public bathroom wall. If you’ve got something controversial to say, you ought to have the courage to put your name behind it.

I bought the book because of its quirky title and because, frankly, it was being sold for pennies on the dollar off a popular book-selling web site. I wanted to see if there was anything to the author’s promise of teaching the game in ways you probably hadn’t though of.

And there is. It should be noted that, for what I paid for it, the book probably is worthwhile if you take in some of the concepts from Mr. Anonymous and his poker stylings, even if you don’t totally agree with his perception of the game.

He advocates an against-the-grain style of playing poker, reasoning that if your opponents can’t possibly conceive why you played certain hands – not necessarily how you played them – then they’ll never be able to figure you out as a player. He recommends purposely acting like a doofus at the table in some instances, doing things like “accidentally” exposing your hole cards once in a while so that your more sophisticated opponents will think even less of you.

Much of the “strategy” text is interesting and written in a conversational and oftentimes humorous tone by Mr. Anonymous. However, his liberal use of profanity wears thin at times, and his general cynicism about poker does likewise.

Mr. Anonymous says we should trust his teachings because he’s carved out a nice living playing by his own rules for several decades, and he gives a few anecdotes that suggest he has rubbed elbows at the poker table with some of the most recognizable names of the old-school poker frontier such as Doyle Brunson and Puggy Pearson. Although he won’t give his name, he does provide an e-mail address with a promise of responding to all reasonable questions quickly.

All of this is fine until he starts delving into analysis and stories of recent tournaments and players, and routinely gets multiple facts wrong at every turn. For instance, he claims that Greg Raymer won $4 million for his 2004 WSOP Main Event title when, in fact, Raymer earned $5 million. He goes on to say that Ramyer had an impressive 34th place finish the following year, when “Fossilman” actually finished 25th. These may seem like minor errors, but they add up to a heap of lost credibility when you get into the author’s more intense rants.

His most colossal blunder was in his description of the crucial hand in the 2003 Main Event in which Chris Moneymaker bluffs all-in on the river against Sam Farha, to which he dedicates almost a full chapter. He is critical of Farha’s play throughout, especially when Farha, whose Q-9 gave him top pair, just calls Moneymaker’s (K-7 with the king of spades) huge raise on the turn, as opposed to going all-in or folding. With a 9-high board and three spades showing, Mr. Anonymous claims Farha’s predicament got worse when the “ace of hearts” hit the river. Since Moneymaker had raised pre-flop and on the turn, our author correctly reasons that the ace would be the most bluffable card in the deck for Moneymaker to represent, and that Farha really had no choice but to fold.

This would be a legitimate criticism if, in fact, the ace of hearts had actually hit the river. Something struck me as odd when I read the author’s recollection because I thought I remembered the board reading 9-high after all the cards were dealt. Sure enough, the day after I read the chapter, the episode played for the billionth time on ESPN Classic and revealed the river card to be … the 3 of hearts!

It was not the ace, as our erstwhile pigeon writes. This, to some degree, might strengthen the argument for Farha to call. But if you’re going to critique one of the most memorable hands in televised poker history, getting your facts straight is an absolute must. Mr. Anonymous really could have benefited from both an editor and a fact checker and, the more you read, it becomes obvious he had neither.

So, Poker Pigeon man had pretty much already lost my attention by the time I got to what other reviewers regard as perhaps his most controversial chapter. In it, he suggests all of online poker is rigged and only a fool would put his money at risk on a poker web site. His logic? Well, one of his friends got ripped off playing blackjack on some seedy offshore gaming site. That, and when Mr. Anonymous finally decided to give online poker a shot, he had 20-plus consecutive losing sessions, and his bad run couldn’t possibly be a short-term variation because he has never gotten so unlucky for so long.

If you ask me, it sounds like one paranoid, prolonged, bad beat story. Without any hard evidence to support this -- and without facts to back his other claims -- it’s difficult to give this pigeon more than a few crumbs worth of credit.