Poker Nation: A High-Stakes, Low-Life Adventure Into the Heart of a Gambling Country

If I had a nickel for every poker book I've read I'd have a couple of bucks more than I have now. That's a tidy number of poker books. Of those books--I've still got about thirty of them around the house--none is more interesting than this fine piece of work by Paris Review contributing editor Andy Bellin.It starts out rather mundanely with a not entirely promising poker story that he doesn't finish until the penultimate chapter. There are some familiar quotes and some even more familiar poker stories (including the Wild Bill Hickok yarn about aces and eights), a table listing the ranking of poker hands (oh, boy) and another giving the odds and frequency of being dealt various hands in either draw poker or five card stud. (How valuable is that when those games are seldom spread anymore?)But then it gets interesting because what we discover is that Bellin really does know what he's talking about. He's been there and done that. Not at the highest level (see, e.g., Doyle Brunson's According To Doyle or Bobby Baldwin's Winning Poker Secrets for life there) but at the semi-pro level and as a journalist. He covers the poker experience from New York to Los Angeles through personal experience and from interviews with some of the personalities of the game including Benny Binion, Erik Seidel, Huck Seed and assorted rounders. Some of his information is from research, the Harry S Truman story, for example. He doesn't glorify the game or the players and he doesn't make himself a hero or a disinterested non-combatant either. In fact, the real value of this book is in the portrait of Andy Bellin, bright, very well-off, one-time Vassar (!) boy, who embarrassed his family and himself by spending a good part of his youth worshiping Pocahontas. In this part-memoir, part-participatory journalistic endeavor, Andy makes amends and demonstrates to all who care that actually he wasted nothing and has nothing to be embarrassed about.First of all, this is a poker book about real poker and real poker people, not the great geniuses of the game and not the low lifes hanging about--although there are a few of those--but about the fanatics, the degenerates, the semi- and sometime- pros who play like addicts or devotees of a bizarre and unforgiving religion. ("Pocahontas" is the player's goddess of poker.) Second, Bellin reveals himself blemishes and all, admitting that he sometimes cheated and got caught, that he spent some time in jail, that he wasn't as good as he thought he was, and that, like most of us, he fooled himself a whole lot. All this makes for a most interesting and disarming read.The chapter on cheating in which we see that the cheater need only cheat once or twice a night to ensure being a consistent winner, is excellent. The chapter entitled "Small-Time Pros" in which Bellin focuses on a man and women "combine" who worked the clubs in Los Angeles a few years ago (actually they played at the Hollywood Park Club, I can tell by some of the informati

Andy is playing Texas Hold 'Em poker in an underground club in Manhattan. Stakes are high. He's dealt some good cards and draws the best possible hand under the circumstances, a straight. He hides the strength of his hand, letting players with inferior hands set the action (and stay in the hand). The pot grows. The last card improves his hand to a flush, but someone could use the communal cards to make a higher flush. An opponent pushes all his money into the pot. Did Andy blow it by letting the opponent draw cards without paying enough for the privilege? Is he going to save $3,000 by folding the hand? Who has the better cards? Will Andy call the bet?The adventure begins.Over the 256 pages - which vanish in a flash, if you ask me - Bellin tells us, if not all he knows, all we can get a top insider in the poker world to share. The rules, the odds, the calculations. Vegas poker. AC poker. NY poker. Characters like the minister who plays in his local game, the young investment banker who borrowed money from everyone in the club before disappearing, the waitress who slept with Andy and stole his Rolex, only to hock it for poker money and show up at his table the next night. He tells fascinating stories about Doyle "Texas Dolly" Brunson, the late Stu "the Kid" Unger, Johnny "Oriental Express" Chan, and Benny Binion. He explains the relationship between poker and math, poker and luck, poker and religion, poker and relationships, and poker and work.By the time you get to the end of the story, you find out what happens with that hand of poker. More important, you see inside a whole world that is created whenever people, cards, and money come together.You would be hard pressed to name a book about any gambling endeavor that I have not read, or any poker book worth its weight in dollar chips. If you know poker books, then you loved Al Alvarez's The Biggest Game in Town and Anthony Holden's Big Deal. This book is, by every possible measure, as good or better. If you don't know a thing about poker, this book will appeal to you. Reading can take you to experiences you never knew, put you right there. This book does that, then does one better by examining the experience from numerous angles. If you are looking for a gift for someone who has any interest in poker and knows how to read, they will enjoy it. If you love the game yourself, this book will teach you the lore and history, and the characters, some insight on improving your game.(I have no economic interest in Mr. Bellin's book that contributes to this positive review. In fact, it has encouraged me to find the locations of local poker clubs, something that, unless I take his playing advice seriously, will COST me money. The book will give you the itch to play.)Mike C

I found Andy Bellin's new book to be a smooth (my highest compliment), literate, easy read on the journey through the different levels of the poker subculture. Entertaining and highly readable-- perfect for the night-time bedstand for those of us who are hooked on "America's game". Andy touches most of the required bases, from entertaining stories to odds and probability to the World Series of poker-- and wraps the whole thing in his own "personal journey" that has it's own twists and turns. A job nicely done. Larry W. Phillips, author of "Zen and the Art of Poker"

I snagged a copy of this book for my father, who loves poker. I myself have never been a huge card playing fanatic, but my Dad is. However, I started flipping through the book before I gave it to him, and found myself reading the entire thing. It's fascinating stuff, in my opinion more enjoyable than a poker game itself. I hope Dad agrees (although I don't think there's anything more enjoyable than an actual poker game to him, I'm sure he'll love the book all the same). I highly recommend it....

I am not an unbiased reviewer of this book. The author is my friend. But he is also the guy who taught me to play Texas Hold 'Em and other criminally fun poker games. So I can honestly report that this book captures all the energy of a poker table. This is a special book. Part "how-to" manual, part history book, part road trip and part joke compendium, POKER NATION weaves the many tangled threads of a great game. Impressively, it's all these things without ever trying too hard. Bellin writes with such an easy, conversational style that the book feels like an old pal is telling stories. Meanwhile, he still manages to slip in painless little lessons and probability problems. By the end of the book, the reader is not only immensely entertained, but is a better poker player.POKER NATION provides all of the action, thrill and brain rigor of a 10-hour visit to the Taj, without the secondhand smoke. Highly, enthusiastically recommended.