Customer Reviews

Getting Lucky: The Education of a Mad Poker Player

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

What a read!

Poker's Perfect Storm!

Finally, a brilliant writer that understands this game of games!

Not only will reading this book improve your level of play, but you will be captivated by Richard's wit and storytelling prowess.

Richard Sparks lets us into his heart and head as he competes and struggles to improve. And that is a very special gift to all who read it.

This book taught me, like no other, that the emotions and thoughts that cascade through me at the table are part of what binds us together as poker players. Our shared experience.

I loved this book.

After his first book, the author decides that he loves the game of poker and travelling the world to play it. He lacks only one thing: a good poker game. Mere mortals among us might read books, try software or discuss our play with friends to improve. Not Mr. Sparks. He enlists WSOP champ and author Tom McEvoy to coach him.

This method works like gangbusters. Sparks still struggles in battle at the tables, but now, he often wins. He learns from a research psychologist all about tells, in poker and otherwise. He meets all sorts of poker players, both famous and infamous. The famous include Josh Arieh, Ted Forrest, Clonie Gowen, Chris Ferguson, Greg Raymer -- you get the idea. The infamous player is an anonymous poker cheat who says that cheating goes on constantly in the poker room at every level.

He takes a poker cruise with everyone from Bill Gates to Mike Sexton aboard.

He tells us the story of Lyle Berman, great cash game player, pot limit Omaha expert and the man who started the World Poker Tour, The WPT is a big part of the energy behind the poker craze. Watch a poker game on TV, snooze time; watch a poker game on TV and see everyone's cards, instant hit. Berman put the first watchable poker on the tube.

He goes to the WSOP, this time as a player.

An informative, wide-ranging,and winning poker memoir.

Heck, I'm gonna raise my rating up another star because of all the great material in this book. I've read a lot of these poker memoirs lately, and this is one of my favorites.

There are plenty of poker "how-to" books on the market ("Secrets the Pros Won't Tell You" by Sheree Bykofsky and Lou Krieger is a good one). Unlike other poker authors, Richard Sparks takes as his subjects the who and what and why and where and when of poker. But, in "Getting Lucky" - the sequel to "Diary of a Mad Poker Player" - there is also an element of "how." This is because, after his first book, Richard realized that he needed help with his game. So he got 1983 World Champion of Poker Tom McEvoy to coach him for a year.

The result is an interesting new angle on poker teaching. "How-to" books are always written by the teacher. This one is written by the student. So you get to go through Richard's learning process with him, in real events, with real hands in real situations. You get to witness his mistakes, and hear what his coach has to say about them. The fact that Richard's results improved out of all recognition speaks for McEvoy's excellence as a teacher - for example, in July 2006, Richard finished 20th out of 2,891 entrants in the $1,000 No Limit Hold Em at the World Series of Poker.

Mainly, though, "Getting Lucky" is the story of one player's year in the heart of the current poker boom. There are poker greats and poker degenerates. There is a week of poker bliss on the Party Poker Cruise. There are unusual angles on the game: a lesson in reading body language from an Oxford Professor; interviews with poker luminaries like Lyle Berman, owner of the World Poker Tour. And there is the will-he, won't-he thrill of an ordinary player winning his seat in our World Championship, and playing in the Big One for the first time.

Richard Sparks is a professional comedy writer who clearly loves poker. "Getting Lucky" was obviously a labor of love.

There are a lot of "how-to" poker books, some considered must-haves. And there are a lot of "story" poker books, chronicling somebody's poker travels and travails. Of the many poker books of both categories I've read, I think this book is the single best combination of the two types.

It strikes just the right balance between seriousness and humor, between story and training, and between "me" (author) and "they" (the poker pros he talks to). In fact the "me" part is laudably light; the author lets the great minds of poker take center stage, and their wisdom really shines.

Originally, I borrowed this book from the public library but, as I read it, it became increasingly clear that this title belongs on my permanent poker shelf. So I bought a copy from Amazon. My bookshelf space is usually reserved for reference-type books that you can re-read multiple times to refresh your knowlege or pick up previously-missed nuggets from, not for "story" books, which I rarely go back to. The fact that this great book makes the cut says a lot.

Highly recommended (and reasonably priced too!).

I like this book. I downloaded it recently in Kindle format and am in the process of finishing it. The book is fun to read, and the detailed recounting of play with Tom McEvoy as a coach is worth many times the price of the entire book, in my opinion. Most of us will never be able to hire someone of Tom's caliber as a coach, but most of us do make some of the same mistakes that Tom points out in the author's play. I've seen many tournament situations identical to the ones discussed in the book, and wondered "did I play that right"? "Did I panic too early, or wait too late to pull the trigger"?

There are many poker books on the market written by expert players and strategist who know their subject without a doubt, but struggle with presenting it to their audience in an understandable form that is not a drudgery to read. While Mr. Sparks doesn't claim to be an expert or a pro, his coach certainly is, and is in my opinion one of the best around at putting his knowledge forward on a level that you can digest and use in your future play.

If you really don't want to learn anything then the book is a great read on it's entertainment merit alone. It offers an insight into the world of poker that most of us will never get to experience first hand. The forward warns to read the first book of this series before this one, but I chose to do it in reverse. I will certainly be adding it's predecessor to my library as well though.