Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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

Bellin's book, being reviewed on its merits, does not necessarily shine as an instruction on poker, for which there are already many serious titles written by champion players. (If you're curious, refer to 'Poker for Dummies,' by Lou Krieger and Richard Harroch for its syllabus on poker's Great Books.) Also, it does not serve as a major insight into the great champions of all time; for this, Alvarez has the edge, and in fact this book refers extensively to 'The Biggest Game in Town'.

So why read it?

For one, Bellin writes with great accessibility, intent on reaching the educated mind that knows next to nothing about poker. Some discussion of odds, strategy and game theory enters into this as a cursory matter, but again, he knows his audience well enough to stress human stories over mathematical propositions that would interest more serious players. While the average non-player couldn't care less about the odds of drawing to a double-ended straight after the flop, he would love to know what possesses bright and otherwise capable individuals to forsake the working world and depend on cards for a living.

For another, Bellin pays far more attention to the dark and self-destructive side of poker's lure. He relates the story of Dolly and Dicky Horvath, minor pros who find themselves so benumbed by their chosen profession that they turn to drugs and prostitution to return passion to their lives and generate money with which to gamble. He talks about Korean Rich, a corporate attorney who threw away marriage and a nigh-guaranteed life of affluence because he could not control his urge to gamble. More than Alvarez does, Bellin confronts the damage wrought on people who play a game with a month's salary at risk every night, and the myriad of losers required to make others successful in poker.

It's New Journalism, but so is almost every piece of non-fiction written with attention paid to one's entertainment since Tom Wolfe. With states and county governments looking for the Easy Way to expand their revenue bases and settling on legalized gambling, it's not very unlikely that everyone will find a lawful card room within a thirty-minute drive in the next decade. As Doyle Brunson put it, "Poker is a game of people," and Bellin has served to illustrate poker's minor characters with colors as vivid as others have its titans.

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.

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 information Bellin gives; in fact I think I played against them!), we learn of the trashy glitter of sex, drugs and pocket rockets, or how to be wasted, and waste your life while you're at it. I also liked his seemingly gratuitous "idiot jail story" in Appendix A.

By the time we get to the second-to-last chapter and get to see the other guy's hole cards we realize Bellin's point and why he slow-rolled the show down (but don't EVER do it again, Andy!). What he wants to demonstrate is that the quintessential thrill of poker lies in that second or two or three between the time you've made the final bet and the time you get to see the other guy's cards.

Andy Bellin understands the psychology of playing poker and the lifestyle. He knows what going on tilt is all about, and proves it by showing himself on tilt on page 132 as his jacks-full get cracked by quads. And he understands what money means to the player. It means being in action, first and foremost because being out of action is the player's death. And he recognizes that even winning poker players usually end up broke. And he knows why.

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 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 picked this book up at a used book store. I'd just started playing again after moving to a new city and looking for a small game with folks I knew. Andy Bellin is a mid-level card player, which is to say better than anybody I play against, and leagues better than I probably ever will be.
His writing style keeps the book moving, and he's got lots of interesting anecdotes, but in the end it comes across as a book he wrote in his spare time (nothing wrong with that, just obvious). He falls a little too hard into the mathematics of calculating odds. It's great stuff to know, but there are better books on the subject. Toward the end, he gets really lazy, using pages (not paragraphs, pages) of quoted material from his poker chums. If you're looking for the romance of poker, Andy Bellin will disillusion you pretty quickly. If you're looking to feel better about dumping $50/week at your buddy's house, and then trying to cover the loss so your significant other doesn't hit the roof, fine. If your looking to become a card-shark, this ain't it, and ain't intended to be.
Good job Andy on a fun book.

Andy Bellin seems to accomplish two things in his book, Poker Nation. While it is presented as entertaining poker memoir, it's also a lesson on how to be a better player. As I was reading and laughing at his stories and characters, I noticed he would slip in situations that asked the reader to consider strategy. It's the same strategy you might find in a Sklansky book, but Bellin gives you a better feel for actually being at the table and trying to make the decision. For example. . .

He talks about Rich who had a good job and a good wife, but lost everything, because he couldn't fold a hand. He had to play everything to the river. Who hasn't been tempted to play anything to end a losing streak? That's the genius of his book. It was an interesting story and a cautionary tale about foolish play.

Between anecdotes he slips in the advice that it's tough to get back to even after you've lost half your money. Life is really just one big poker game. Forget whether this one session is successful. It's better to leave a game that isn't working and make your money in a future game that suits your style of play. He also advises that having a cap on winnings is foolish for the same reasons. Why can't you win a ton in one session?

Bellin talks about check raising and pot odds and position and all the things that the instructional books talk about, but he offers these things in the format of situations he has encountered. Also he shares many great stories of famous and not famous players and how different people come to play poker for fun or for a living. The book is not only quick and fun to read, but it offers some great advice between the lines.

For experienced poker players, it's an account of one man's experiences with the game. For novice players, it's... well, the same thing, though I suspect beginner players will enjoy it a bit more. However, I think people with little exposure to the game might enjoy it more than anyone. It offers a glimpse into a world you might only have heard about through movies. Truthfully, for serious students of the game, there are no great insights here you haven't already read in much greater depth from one of poker's great authors. So just take take this book as a quick entertaining read and little else. On the other hand, if you've never read any poker books, but are intrigued by the game, then this book is a light, easy way to learn nuggets of knowledge you may be able to use playing against your friends.

You other reviewers are being too harsh! This isn't "Big Deal" or "The Greatest Game in Town" - it's Bellin's story! It's also not a new Sklansky or Malmuth book, and doesn't try to be that either...

It IS a very entertaining, easy and fun to read look at New York City and other poker from the viewpoint of, sadly, a person with real problems who has given up on finding what's important in life and for him. Some of the stories I'd read before in my other 50+ poker books, but most I hadn't... He took the real risk of sharing lots of deeply personal stuff on his own thought patterns, motivations, and failures, in the process letting us intimately know him. I found the mistakes, such as oxygen being pumped into the casinos (nope) and the "Treasure Island poker room" (he meant the Bellagio) irritating, and resented his fuzziness on cheating, which, as "the conjuring up of advantages not available to others," includes all collusion and card manipulations but never looking at cards someone puts in your face or moving to a high-card-rich blackjack table. However, maybe the lack of fact verification befitted this true Lone Wolf's approach toward everything - and his take on cheating was, as is so refreshingly true about the whole book, HONEST. Bravo, Andrey!

P.S.: You made a poor call with that seven-six of clubs. You were damn lucky his flush wasn't higher. But somehow I think you know that...