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

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

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.