2005 a Very Good Year for Poker Books

The key word for poker in 2005 is more; more players, online and in cardrooms; more TV coverage of tournaments around the world (who would have believed that the affable Norman Chad could become a celebrity?); and more entrants in the World Series of Poker. But the poker boom has been felt in another sphere entirely: publishing. In 2005, more than 70 books were (or will be) published on the game, ranging from the sublime (Dan Harrington's two volumes on no-limit hold'em tournament strategy) to the ridiculous (Penn Jillette's specious book on how to be a poker cheat).

Publishers aren't stupid, of course. They're publishing more books on the game because the market for poker books is booming. Poker-related titles are regularly among the top 100 books listed on Amazon.com (of course, you buy your books through Card Player's web site, right?). In fact, some books have inspired real fanaticism. In July, I interviewed Howard Schwartz, the owner of the famed Gamblers Book Shop in Las Vegas, and he told me people were calling the store every day to find out when Volume II of Dan Harrington's treatise was coming out.

You can't read them all, of course, and you wouldn't want to. Here's my take on what you should read - and why - from the year that was. It's not meant to be truly exhaustive; I haven't read books like HoThe Badass Girl's Guide to Poker: How to Beat the Boys (by Toby Leah Bochan) or John Vorhaus' The Strip Poker Kit: The Game Where You Get to See a Whole Lot More of Your Friends, and I don't plan to. And I'm sure I've missed some good ones. But here are the books I've enjoyed, admired, and learned from in 2005. Buy them for yourself or drop a hint to your loved ones for the upcoming holiday season.

You Can Learn To Play Like Dan Harrington: Let me clarify: It's unlikely you will play as well as Dan Harrington, but you can learn how he approaches tournament play by studying, repeatedly, his magisterial two-volume set from Two Plus Two Publishing: Harrington on Hold'em: Expert Strategy for No-Limit Tournaments; Strategic Play (Vol. I) and Harrington on Hold'em: Expert Strategy for No-Limit Tournaments; The Endgame (Vol. II). As I've told virtually anyone who will listen to me (a surprisingly small number), "Harrington's book will change your life."

Harrington and co-author Bill Robertie provide an intricate, comprehensive window into the strategy not only of particular hands but for tournaments themselves (and note that they are very specific to tournaments; cash-game players can learn from these books, but the advice is definitely geared to tournament play). Volume I covers the basics, including playing styles, starting hands, pot odds and hand analysis, and preflop and post-flop betting. Volume II - which seems to resonate even more strongly with readers - covers "Making Moves" (bluffing) and the idea of inflection points: "how the strategy for proper play changes as your stack shrinks in relation to the blinds." This part of the second volume, by the way, can have an immediate and positive impact on your tournament play. It supplies a sound, actually easy-to-follow framework for making decisions when the blinds and antes get meaningful in relation to your stack.

What's most powerful about the books is their structure: problems, problems, problems. Hands are presented with simple graphics showing the stack size and position of the players involved, along with the blind/ante level and the pot size, and a summary of the situation. "Your" hand is given, and a question is posed (for example, "Should you fold, call, raise $30,000, raise $50,000, or go all in?"). Then the authors explain what you should do and why.

The Harrington/Robertie tomes are must-read books. The only flaw has nothing to do with the authors, but with the production of the books themselves; when you open the book, you break the spine. Surely this is something that could be fixed easily enough. (Harrington fans, get ready: A third volume in the series, in workbook format to let you solve the problems without reading ahead, is in the works.)

You Can't Play Like Stu Ungar: No book could ever teach you to play with the mixture of raw aggression and preternatural card sense of the late Stu Ungar, but you can read about his brilliance at cards - and incompetence at life - in the engaging One of a Kind: The Rise and Fall of Stuey "The Kid" Ungar, the World's Greatest Poker Player by Nolan Dalla and Peter Alson (Atria Books, $25; the book includes a foreword by Ungar's friend and poker celebrity Mike Sexton). Ungar was a natural card player - considered by many to be the best gin rummy player the world has ever seen - but his life was always a mess. Although he won the WSOP main event three times, he couldn't transcend his demons away from the poker table. He gambled wildly on events he knew nothing about, he was an inveterate womanizer, and he was addicted to all kinds of drugs. The poker world can only theorize about what Ungar might have accomplished; he died at age 45, broke, in a seedy hotel room in Las Vegas. The authors don't speculate too extensively on the demons that haunted Ungar, but his cautionary tale should be invaluable to poker players, and it's thrilling to read about his unique style of play.

You Can Think Like Phil Gordon: In his second book on the game, poker pro Phil Gordon - you may know him as the co-host of the Bravo network's Celebrity Poker Showdown - takes a very different tack than that of Dan Harrington. Harrington moves from the particular to the general, using detailed analyses of specific situations to elicit some guiding principles. In Phil Gordon's Little Green Book: Lessons and Teachings in No-Limit Texas Hold'em (Simon SpotLight Entertainment; $21), the author supplies the principles, and it's up to you to figure out how to apply them. Gordon has distilled his own wisdom about the game (along with that of several others; many of his ideas will be familiar to those familiar with the literature of poker) to create a compact but very useful introduction to no-limit hold'em. Gordon's book also includes a solid section on tournament play.

You Can Experience (Vicariously) The WSOP Main Event: If you're a fan of the World Series of Poker - and if you're reading this article, you know you TiVo every episode on ESPN - pick up All In: The (Almost) Entirely True Story of the World Series of Poker by Jonathan Grotenstein and Storms Reback (Thomas Dunne Books; $24.95). The authors have gathered every fact and every anecdote (as the title implies, they aren't seeking 100 percent veracity) about the famed event, from the very first affair in 1970 at Binion's Horseshoe right up to the excellent 2004 tournament in which Greg Raymer took home the bracelet and $5 million. Many of the stories will be familiar to students of the game, but it's still a pleasure to read about the evolution of this great event in a single volume. (A plea to the authors: Keep this history up-to-date. Write accounts of the subsequent events, starting with the 2005 WSOP, and post them on the Web and include them in future editions of the book.)

You Can Learn To Live (and Play) Like Barry Greenstein: Greg Raymer comes across as the quintessential nice guy (and I've heard rumblings that he has a book coming out; if true, let me know, Greg), but Barry Greenstein, who donates his tournament winnings to charity, comes across as a saint. His first book, Ace on the River (Last Knight Publishing Company, $25), is a sumptuously produced paperback that bills itself as "An Advanced Poker Guide." But the subtitle should read: "A Guide to a Life in Poker." You'll pick up some valuable strategies and tactics, but I wish every player would read chapter four, "How to Behave in the Poker Society." (Am I the only one who bemoaned the incredibly poor sportsmanship at this year's WSOP?) It's a solid entry into the poker book canon by a very smart, very thoughtful guy, with great pictures of people, cardrooms, and even his sample hands. (One quibble: If you do another edition, Barry, caption the photographs. Some readers won't recognize some of the players depicted.)

You Don't Want To Play Like Andrew Beal: Andrew Beal, a seriously wealthy Texas banker, learned to play poker and wanted to test himself against the world's best. His story is well-chronicled in Michael Craig's richly detailed (and wonderfully titled) The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time (Warner Books, $24.95). Beal played heads up against a who's who of big cash-game players (including Howard Lederer, Ted Forrest, Doyle Brunson, Todd Brunson, Chip Reese, and Jennifer Harman) in a series of trips to Las Vegas, culminating in a game with blinds of $100,000-$200,000. At one point, there was more than $20 million in chips on the table - not tournament chips, but the ones you get to cash in at the end of the session. Kids, don't try this at home! It's extremely compelling.

You Can Read More By Card Player Contributors: I'd be remiss if I didn't mention 2005 books by some of the writers who contribute to Card Player, including the excellent and unique book by Matt Lessinger, The Book of Bluffs: How to Bluff and Win at Poker (Time Warner Books; $13.95). It's the first book to deal exclusively with one of the most dramatic tactics of the game, and young poker pro Lessinger understands bluffing - and writes about it - quite brilliantly. And (forgive the suck-up) don't neglect the book written by the publisher of Card Player, Barry Shulman (with Mark Gregorich), 52 Tips for Texas Hold'em Poker (Card Player Press; $19.95). Omaha eight-or-better players might want to pick up Annie Duke's How I Raised, Folded, Bluffed, Flirted, Cursed and Won Millions (Hudson Street Press, $24.95), a mixture of narrative about her bracelet-winning performance in the 2004 WSOP Omaha eight-or-better championship, memoir of growing up in an eccentric household, and instruction on one of poker's most brutal and challenging games.

You Should Not Neglect the Classics: If someone asked me to name the best book ever written on poker, it would have to be The Biggest Game in Town by A. Alvarez, the 1983 classic about the 1981 WSOP (reissued by Chronicle Books in 2002, $15.95). The author, an English poet and essayist and a sophisticated poker player himself, participated in that year's event and wrote a penetrating account of the tournament and some of its most successful participants. Alvarez also wrote the text for the drop-dead gorgeous book Poker: Bets, Bluff, and Bad Beats (Chronicle Books, $29.95), an llustrated look at the game's history and paraphernalia. The funniest book about poker I've ever read is Andy Bellin's Poker Nation: A High-Stakes, Low-Life Adventure Into the Heart of a Gambling Country (Harper Collins, $23.95). And for home-game players, invest in the about-to-be reissued Thursday Night Poker: How to Understand, Enjoy - and Win by Peter Steiner (Ballantine Books, $14.95).

And You Should Keep An Eye Out For: I hope 2006 is another banner year for poker and for poker publishing, and I know I'll be reading and reviewing these forthcoming titles in the months ahead: World Poker Tour: Making the Final Table by Erick Lindgren (Collins, $15.95); Amarillo Slim's Play Poker to Win: Million Dollar Strategies From the Legendary World Series of Poker Winner by Amarillo Slim Preston (Collins, $14.95); World Poker Tour: In the Money by Antonio Esfandiari (Collins, $15.95); and Doyle Brunson's autobiography, coming out from Cardoza in March. And Jim McManus - the author of the solid, "New Journalism" style account of his own foray into the 2003 WSOP (Positively Fifth Street: Murders, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker; Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, $26) - is supposedly working on a comprehensive history of poker. I can't wait!