AimlesslyChasingAmy

Working on my latest project, I decided to reread some of the poker non-fiction that I hadn’t read for many years, as well as read some books that had passed me by.  I was wondering if some of the older books that I had loved so much when I was first discovering poker would stand the test of time.  After all, much of what I loved about them was their ability to unveil a secret world that I knew so little about.  In the post-boom era, the poker world holds few secrets even to casual television viewers.  Would that change my opinion of these books?  The answer was yes and no.

I had an almost unquenchable thirst for poker content when I first started playing.  Books like Alvarez’s The Biggest Game in Town and Holden’s Big Deal were treasured reads back then (Holden pictured above at the 2007 WSOP).  This time through, I loved them all over again; but at a different level.  I knew when I first read them that they were well written, but my appetite for the facts and stories almost muted my ability to appreciate them as literature.  Alvarez was primarily a poet when he penned The Biggest Game and on my second read through, that was so apparent; the language was rich and beautiful.  I reveled in his word choice.  And Holden’s almost self-deprecating tale of his adventure among the now legendary names of the game tickled me even more on a second read.  Maybe it helps that I have met Holden on numerous occasions and know that he is exactly as he portrays himself.  The players and stories they tell were small mysteries to me at this point.  I had read the books before and to some extent I have now seen this world.    But I enjoyed reading both these books even more the second time around.

I also recently picked up Poker Nation by Andy Bellin.  I remember reading the favorable reviews when this book first came out.  Unfortunately this was back before I was able to score free poker books and as a struggling student was trying to control my poker book budget.  I did actually pay money for this book, but I got a good deal at Half Price Books - and I was also planning to re-gift it to my brother.  Happy belated birthday bro.

I was anxious to read about the underground clubs in NYC in their heyday; so many great players were weaned in those basements.  I had of course seen the movie Rounders (I’m guessing dozens of times by now).  Katy Lederer’s Poker Face touches on them when describing Howard’s first foray into poker.  In some ways I felt this book suffered the ravages of time.  The stories about the rooms and the players were great.  The fact that Bellin offers a lot of playing advice was more of a distraction for me.  Had I read this back in 2002 when it first came out, I suspect I would have enjoyed the strategy portions of the book.  After many years of playing, five more years of strategy books on the market, and an era of televised poker, I found them to be a little uninspiring.

I was at first amused to discover that Bellin also avoided a college curriculum that involved writing, primarily due to his dyslexia.  This is #7 on my 50 Things About Me post.  However, as I read the book, I realized that the copy editor didn’t properly take that into account.  I found numerous errors.  Because I am dyslexic, I’m the last person who will find a typo or misspelled word, as Steve Brecher will attest.

When I was first blogging over at the mothership, Steve Brecher (pictured below at the 2007 WSOP) would often comment and send me personal emails correcting my many errors.  Blogging software does not have spellcheck and this was (and still is) an issue for me.  And even spellcheck is no panacea for the dyslexic.  Brecher was almost apologetic about it, but I thought it was great.  It was like having my own private copy editor.  I remember one post I made about Stu Ungar - only I wrote about “Stu Unger.”  Brecher pithily posted that I must be writing about Felix’s brother. 

I was reminded of this because Bellin misspelled Ungar’s name each and every time - which I might have missed if he had only mentioned him a couple of times.  As he refers to him more than forty times, even I had to notice.  There was also a major factual error.  He mentions that Stu Ungar died in November 1998, just a few months after his last WSOP Championship victory.  Uhh…somebody better tell Scotty Nguyen, the 1998 bracelet winner of record.  This book was published by Harper Collins; no slouches in the publishing biz. 

I did enjoy a lot of the content in Poker Nation, but I suspect I would have enjoyed it more back in 2002.  I also suspect that I did Bellin no favors by reading him right after rereading Alvarez and Holden.  So I have to say my book reading respite has been both humbling and cautionary.  I decided that if my book project ever gets published, I’m definitely hiring Steve Brecher as my copy editor.