I hate to bump my football entry so quickly, but last night brought some breaking news.

Yesterday I had my finest day of online poker ever, and I’ve commemorated it by translating this blog entry’s title into computerspeak.  For those of you who don’t speak that language, it translates roughly to:  “Go me.”

A quick recap:

At 4:30 pm, I entered the Pokerstars Sunday Million, a $500 tournament, and sprinted out of the gate.  By the first break, I had a massive stack, which is very unusual for me.  I continued building my stack, and by 5:50 pm, I was sitting among the top 10 stacks in the field. 

At that point, I had a decision to make.  I had planned on entering the Full Tilt $750,000 guaranteed, a $200 tournament, at 6:00.  But because I had such a big stack on Pokerstars, and since I’m not a terrific multitabler, I was inclined to focus on the Pokerstars tourney alone.  But while weekends were made for Michelob, Sundays were made for online action.  So at the last second I decided to enter the Full Tilt tournament and play it on autopilot while the Pokerstars tourney was in the foreground. 

I ended up getting quite deep in the Pokerstars tournament while barely paying any attention to what was happening on Full Tilt.  I was vaguely aware of the fact that I was running very good down on that second screen, but all my energy was focused on a very tough, tricky table on ‘Stars.  Eventually, I busted out of the Pokertars event in a disappointing 90th place, which was good for a profit of over $2,000.  At that point–which was over 5 hours after it kicked off–I finally began to take a serious look at what was going on at the bottom of my monitor on Full Tilt.  I was somewhere around 20th place with roughly 150 players left out of 3,800.  Yes, I somehow accomplished this by playing like a robot.  Evidently my autopilot function was operating at peak capacity.

Three hours later I found myself at my first “Sunday Major” final table, in 2nd place in chips.  The final table didn’t go as well as I had hoped, however.  The short stacks repeatedly doubled up while my chips were whittled down.  Still, I played some pesky poker and hung around, finally busting out in 4th place, which paid a handsome $42,000, easily surpassing my largest prior online score.  Although I felt I could have done a bit better at the final table, a $44,000 payday is nothing to sniff at, and I was appreciative of that fact.

Even at lower stakes, I find online poker to be way more intense and stressful than brick & mortar poker.  So when the Full Tilt tournament wrapped up, I was still really wired.  Amazingly, it was only then that I suddenly realized that I hadn’t eaten since around noon–about 15 hours earlier.  Because it was now around 3:00 am, and further because I am a schlub who keeps nothing edible in his apartment, and finally because I had just won quite a bit of money, I decided to give myself a little treat.  I took a cab all the way down to East Houston street to my favorite 24-hour pita joint, Bereket, and helped myself to some doner kebab.

The meal cost $9.50.  Transportation there and back was $31.00. 

Well worth it and delicious.

My experience in the main event of the Empire State Championships was eerily similar to my experience in the WSOP main event.  I turned a set after the flop was checked four ways and someone else made the nuts.  It doesn’t seem like I’m very good at getting away from my hand when I hit a set on the turn.

Since I got home from Turning Stone, my life has become increasingly dominated by my biggest non-poker obsession:  pro football.  This time of year really charges me up.  While the players in the National Football League prepare for their season in training camp, I also prepare by devouring written material about the teams.  As many of you know, the only serious gambling I do other than poker playing involves betting on NFL outcomes.  I have been remarkably consistent in my NFL wagering and have shown a profit in almost every year over the past eight seasons.  I am considering scaling the operation up a notch in 2007, but I might settle into my typical pattern of conservative, smallish wagering.  I’m not sure yet.

In particular, I love betting on NFL futures, which require an analysis of season-long propositions.  So I’ve been giddily cramming information into my brain for the past week or so.  The most common form of betting on NFL futures is a pursuit that hundreds of thousands of Americans partake in:  fantasy football.  I am a long time devotee of fantasy football, which is a specific branch of football nerddom that I take a lot of pride in.

Most of the people who play fantasy football never take the time to consider the game’s framework and how it relates to succeeding at it.  I don’t want to write a long boring dissertation about that framework (although I’d probably get some perverse pleasure from doing so), but here it is in a nutshell.

Fantasy football requires each participant to come up with statistical projections for individual football players.  Most casual players do not take this task literally–they only decide whether a player will be better or worse than he was the prior year.  More serious fantasy football players do consider the numbers more literally.  Each players’ projected stats are a function of three variables:  talent, opportunity and luck.  Depending on a players’ position, one factor may be magnified more than another.  For instance, the talent component is probably strongest for quarterbacks, while the opportunity component is very strong in running backs and especially kickers.  Luck is very pervasive throughout the game, as it is the prime reason for an individual football player’s injury, and injuries are very destructive occurrences in fantasy football.

Once a player has an idea about his projections, he can rank players and participate in a draft, making minor adjustments to his rankings based on positional scarcity and positional need along the way.  Creating rankings is now easier than ever because numerous websites provide player projections and rankings that have been compiled with Bill Jamesian precision, using very sound statistical analysis.  Thus, any moron can now draft a decent fantasy football team by simply printing out a list and using it at his draft.  This makes fantasy football a lot less interesting than it was in its formative years.  In gambling terms, pre-draft studying used to create a nice edge, and it no longer does.

However, all is not lost.  Adding certain variables to the fantasy football mix can recreate “edge” and once again reward the football nerd who studies up and understands the game’s framework.  Typically, these variables are forming a “keeper” league (players can stay on your roster for two or more years) and/or running an auction (self explanatory) rather than a straight draft.  Adding these twists to fantasy leagues increases the number of factors a player must consider on draft day.  At its simplest level, fantasy football requires only contrasting player projections against positional scarcity and roster requirements.  When new factors are added to the mix, that base consideration is joined by other concepts such as long term statistical projections (added in keeper leagues), manipulation of opponents, bankroll management and third level thinking, a.k.a. “thinking a few steps ahead” (all added in auctions).  And that’s fantasy football, from a macro perspective, in a nutshell.

The concepts added in auction leagues are similar to many of the concepts that must be mastered in poker, which definitely accounts for my unnatural level of happiness while I’m drafting a fantasy football team, and may or may not account for my historic success at the game.

Now I must go back to studying wide receiver depth charts.  Nerrrrrrd!

I am in need of food and sleep, but I wanted to offer up a quick recap of the last six days.

First, the bad:

-I did not cash in the $300 w/ bounties, $500 or $1000 events.

-I suffered through my first bout of real loneliness after almost two years of off-and-on poker touring.   Unlike most poker players, I do not travel as part of a pack, which makes me an oddball.  I prefer it this way.  I do not want any “poker friends” unless they are also genuine, good-hearted people.  Unfortunately, many of the guys I’ve gotten somewhat friendly with on tour have an air of unpleasant desperation about them.  I really don’t need to be lending a degenerate my hard earned money.  So although I’m friendly with a lot of other players, I have chosen not to forge any real poker friendships so far.  Compounding things, I’m at freakin’ Turning Stone.  This means that I’ve spent six days by myself in the middle of nowhere at a facility that serves no alcohol.  I’m an odd solitary figure here, sitting in the 24-hour cafe reading a my book between bites of my turkey sandwich.  Still, I’m not going home to Janeen and NYC for at least one more day (see below). 

Things got so bad yesterday that I actually put in a lame request for a meetup on a poker messageboard.  I regretted doing this soon afterward, which was just as well since the request was met with complete indifference.  This is understandable (and probably for the best) since the average age of the people who frequent the message board is around 15 years less than mine.  I doubt the big meetup would have went especially well.  I haven’t done a bong hit in at least a decade and I don’t even know what a Volcano does.

Now, the good:

-I went to Dinosaur BBQ in Syracuse for lunch yesterday.  It’s still the best.

-The structure of the tournaments here is amazing.  The blinds increase more gradually than anywhere else.  You get a ton of play for your money.  $300 entry tournaments embark on a path that is similar to (if not better than) $3000 World Series of Poker events.  You get a lot for your poker money here.

 -I cashed in the $300 six-handed event.  This actually belongs in the bad news category, since my cash was for only around $480 after a long day of poker.  I felt I was on top of my game in this tournament, and I had a big stack with 30 players left.  Then I ran AK into a megastack’s AA.  I generally do not fold AK against one opponent at a five handed table, and I was the one who put in the fourth raise.  No regrets.

-I am on absolute fire in satellites.  They have been running nightly multitable satellites up here, and I’ve gone a Carew-like 4 for 4 in them.  First, I won three seats to tonight’s $1100 satellite, two of which were converted to cash.  Then tonight, for an encore, I won a seat into the $5200 main event, which starts tomorrow at 10:00 am.  I have found the satellite fields to be very soft.  Like all the other tournaments here, these fields are a combination of older guys who are not very good and young kids who are fundamentally rock solid and often tricky.  In the satellites, the poor players play even worse than they would otherwise.  This is because many of the old guys do not understand satellite strategy and play them as if they were normal multitable tournaments.  They just don’t get the concept that first place is the same as the last qualifying position.  Tonight was a very hairy tournament for me, and I had to do some wacky things like open-folding both QQ and KK in the late stages, but in the end I won my seat. 

Hopefully the momentum carries forward.  Big prize pool tomorrow.  That’s all for now.

After a lovely weekend in Ithaca & Finger Lakes region, I am now back to work.  In this instance, work means spending a full week at the Turning Stone Casino for the Empire State Hold ‘Em Championships.

First, my weekend.  It was a good one.  Janeen and I spent some time at some of my old college haunts (although we didn’t hit THE Haunt–Ithaca joke!), went wine tasting, and got a lot of relaxation in.  And, as an added bonus, I had my first near-NASCAR experience!  There was some kind of big race in Watkins Glen, so I unilaterally decided that we needed to check it out. 

Watkins Glen is very close to Ithaca, maybe only 20 minutes away, but I never traveled there during my four years at Cornell.  And this past weekend I figured out why:  like Ithaca, it is a pretty lakeside town, but it lacks Ithaca’s college campuses, sophistication and general hippy-dippiness.  What it does have is a big car racetrack, and this past weekend there was some kind of big race.  I’ve always been captivated from afar by car racing culture.  Not captivated by the car racing itself mind you, but captivated (again, from afar) by the people who care about it.  Specifically, I cannot wrap my head around the appeal of this sport, so I’m really curious about the people who love it.

I must report that my little tour of Watkins Glen only reinforced my preconceived notions of the car racing scene and did not reveal anything surprising.  There were a lot of the following:  mobile homes, shirtless men, fat women, big trucks and alcohol.  Oh… and people selling firewood.  All of which were expected, except for the firewood.

Onto Turning Stone.  I’m back at this place for the second time as a poker pro.  In past blog entries, I’ve covered what makes this place different than all the other pit stops on my tour, so I won’t belabor those points.  In short, there is nothing glamorous about this place, there is no booze on the premises, and it’s filled with poker players who are under the age of 21.

I played a $300 event earlier today and found myself seated at the same table as the kid who the poker cognescenti have annointed the biggest tournament prodigy in the world, i.e., the next big thing.  I am not going give his name, because I am about to be somewhat critical of him.  Of course, I saw nothing in his play that would lead me to believe that everyone is wrong about him.  He controlled the table throughout, and last I checked, he was still in tournament with only three tables (out of 31) remaining.

It’s his mannerisms at the table.  They’re disturbing.  He is a very respectful, deliberate player, which are both fine in and of themselves.  When the action is passed to him and he intends to fold his hand, he looks at his cards, pauses, and then tosses them in.  No problem there.  It’s when he plays a hand that things get peculiar.  If the action is folded to this kid and he intends to play his hand, he goes through the following routine:  he looks at his cards, pauses, cocks his head back slightly, pauses again, then fixes his face with a blank, open-mouthed expression.  He then maintains the same disquieting facial expression, which can best be described as Schiavo-esque, as he very slowly riffles his chips, selects the amount he wishes to bet, and very, very slowly places them in the pot.  This routine is repeated on every betting round, and it is unnerving.  People might not feel comfortable admitting it, but I’m going to come out and say it.  No one likes having to stare at a mentally disabled person.  As a child, everyone is taught not to stare at them, and you follow this rule for the rest of your life.  Playing poker with this kid forces you to break this rule and entails several hours of staring at a tard.  Not natural, and not fun.

This kid’s routine likely derives from watching Phil Ivey play.  Everyone knows that Ivey makes that expressionless mouth-breather face all the time, thereby giving off no tells and taking everyone’s money.  And since Ivey is an amazing poker player, imitating him is something to be expected and can hardly be critisized.  But this kid’s routine is no mere imitation.  He’s taken it to another level.  During his mouth-breather moments, Ivey actually looks around and continues to play relatively fast.  This kid, on the other hand, has managed to master a completely braindead countenance and plays slower than almost any opponent I’ve ever seen.  And the kid is a great player and who is going to be playing the same tournaments as me for a long time.  Please God, I implore you, make him stop doing that goddamn face!

Another prodigal player was in today’s tournament, and he is even harder to miss.  I’m once again not naming names.  Here’s a dead giveaway:  there is no poker player in this scene who is more maligned about his appearance.  Unfortunately, this kid just doesn’t get it; basic fashion sense evades him.  Here is an ironclad rule from a guy with limited fashion sense:  when people are constantly ripping you for the way you look, do not show up for a big tournament wearing jean shorts.  NO JEAN SHORTS.  This player happened to be sitting on the biggest stack in the room with three tables remaining, by the way.

Here’s my bustout hand, for those of you who might be curious.  With half the field gone and my stack at 7200 at the 100-200 blind level, a crazy donk is moved from another table to my immediate right.  He has like 12,000 chips, then increases his stack to around 20,000 chips by openlimping QJ under the gun, calling a 500-chip raise from a player in middle position and cracking KK on a K-10-9 flop.  He now has every other player at the table easily covered and proceeds to play half the hands in the next orbit with crappy holdings and mixed results.  Then it’s my big blind and his small blind.  The action is folded to the button, a standard TAG player with about 3500 chips.  TAG openraises to 600.  The crazy donk looks at his holecards and without hesitation announces that he is all in (yes, all in for 20,000).  I am holding AK, and the more I think about it, the more I realize that AA and KK are out of this guy’s range, and that AQ and AJ are included in that same range, which obviously also includes many pocket pairs.  I decide to call, the button folds, and I lose a race to the crazy donk’s 99.  A lot of people would fold in that spot, but I will not, and I’m not second guessing myself.  My edge over the field isn’t so strong that I’m going to pass on a +EV situation. 

Anyway, I whiffed that tournament but won a satellite into a $1000 event later in the week, so I’m technically ahead on this trip so far.  I will probably do some more random musing later in the week.

I recently received my copy of a new, highly acclaimed instructional poker book. It’s called Professional No-Limit Hold ‘Em, and you should believe the hype. The authors, Matt Flynn, Sunny Mehta and Ed Miller have done something that is not easy: created a book on no-limit hold ’em that breaks new ground. Not only that, but this book succeeds in presenting some well-known concepts that have previously defied description in a neat, concise way. I’m only about halfway through the book but am already pretty sure that it’s the best book on no limit hold ’em cash play since Super System. You should read it.

Reading my first poker book in quite awhile has a nostalgic feel. This is because I read literally every poker book on the market from the years 2001 through 2005. It was only when that market got completely glutted that I stopped purchasing (and devouring) poker books as fast as the publishing companies could release them. I’m a tad more selective now. As I’ve mentioned before, the years 2001 through 2005 in my life were a continuous course in poker. I’m self-schooled, I was my own professor. And it wasn’t an easy course. I studied my poker textbooks a lot harder than any of the other textbooks I’ve ever come across, and there had been a lot of nasty ones.

As a result, my apartment is overflowing with books about poker. If a stranger took a look at the crammed bookcases in here without inspecting the titles, he’d think that I was a literary sort. And that’s amusing, because nothing could be farther from the truth. I don’t read fiction at all, and I have little apprecation for most widely-acclaimed books. What I am is just a guy that really likes to read about poker.

So without further ado, here’s a very short review of each book in my apartment, presented in whatever order they’re pulled off the shelf.

Poker for Dummies, Richard D. Harroch and Lou Kreiger (2000). The very first instructional poker book that I purchased. I only remember one thing about this book: It was the book that introduced me to Stu Ungar, a person I have been fascinated by ever since.

The Poker Tournament Formula, Arnold Syder (2006). This book is such garbage. The only section that isn’t total dogshit is the part about profiling opponents. The fact that this book was published is a testament to how profitable anything related to poker has become. The fact that I own it probably says something sad about me.

Super System 2, Doyle Bruson and others (2005). The long-awaited sequel to the grandaddy of them all, Super System, the most influencial poker book ever written. Part 2 has several stellar sections on the various forms of poker (and the no limit hold ’em section from the original is left mostly unmolested), but the most fascinating section for those who are already familiar with the original is Crandall Addington’s description of how no limit hold ’em infiltrated the Vegas cardrooms in the 1960’s and 70’s.

Your Worst Poker Enemy, Alan N. Schoonmaker (2007). A surprisingly helpful book, and by far the best one on the topic of poker psychology. Reading the enlightening chapter on the struggle between the ego and the id at the poker table inspired me to buy a book about Sigmund Freud.

Ace on the River, Barry Greenstein (2005). Meh. Greenstien gives us a 300-page paternal lecture about how a professional poker player ought to conduct himself and his business. A lot of people love this book, but much of what it contains is just common sense. It should be required reading for college-age poker geniuses who are playing over their bankroll, but no one else. The pictures are excellent, though.

Winner’s Guide to Omaha, Ken Warren (2003). Very basic how-to. Don’t play bad starting hands in Omaha, everyone.

Championship No-Limit & Pot-Limit Hold ‘Em, T.J. Cloutier and Tom McEvoy (1997). I HATE this book. Because it was the only tournament poker book available when I began playing serious poker, it became my bible by default. I therefore read it cover-to-cover at least five times. My copy of it is weather-beaten, numerous passages have been underlined, and its margins are filled with my notes. All of this is incredibly tragic, because the book teaches you to play tournament poker like a pussy. I’m not sure if T.J. actually believes what he “wrote” (the material was actually culled from a couple of interviews) or if he was playing a cruel trick on his future adversaries. Either way, this book is toilet paper and has no use in modern poker.

Hold ’em Poker for Advanced Players, David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth (1988). If you exclude my childhood favorite Harold and the Purple Crayon, this is the single work of literature I have spent the most time clutching in my short life. And it’s easy to tell: my copy of this book is in woeful shape. The binding no longer works, so the entire thing is tattered and falling apart, with various pages loose and out of order. This is an absolutely amazing book, and it is where many concepts that are now completely taken for granted–such as expected value, semibluffing and free cards–were first thoroughly discussed. Mostly because of this book, David Sklansky is to limit hold ’em what Hugh Hefner is to pornography. I read (and read, and read, and read….) this book until all of its precepts were embedded permanently in my brain. The moment I accomplished this was the moment I began to destroy bad poker players.

The Book of Bluffs, Matt Lessinger (2005). In light of the goofy name, this book is surprisingly solid. Maniacs would be good poker players if they understood what conditions were not right for running a bluff. This book does a good job of explaining when and why it’s right to bluff, and when and why it isn’t.

Tournament Poker for Advanced Players, David Sklansky (2002). This book couldn’t come along soon enough for me. Not because it’s such a great book, but because it saved me from Cloutier. This book was the first to explain why a tournament is different from a cash game, and it introduces the all-important concept of fold equity, thereby setting the foundation for good tight-aggressive tournament play. I really owe David Sklansky.

Professional Poker–The Essential Guide to Playing for a Living, Mark Blade (2005). This book can be summed up pretty neatly in one sentence: playing poker for a living is not as easy as it looks. Blade tells us all about paying taxes, staking arrangements and handling downswings. Exciting stuff.

The Making of a Poker Player, Matt Matros (2005). One of poker’s leading “math guys” does a good job of telling the story of how he went from a run of the mill nerd to the final table of a WPT event. It’s a pretty decent book considering that it’s not terribly different from this blog.

How To Win at Omaha High-Low Poker, Mike Cappelletti (2003). A short, basic how-to. Hey everyone: you should only play very strong starting hands and concentrate on scooping pots in Omaha Eight or Better.

Poker Nation, Andy Bellin (2003). Coming along right on the cusp of the poker explosion, this book is an entertaining memoir about life in New York’s underground poker clubs and borderline degeneracy. I strongly identified with the author, who is clearly capable of doing very well in the straight world, but prefers a life without alarm clocks. I read this one twice.

Big Deal, Anthony Holden (1990). This book had an immense influence on me, and I discovered it under strange circumstances. Big Deal was recommended to me by a high ranking partner at my first law firm. I was not being assigned any work at all, so I asked the partner who was in charge of assigning matters to associates to have lunch with me. He agreed, and at an outwardly convival lunch, I shared with him my growing fascination with poker. He said that if I like poker, I must read Big Deal. I went out and bought it later that day. Less than two weeks later I was fired, most likely at the behest of the very person who recommended this book to me. The book is a funny, endearing firsthand account of the author’s attempt at playing professional poker for one calendar year. It holds a special place in my heart and served as a beacon in an extended dark period of my life. Holden’s book double dog dared me to dream about playing poker for a living, and I guess I’m the kind of guy who takes dares seriously. Looking back, I would like to sincerely thank Bob Fischler for both pointing me in the direction of Big Deal and for possibly firing me.

Bigger Deal, Anthony Holden (2007). I’m sure you can imagine how excited I was when I heard a sequel to Big Deal was coming out. Alas, it’s not much of a book. It certainly has its moments, and Holden is as wry as ever, but it still falls a little short of the mark. Oh well.

No Limit Hold ‘Em Theory and Practice, David Sklansky and Ed Miller (2006). This is a serious advanced how-to that will improve any intermediate-level player’s game. No limit is a game that resides in a murky place somewhere between the structured mathematics of probability and the magic netherworld called “feel.” This book does a good job of bridging that gap by providing mathematical proofs of several plays previously ascribed to “feel.”

Six to Five Against, A Gambler’s Odyssey, Burt Dragin (2005). This book rules. I have never seen or heard it discussed anywhere, and it obviously was never highly acclaimed, but I’m glad I whimsically purchased it one day last year. It’s only peripherally about poker. But if you have ever wondered why you get a charge out of watching big inbred animals running in circles, or wondered why standing there watching dice bouncing around a table for hours on end is fun, you should read this book. Partly autobiographical and partly scientific, this book shares the story of an addicted gambler, and then embarks on an in-depth attempt to answer a question pychologists have grappled with for years: “why do people gamble?” Dragin accomplishes this in a remarkably sympathetic way, without ever losing his sense of humor. This book is one of my all time favorites.

Winner’s Guide to Texas Hold ‘Em Poker, Ken Warren (1996). The fact that I own this book is a good evidence that instructional poker books were a lot more scarce at the turn of the century. I don’t recall much of what is in this book, but i’m pretty sure that it will help you beat the 4-8 limit game at the Trop.

The Theory of Poker, David Sklansky (1987). This book is the poker equivalent of the first page of the Old Testament. God may have created light, but Sklansky created EV, and he saw that it was good. Despite incessant archaic references to forms of poker that no longer exist, this book remains worth reading.

The Gambler’s Guide to Taxes, Walter L. Lewis, CPA. Self explanatory.

How to Turn Your Poker Playing Into a Business Ann-Margaret Johnston, CPA. Also self explanatory. When I first went pro, I thought these skinny little manuals (practically pamphlets) might give me some special insight into taxpaying, but the right advice boils down to “keep good records and find a good accountant.”

Pot-Limit & No-Limit Poker, Stewart Reuben & Bob Ciaffone (1997). This book was ahead of its time. Only about 20 of the 200 pages have anything worth reading on them, but those 20 pages are excellent. This book does a great job explaining the value of position and implied odds in no limit games, and it was published long before those concepts had been fully fleshed out in the rest of the poker literature.

Online Ace, Scott Fischman (2006). There was a good deal of hype before this book hit the scene, all for naught. The book is forgettable other than a few profiles of successful online players.

The Psychology of Poker, Alan N. Schoonmaker, Ph.D. (2000). It might have been the first book to really explore the emotional side of poker, but it’s still not worth reading. It gives a few common sense pieces of advice. Schoonmaker did a lot better with his second book on this topic.

Making the Final Table, Erick Lindgren (2005). This book is seldom mentioned by anyone as having any special influence in the poker world, but it engineered a huge phase in my development as a player. Before I picked up this book, I could not get the idea that I needed to loosen up, gamble and accumluate chips through my thick skull. This book is written in a matter-of-fact, conversational way, and it was preciesely what I needed at precisely the right time. It was as if Lindgren was personally telling me to quit being such a tightass and go on the attack. My tournament results improved immediately thereafter. Thanks, E-Dawg!

Play Poker Like the Pros, Phil Hellmuth (2004). Obviously put together by a group of people looking to capitalize on the name Phil Hellmuth at the outset of the poker boom, this is among the worst books I’ve ever read. The supposed aim of this book is to teach beginners how to play poker, but it gives faulty advice at every turn. The most interesting thing about this book is that the author writes in a modest, friendly tone, so we are left to wonder who the ghost writer is.

The Biggest Game in Town, A. Alvarez (1983). The greatest book about poker ever written. Short but powerful and moving. I’ve read it probably five times. Reading this book gets me so charged up. Charged up in the same way that hearing the old-school Monday Night Football theme music gets me charged up. If you have any appreciation whatsoever for the game of poker, you are doing yourself a grave disservice by not reading this book.

Poker: Bets, Bluffs and Bad Beats, A. Alvarez (2001). A coffee table book with a bunch of insightful snippets about poker, and very impressive photographs. You won’t learn anything from this thing.

Positively Fifth Street, James McManus (2003). This book came along at just the right time for me. Just as poker was being romanticized in my mind, McManus’ very romantic retelling of his miracle trip to the Main Event final table hit bookstores. Oh, and it’s also about the murder of Benny Binion’s son. The parts of the book that discuss big tournament poker and the game’s history are illuminating. The murder stuff is a bore.

Read ‘Em and Weep, John Stravinsky, ed. (2004). A collection of short stories and magazine pieces about poker. A fine job of editing was done here, as the pieces run the gamut from an attempted interview with Johnny Chan to a frank disourse on running scams on Mississipi Riverboats in the mid 19th Century. The most hilarious is James Thurber’s contribution, called “Everything is Wild.” I have always wanted to tell everyone in my old home game to read that short story. Read it, guys!

Scarne’s Guide to Modern Poker, John Scarne (1980). What an ironic title. This book is outdated garbage. I have no idea why I own it.

The Championship Table, Dana Smith, Tom McEvoy and Ralph Wheeler (2003). An attempt to recount every Main Event final table in World Series of Poker history. This is a daunting task, and for the most part, this book fails. My ownership of this book illustrates just how desperate for poker knowledge a person can be.

Improve Your Poker, Bob Ciaffone (1997). A book with a lame title like this is destined to suck, but this book does not. It’s a hodgepodge of slapped together advice in no discernible order, and most of it is good.

Super System, Doyle Bruson and others (1978). Here it is. The book that changed the game. Many of you are familiar with the story of how this book was published, so I won’t bore you with that now. The book itself is startlingly large (604 pages crammed with info) and startlingly poorly written from a technical standpoint. Annoying people who are anal about the proper use of the english language will tear their hair out after eight pages of Super System. But if you can get your dim little brain past that issue, this book is a straight-up miracle. Brunson and company revealed, in 1978, things about poker that no one else–literally no one in the world–understood. The legendary section on no-limit hold ’em, which at that point in time was a game played only in the deep South and Las Vegas, and only played for mega-high stakes, changed the game forever. It’s the functional equivalent of Adam Smith on economics or Charles Darwin on evolution. The concepts presented by Texas Dolly, despite being previously unreported, are now part of common poker knowledge. Specifically, Brunson explains, in a printed form of Texal drawl that you can practically hear through the page, that aggression wins in no limit hold ’em. He thoroughly explains how to beat the piss out of weak-tight opponents by pounding away on them. Any studious player who started to play poker seriously before the year 2004 will cite this book as a major influence. Part of what makes the movie “Rounders” so authentic is that Super System makes an appearance in one of the opening scenes.

Winning 7-Card Stud, Ashley Adams (2003). Some years ago, the guys on rec.gambling.poker convinced me that I needed this book, so I bought it. I still don’t play much stud and still don’t know what’s in it. Maybe one day.

One of a Kind, Nolan Dalla (2006). The definitive biography of Stu Ungar. It’s hard to take the most compelling figure in modern poker and turn out a boring book about him, but Dalla managed to accomplish this. The sections about Stuey’s rise, dominance and inner demons failed to move me. The section about his pathetic demise is the best part of the book.

Harrington on Hold ‘Em, Vols. 1, 2 and 3, Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie (2004, 2005, 2006). Even though I’ve mentioned many influencial books in this blog entry, the first two Harrington books likely have had the strongest impact on how I play poker. When the first book was released, I had a semblance of a tournament game with numerous leaks (or, in today’s popular lingo, I was “spewy”). By the time I finished reading and applying the second volume, I was a near-expert tight-aggressive strategist. No poker books published before these taught poker as effectively. This is probably mostly due to the textbook-like format: chapters followed by multiple choice exercises. The first Harringtons are brilliant, and are capable of transforming any marginally intelligent, dedicated person into a formidable tournament player. The third book, which is in workbook format, is only okay.

That’s it for now. I’m sure there are a few books laying around here that I forgot, but you get the picture.