What Makes a Good Poker Book?

What Makes a Good Poker Book?

What should a good poker book do for you? What should a good poker author deliver to you?

Although many new players would like to think that a good poker book would teach you everything you need to play winning poker, and that a good poker author would put everything he or she knows into a book, neither of those hopes is realistic.

Poker books can certainly take a novice player and move him to intermediate status pretty quickly and cheaply, and can certainly introduce important advanced concepts to intermediate players, but books by themselves will never be enough. Reading about something is one thing, and putting it into practice is quite another.

And if you have hopes that a great player will put everything he knows about strategy into his book, forget it. A truly great player is always going to hold something back, or he probably isn't smart enough to be a great player. Maybe, possibly, if the player knew he was dying or retiring, he might be willing to put every strategic secret he knew on paper. But if you think a really good player is going to give away every last drop, and then still try to compete in money games or tournaments, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell you.

The person who probably comes closest to "telling all" in his books is David Sklansky, who has contributed mightily to poker reference literature, and whose publishing empire is big enough, and probably generates enough income relative to his playing, that he might consider telling all, but I have a feeling that even David hasn't written down everything he knows.

Mike Caro hasn't written everything he knows about strategy because much of Mike's knowledge comes from some mysterious alternate universe, and not even he knows when some new pearl of wisdom is going to flow across the interdimensional barrier.

On the other hand, if you've got a bit of the strategist in you, you have probably noticed that I've been referring to authors not revealing everything they know about strategy. It is possible for a good and wise author to reveal everything he knows about matters that are every bit as important as strategy, or to contribute mightily to your poker education with complete "lay it on the line" work.

One such author is Michael Konik, whose most recent work, Telling Lies and Getting Paid, offers poker players whose philosophical bent goes beyond calculating pot odds after the flop all they could hope for.

Konik is one of the very few literate and literary poker authors from this side of the pond. Most of the other good ones – David Spanier, Al Alvarez, and Tony Holden come to mind – are (or, sadly, in David's case, were) Brits.

Telling Lies and Getting Paid is a collection of some of Konik's previously published work, much of it about gambling subjects outside of poker, but the title piece is a previously unpublished saga of Konik's journey to poker's Mecca, the World Series.

When you read it – and I strongly suggest you make that a "when" and not an "if" – you'll learn the kinds of things a good player has to ask himself in a journey toward becoming a better player, and you'll learn about the difference between being merely very good and being truly great. You'll learn how important it is to know yourself and be honest with yourself. You'll learn about how difficult it can be to balance a "normal" personal life with a successful gambling life.

Konik is remarkably honest in the book (not a surprise to his friends, because he's a straight-shooting guy, but probably a surprise to most readers, who are used to their poker authors referring to themselves as infallible supermen), and that means you'll get a look at not merely his triumphs, but also his fears. It's nice to learn that you're not the only one with fears at the table.

Your own poker experience probably won't be like Konik's; his background is unusual for poker, rather a renaissance man. But if you want to see a good poker mind lay it all out there, and give you every bit of his personal experience trying to make it to the top, you won't skip this one. You won't learn a lot about strategy, but you might learn some good questions to ask yourself about your own poker journey.

Andy Glazer is the weekly gambling columnist for the Detroit Free Press and the author of Casino Gambling the Smart Way. He is also the online poker guide for www.poker.casino.com, and welcomes your questions and comments.