Though Andy Bellin claims to be a semipro poker player this book is more a journalistic approach to the game of poker than an insider report as the cover pretends. The target audience for this book is definitely home games poker players who want to find out more about their favorite game and not serious poker players. Each chapter deals with a specific aspect of the game, but most of the time the treatment is superficial. The discussion about playing hands, bluffing and odds is very simplistic. For example, he tells you that if you hold pocket queens in hold’em with a the flop of T♣-J♠-Q♣, and the “turn is another club or straight card, your three queens become almost unplayable.” This might be true in pot limit, but in limit poker this is total nonsense. You always have the correct pot odds to draw for a full house or quads. The included chart about odds and probability, taken from Ken Warren’s book “Winner’s Guide to Texas Hold’em Poker”, leaves a bad impression for two reasons. First, Warren’s book is a dubious source at best (fortunately the numbers are correct in this case) and second, it’s not too difficult to do the calculations yourself. Frankly, a seven year old schoolboy with a pocket calculator could figure it out.

The chapter on “Big-Time Pros” is odd. Bellin describes how he and another journalist tried to get an interview from Huck Seed and Johnny Chan. Then there are some secondhand stories about Stuey Unger and that’s about it. There is too little and what there is of it is not very satisfying or enlightening. I like Jesse May’s novel “Shut up and Deal” in this respect much better. Though it is fictional, it gives you an intense and somehow depressing description of the lifestyle of these so-called high limit poker players. The best chapter of Bellin’s book is the one on “Small-Time Pros”. The story of professional middle limit Hold 'Em player Dicky Horvath is colorful, full of suspense, and very moving. On the other hand, this chapter can be misleading. Because Bellin only presents this isolated case without any comments, the reader might come to the erroneous conclusion that typical pros are mostly drug addicts and cheaters. I know a lot of professional middle limit players and as far as I know none of them is a drug addict or a cheater.

Bellin's book is aimed at the mass market. Strictly speaking, it is for people who play once in a while in a poker game and want to learn more about the game. The book serves its purpose in this respect. Many of the stories and anecdotes Bellin includes are entertaining, and the book is without a doubt well written, but for the serious poker player there is nothing new in it.

(Tristan Steiger)

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