Rating: 
Summary: An entertaining close-up of the Poker world
Review: Poker Nation is a terrific book about poker and the culture which surrounds this American past time. Bellin explores the different sub-cultures of the game. His witty story-telling makes Poker Nation extremely entertaining. You will laugh out loud!
Rating:
Summary: Read it...
Review: If you don't have the chance to go out and spend a night talking to Andy Bellin -- one of life's great pleasures -- get in on the next best thing and read Poker Nation. As a civilian, meaning a non-card player, I relished the book as a richly voiced memoir. The sharp eye that serves Bellin so well at the card table is in evidence here: He is honest about what he sees, and not afraid to turn his powers of perception on his own flaws. (Oh, and check out the appendices, please...) Also, the purchase of this book might save you a fortune in the long run: it's convinced me I have no business playing casino games.
Rating: 
Summary: an amusing memoir
Review: If you are to have a misspent life, at least write amusingly about it. Mr. Bellin has and does in Poker Nation. If you want to read about poker, by all means buy the Sklansky books. If you want truly great memoirs, read HW Tilman's books (The Sailing/Mountain Climbing series).
If, on the other hand, you want an amusing memoir with lots of poker fact and legend mixed in, read this book. If you play a bit, you will understand most of the hold 'em references, but don't let ignorance of the game deter you.
Rating: 
Summary: Poker is an addiction. This book is about dealing with
Review: that addiction and trying to make the best of it.Andy tells you from the beginning that deciding to be a professional poker player might not have been the best decision he has made in his life, and gives us some real life stories of dispair that came from his decision. At the point when he began to turn things around in his life and at the poker table, Andy figured it out: Forget Hollywood and the movie Rounders. Forget the $1,000,000.00 grand prize tournaments out in Vegas because if you are going to take the game up, you are going to have realize that it is a game of numbers: odds and statistics and very LITTLE glamour. Outside the private clubs in NYC Andy likes to play Texas Hold 'Em at the Foxwoods casino in Connectict. I play at this same casino on a lot of Saturday nights (love those tourists!) and can vouch for the strange people that this game attracts. Without going into mindless statistical detail, the author distills down the essence of the game - minimize your losses and the odds will take care of you. The fact is that too many people bet too much money on weak hands, even worse right after they have won a few good ones. Guys like the author make a living taking a few bucks every hour from people who don't understand the game but are having a great time. In this book he gives important examples of how your personality enters the game, giving away your secrets (tells) and affecting your reason for the worse. He manages to capture how maddening it is for a simple game of cards can cause you to sweat, your heart to race and your mouth go dry. Journeyman poker players will enjoy this story of a poker drifter/writer who makes the game work for him. They will also benefit from the reminders of why you are playing. Beginners will benefit from learning what the game is all about. He breaks down the odds, tells you how you should be playing and how to really enjoy yourself. I also like how Andy gives much respect to the female players in the game. Some books avoid this subject, but Andy acknowledges just how good they are.
Rating:
Summary: Like "Word Freak"
Review: "Poker Nation" (PN) has been compared to the Scrabble book "Word Freak" (WF). I think the comparison is pretty accurate. Both have enough detail of what tournament life is like. I think WF has more cases, but that makes PN a quicker read. PN was easy and quick reading, but still entertaining. It paints a slightly gloomier picture of professional poker than do "Big Deal" or "Biggest Game in Town", but I think it is more realistic. The openness of the author is appealing, as is his "assistance" to his colleagues.
Rating:
Summary: A good read - on its own level
Review: You other reviewers are being too harsh! This isn't "Big Deal" or "The Greatest Game in Town" - it's Bellin's story! It's also not a new Sklansky or Malmuth book, and doesn't try to be that either... It IS a very entertaining, easy and fun to read look at New York City and other poker from the viewpoint of, sadly, a person with real problems who has given up on finding what's important in life and for him. Some of the stories I'd read before in my other 50+ poker books, but most I hadn't... He took the real risk of sharing lots of deeply personal stuff on his own thought patterns, motivations, and failures, in the process letting us intimately know him. I found the mistakes, such as oxygen being pumped into the casinos (nope) and the "Treasure Island poker room" (he meant the Bellagio) irritating, and resented his fuzziness on cheating, which, as "the conjuring up of advantages not available to others," includes all collusion and card manipulations but never looking at cards someone puts in your face or moving to a high-card-rich blackjack table. However, maybe the lack of fact verification befitted this true Lone Wolf's approach toward everything - and his take on cheating was, as is so refreshingly true about the whole book, HONEST. Bravo, Andrey! P.S.: You made a poor call with that seven-six of clubs. You were damn lucky his flush wasn't higher. But somehow I think you know that...
Rating:
Summary: Not to be compared with "The Biggest Game in Town"
Review: Bellin's book, being reviewed on its merits, does not necessarily shine as an instruction on poker, for which there are already many serious titles written by champion players. (If you're curious, refer to 'Poker for Dummies,' by Lou Krieger and Richard Harroch for its syllabus on poker's Great Books.) Also, it does not serve as a major insight into the great champions of all time; for this, Alvarez has the edge, and in fact this book refers extensively to 'The Biggest Game in Town'. So why read it? For one, Bellin writes with great accessibility, intent on reaching the educated mind that knows next to nothing about poker. Some discussion of odds, strategy and game theory enters into this as a cursory matter, but again, he knows his audience well enough to stress human stories over mathematical propositions that would interest more serious players. While the average non-player couldn't care less about the odds of drawing to a double-ended straight after the flop, he would love to know what possesses bright and otherwise capable individuals to forsake the working world and depend on cards for a living. For another, Bellin pays far more attention to the dark and self-destructive side of poker's lure. He relates the story of Dolly and Dicky Horvath, minor pros who find themselves so benumbed by their chosen profession that they turn to drugs and prostitution to return passion to their lives and generate money with which to gamble. He talks about Korean Rich, a corporate attorney who threw away marriage and a nigh-guaranteed life of affluence because he could not control his urge to gamble. More than Alvarez does, Bellin confronts the damage wrought on people who play a game with a month's salary at risk every night, and the myriad of losers required to make others successful in poker. It's New Journalism, but so is almost every piece of non-fiction written with attention paid to one's entertainment since Tom Wolfe. With states and county governments looking for the Easy Way to expand their revenue bases and settling on legalized gambling, it's not very unlikely that everyone will find a lawful card room within a thirty-minute drive in the next decade. As Doyle Brunson put it, "Poker is a game of people," and Bellin has served to illustrate poker's minor characters with colors as vivid as others have its titans.
Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly Enjoyable Read
Review: If you like playing poker, even if it's just the game with the guys, you'll love this book. Written with a disarming, self-deprecating style, the book educates while it entertains. A quick, fun read.
Rating:
Summary: Highly entertaining ... Like "Word Freak" applied to poker.
Review: I highly enjoyed this book. It was very similar in style and concept to the excellent book about Scrabble called "Word Freak" by Stefan Fatsis which came out last year and which I strongly recommend. I thought that Mr. Bellis was a fine writer and that the book was consistently entertaining. It seemed as if some of the more negative reviews of this book came from regular poker players and/or those who have read many poker books (usually both undoubtedly). I don't consider myself in either of those two categories and so perhaps I came to the book somewhat more open-minded (and in less of a comparative mindset) than some. I did find that in some parts of the book, the poker lingo got so heavy that it was a bit difficult to follow the author's point, but that is a minor quibble. The book may not be for everyone, but I recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome book about an awesome game
Review: Having just gotten into the game of the poker, I've been reading quite a bit about it from strategy books to books that focus more on the accounts of actual games, like Bellin's. It's a fast read about a great game and Bellin manages to get everything in there: his own stories, stories of others, strategies, and history. A great read.
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