Card Player Magazine Volume 18, No 12

Book Reports Make Me Feel Like I am Back in School! A fun, entertaining quick-read poker book

by Jan Fisher
jan@cardplayercruises.com
 
Recently, I have been so high on my soapbox, telling you how to act and how not to act, that I decided to step down for a spell and have some fun. There are many great poker books out there, and I would like to discuss one in this column that I think might be particularly interesting to you. I am not an avid reader, far from it. For me, the mere thought of reading a book gives me the willies. I am much more a magazine kind of girl; I like short stories, 800-1,000 words or less, as my attention span seems limited. Perhaps I have attention-deficit disorder.

Anyway, while on the PartyPoker.com Million IV cruise, I had the pleasure of meeting author Richard Sparks and his photographer wife, Jenny. They hail from England and New York, respectively, but make Southern California their home, and I had the opportunity to share some time with both of them. By the way, Jenny won the WPT media tournament on the ship, so even though Richard is the writer, perhaps Jenny is really the player in the family. Richard has written a book, but it is not a how-to poker book — far from it. It is just plain entertainment. While you might pick up a trick or two, he does not profess to be a poker genius at the table. Instead, he has written an interesting, fun, and quick-read book that tells of his exploits on the Internet and all the way to the 2004 World Series of Poker. Diary of a Mad Poker Player is the story of Richard Sparks’ quest to follow in the footsteps of 2003 World Champion Chris Moneymaker.

Sparks is first and foremost an entertainer, as I mentioned. A professional writer all of his life, he leaves the strategy of poker to the many experts whose books are appearing daily, it seems. There are no other books like Diary of a Mad Poker Player; the nearest comparisons might be Positively Fifth Street, The Biggest Game in Town, and Big Deal — all of which are also distinguished by being the works of professional writers rather than professional poker players. Sparks differs from his fellow writers in that he is a comedy writer, and he can’t help being entertaining and amusing. Those who know me know how warped I can be, and that I try to find the humor in everything. Needless to say, I enjoyed the levity of his work, as reading it didn’t feel like I was studying calculus. And although it is light, fun, and a joy to read, it contains many absorbing insights into the wonderful world of poker. In Richard’s quest to get to the WSOP (à la Jim McManus), not all things that happen are good. Some are bad, some are funny, and some are just plain sad! We all have horror stories of unhappy experiences at the poker table, and Diary of a Mad Poker Player indeed starts off with one such horror story. Richard is playing late one night in an online tournament. Someone knocks him out on the bubble (one place short of the money). It’s a typical online moron-beat. Although Richard does not know it at the time, it yields gold, because from that one awful suck-out sprang the germ of the idea that takes him, via the Internet and live games, to the World Series of Poker.

At first, the reader can follow him through the maze of Internet tourneys and side games, but there is a minimum of actual play-by-play poker. This is a wise move. A good writer can make any game riveting for a page or two, but too much would quickly become repetitive, and even boring, and Sparks, a scriptwriter by training, knows that "less is more." He uses his experiences to examine the wider issues that arise all the time in poker. He notices people whining and screaming at each other — and comes up with a chapter titled "Abuse and Self-Abuse."

Other chapters have equally bizarre-sounding titles: "Will and Testicles," "Elephant Spotting," and "The Walking Dead." But, every time, they all make perfect sense — because, let’s face it, poker is strange. Strange things happen. We meet strange people, some of whom do the strangest of things at the poker table. No one can say that poker is boring or that the cast of characters in the show are not entertainers! Have you watched some of the final tables on television lately? Come on now, do those folks really act that way at home? Of course not. Oops, someone helped me onto that soapbox again. Since it is the people Richard meets while on his journey who are the heart and soul of the book, the reader gets a taste of all sides of the game and can choose his own heroes and villains. And this is as it should be, because people are the heart and soul of poker. Poker is, above all, a social game. Yes, we’re all trying to take each other’s money, but we’re also cooperating with each other in the process.

Some of my fellow Card Player columnists have their own chapters. Mike Sexton tells of the genesis of PartyPoker.com in "The Face of Poker." Legal expert Professor I. Nelson Rose amusingly examines the history and legality of gaming in the United States and on the Internet in "Gambling and the Lawyer." And speaking of the Internet, top brass from the three biggest poker web sites (PartyPoker, PokerStars, and Paradise) discuss the extraordinary poker boom that we are currently witnessing. We meet the stars of the game and people who are unknowns, and they all have something to contribute to the rich tapestry that is poker. Sparks looks at the poker world and sees a mirror to the real world. From his comic view, it is at times a mirror that distorts, but it all rings true. You will recognize much of the poker life in Diary of a Mad Poker Player, but the chances are that you will not have seen it so clearly or so amusingly. It was a pleasure to get to know this fine author, and I think you will enjoy checking out his new book; I know that I did. Since this was like real homework, all I can tell you is the bell has rung; class dismissed.