Booked Up

Not a lot of time today for posting, I’m afraid. Have been fairly occupied over the last two weeks helping recap various events in PokerStars’ Spring Championship of Online Poker, which has cut into both writing time and sleeping time here of late.

There have been some interesting moments along the way in these SCOOP tourneys, some of which have been discussed in the daily web-based show “Inside SCOOP” on PokerStars.tv. Hosts Joe Stapleton and Nick Wealthall are a riot, too, making the show even more fun to watch.

Meanwhile, when the time to do so finally becomes available, I have three new poker books to read. Well, one of them is new, anyway (as in recently published). But all three are new to me.

The one that is just coming out is Tommy Angelo’s second book, titled A Rubber Band Story and other Poker Tales. Following up his terrific Elements of Poker (reviewed here), this one collects several essays, articles, and blog posts that Angelo has written over the last decade-plus, also adding a number of new items, too.

Am really looking forward to this one, a book I first heard about from Angelo himself when I interviewed him for Betfair poker back in December 2010.

Another book I’ve been wanting to read for a long time is one of David Apostolico’s titles, Machiavellian Poker Strategy: How to Play Like a Prince and Rule the Poker Table, first published in 2005. The Prince is a book I am actually very familiar with, one that I not only studied in school but also had the chance to teach several times in various “Great Books” classes. It’s a great one for introducing that transition from the faith-based medieval period to the modern, secular age. It’s also strikes me as a book with a lot of immediately applicable precepts to poker.

I really like Apostolico’s introduction, where he suggests poker may well provide a “perfect arena” in which to explore the many ideas and lessons of the early 16th-century guidebook for would-be rulers. Am intrigued to see how Apostolico draws connections between Machiavelli’s advice and poker strategy/theory.

Finally, I recently ordered a copy of Brandon Adams’ 2008 book Broke: A Poker Novel. I don’t know a lot about it, but was intrigued after hearing Adams on the Two Plus Two Pokercast back in April (Episode 167, 4/12/11) where the book did come up.

I’ll be teaching my “Poker in American Film and Culture” class again next fall, and while I plan to keep Jesse May’s Shut Up and Deal on the syllabus -- a book which Adams recommended highly on the 2+2 show, incidentally -- it’s possible I could add other novels, too, and so will be thinking about that possibility as I read Broke.

Like I say, though, I have a few other things to attend to before I can pick up these. Am eyeing that space between the end of SCOOP and the start of the WSOP (just a week-and-a-half away!) as a nice quiet space in which to curl up and read.