Take Me to the River

Take Me to the River by Peter Alson

Category: Poker memoir Grade: C+

For those of you not in to America's latest "sports" craze, the "river" is the last card dealt in Texas Hold 'em poker - the maker and breaker of dreams at the poker table. The subtitle of the book is "A Wayward and Perilous Journey to the World Series of Poker.

Poker is one of the fastest growing leisure activities in the country these days. The World Series of Poker was started way before the craze by Benny Binion the Vegas legend who opened the Horseshoe Hotel and Casino in downtown Vegas. The first WSOP was just a handful of poker pros who played for a couple of days and then voted amongst themselves and elected the poker "world champion". After a couple of years, it switched to a winner take all format - i.e. they keep playing until one player has all the chips. This year, the event will last more than six weeks (going on right now) and contain tournaments in multiple poker games with over 36,000 entrants. Parts of the tournament, usually the final tables, will be broadcast all over the cable dial -- ESPN, Bravo, the Travel Channel and, starting last year, live on one of the networks.

So I guess its no surprised that we're starting to see more and more books about poker. By far the vast majority of them are "how-to" books with the big stars in the game like Doyle Brunson and Phil Helmuth cashing in on their popularity by writing down their secrets for everybody - or at least most of them. In the last couple of years, though, there have been a few good books written for more general audiences about the game and the people in them.

However, I'm just not sure that Alson's Take Me to the River, is going to appeal to much of anybody. Don't get me wrong -- it's not a terrible book. He's a decent writer. But the book is really about him, not the WSOP. I just never got to the point where I much cared about his ongoing efforts to decide whether to get married in mid-life - decided for him by an unexpected pregnancy. He does introduce a few somewhat interesting characters, like his friend and sometimes roommate in Vegas, Nicky, but he never devotes enough effort to get the reader involved. He does talk a fair amount about poker and throws in some good tips for how to play, but never enough to make this a how-to book. He does talk a lot about the WSOP but never enough to really feel the atmosphere. He keeps coming back to himself and, as I said, I just didn't care.

So - if what you want is a good poker how-to book, go pick up one of Doyle Brunson's book. If you want a good book about the WSOP, you're better off to pick up a great book like Positively Fifth Street (good even for non poker players). If you want a closeup look at some of the great characters in poker, pick up Alson's first book about Stuey Unger called One of a Kind (to show I'm not biased against Alson). Don't waste your time with this one.