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Poker Review

Review of John Harkness

Diary of a Mad Poker Player: A Journey to the World Series of Poker by Richard Sparks. It's a sign of the times that someone thought Diary of a Mad Poker Player was worth publishing. It's not a bad book, but five years ago, one can just hear the publisher: "So, the guy goes to the World Series to win a seat, and then doesn't' Well, where's the hook'" Apparently, in the era of the poker boom, we don't need the hook.

Which hasn't stopped the publishers from some clever ploys in the book's packaging. At no point on the cover of the book will you find any indication that Sparks didn't play in the Main Event at the Series, or any event at the series.

So when he fails in his dream to be the next Chris Moneymaker, he decides to become the next A. Alvarez. The Biggest Game In Town casts an awfully long shadow over this book, as it does over everyone who writes the tourist version of World Series trip report. He's not nearly as elegant a prose stylist as Alvarez, but then again, who is'

Okay, so Richard Sparks isn't playing in the big one, and he's a self-acknowledged non-great of the game. What's he gonna give us that we can't get elsewhere' A lot of ruminations on the possibilities of online cheating. Indeed, an excercise in cheating at the play money tables at Party, and then some interviews with a Paradise rep, Mike Sexton of Party, and PokerStars head of marketing, Dan Goldman. The interviews discuss onlin cheating as well as other topics.

Which of these are informative' Sexton has a great golf story about playing Brunson on what he calls the biggest golf bet in history, Goldman talks about the impact of the Series win on Moneymaker, and says that Sparks is welcome to try cheating at the real money tables at 'Stars.

There's also a very good interview with Sammy Farha, the best I've seen, where he talks about how he picked the heads-up phase of the WSOP main event to play very badly, even worse than Moneymaker. It's a slightly negative viewpoint of Farha, but they give him a little praise as well. It's still one of the most interesting "inside the mind" of a great player pieces I've encountered, and kudos to Sparks for that. It's the best chapter in this book which is otherwise rather thin on insight into anything but the self-recriminations of a mediocre player. And, let's be honest, we all know exactly what that sounds like--it's the voice inside our own heads.

Oh, and the title is inaccurate. Frustrated player, perhaps. Self-loathing player, definitely. Not a lot of sales value in those titles, though.

I recommended this book if you must have every poker title published, otherwise, there's more important and interesting books to read before you get to this one.