Review of Diary of a Mad Poker Player

Title:

Diary of a Mad Poker Player: A Journey to the World Series of Poker

Author:

Richard Sparks

Publisher:

Russell Enterprises, Inc.

Date:

2005

ISBN:

1-888690-24-0

Pages:

267

Price:

$14.95

Reviewed by Nick Christenson, npc@lvrevealed.com

April 21, 2005

Enter an online satellite, win a seat in the main event at the 2004 World Series of Poker, and go on to win the event leading to almost unimaginable fame and life-changing riches. This is the dream of a great many poker players, including Richard Sparks. As we know from history, he fell short of his ultimate goal, but in Diary of a Mad Poker Player he tells us about his journey.

As a Leslie Nielsen character might say, "It's a familiar story: Boy enters poker tournaments, boy loses poker tournaments, boy goes to the World Series of Poker anyway, boy talks to poker celebrities, boy returns home to sell prized banjo to pay for poker losses." This is the tale Sparks weaves for us in his book.

Sparks provides play-by-play from many of the online tournaments in which he competes. The descriptions are pretty sketchy, leaving out much of the detail that an experienced poker player would use to evaluate these situations. However, I don't think it's a stretch to say that much of his play can fairly be categorized as atrocious. Sparks doesn't claim to be a great poker player, but at times I have to admit that as these hands unfold I would start to cheer for Sparks' nameless, faceless opponents.

The story gets better as our narrator travels to Las Vegas to be on hand for the main event at the World Series of Poker. Sparks talks to a number of poker celebrities, and these sessions are interesting and occasionally even insightful. As an example, I quite enjoyed his long conversation with Sammy Farha, although the way Farha talks I get the impression that he could have, or maybe even has had, similarly long and involved conversations with inanimate objects. But hey, it's fun to read, and it really beats the heck out of the inane and senselessly profane transcriptions of online poker chats that we find in the first half of the book.

Most good stories come from adventures falling into the lap of an author. Sparks is an author actively trying to find an adventure. The problem is that he just doesn't find one in this book. What we have is narrative of a mediocre poker player taking a shot at the brass ring and, quite predictably, coming up short. Most poker players should be able to identify quite readily with Sparks, and those who play a bit better than this have definitely played against this type of player. As a consequence, for those who are genuinely seeking a partial answer to the question, "What in the world was going through that poker player's mind?" this book might be a place to start.

It's not that Diary of a Mad Poker Player is a bad book, it's not. It just isn't especially good. Sparks provides a poker story line, but he just doesn't seem to have anything terribly interesting to say. His book provides the reader with no significant poker insights. Poker book junkies looking for another poker story to read may find this book to be worth their effort, but there are a large number of better books on the market that I'd strongly recommend reading first.

Capsule:

Diary of a Mad Poker Player is the story of Richard Sparks' attempts to win a seat in the final event of the 2004 World Series of Poker. The first half of the book is filled with examples of Sparks' atrocious poker play, but the last half contains some fairly interesting interviews with poker luminaries. Overall, though, I feel that Sparks is an author in search of a story, one that he never really finds. This isn't a terrible book, but there are a lot of poker stories available that I'd recommend be read before this one.