Poker Nation: A High-Stakes, Low-Life Adventure into the Heart of a Gambling Country starts out with a great hook. The author is playing Texas Hold'em at a dingy New York City (illegal) poker club and gets Oldsmobile clubs in his pocket. Then the flop comes and he's looking at a gut shot for a straight, which comes on the turn card. But then the river card is the Jack of Spades and suddenly he's into a nut flush. He's feeling pretty good until another player taps him--goes all-in--and our author starts to wonder if he's been dealt a bad beat with quads. Andy calls and...Well, you have to wait until the end of the book. In between, Andy Bellin serves up a behind-the-scenes travelogue of poker games stretching from L.A. to NYC, with many side trips to Vegas. There's also a lot of autobiography, basic strategy, and the human drama of gamblers who are up, up, up, then very far down. Paperbound, 258 pages.