US Public Libraries And Poker

[Doc T River]

Given I am in the Bible Belt, I wonder how many poker books I would find in my closest local (true) library. Fortunately, I have several pseudo libraries (Barnes and Noble, Borders, BAM) to use to peruse new titles.

After posting the above, I clicked on the worldcat link and I was surprised to see a number of poker books available at real libraries in my area.

[Diana Ross Fan]

As of 2005, my University's poker section consisted of "The Encyclopedia of Draw Poker" and "Road Hustler"

As of 2007, I still have not met any one who has heard of either of those fine books.

[Poker Clif]

[ QUOTE ]
I am in the UK. The average number of books devoted to poker in a UK library is one.

This book will be Play Poker To Win by Amarillo Slim or some such.

What is the situation vis-a-vis poker books in US libraries?

[/ QUOTE ]

I am in the US, state of Michigan, in a town of about 5,000.

The local library has exactly zero poker books (and zero chess books as well). This is very odd, since the library has a children's chess club.

I have read several poker books, through the interlibrary loan system. Still this system covers several counties, and many of what would be considered the top poker authors (Harrington, for instance) are not available even through interlibrary loan.

The nearest city that would have a large bookstore such as Barnes and Nobles is about 25 miles from me.

I imagine it's much worse in the more rural areas. I'm 25 miles from a major University, and a decent sized city (about 80,000). I can only imagine how hard it is to get books in Michigan's Upper Penninsula, northern Montana, etc.

If there is a book I want, I just assume I"m going to have to buy it through an online source such as 2+2 or Amazon.com. Libraries just don't get it done for me.

[Al Mirpuri]

[ QUOTE ]
As of 2005, my University's poker section consisted of "The Encyclopedia of Draw Poker" and "Road Hustler"

As of 2007, I still have not met any one who has heard of either of those fine books.

[/ QUOTE ]

How good or bad is the Encyclopedia Of Draw Poker?

[SuperUberBob]

My campus libraries have basically no poker strategy books in stock. There's a library about 3-4 miles away that has a few and another 30-40 miles away that has some of the more popular ones.

[Diana Ross Fan]

[ QUOTE ]

How good or bad is the Encyclopedia Of Draw Poker?

[/ QUOTE ]

lol, it was my first poker book so I thought that knowing the "pot odds" was genius.

It's not an encyclopedia per se, it is a primer for playing 5 card draw high. A good introduction to the game and how people played "Always check to a one card draw." It is probably inferior to Mike Caro's work, although it deals with some other issues, such as whether raking the pot to buy snacks punishes the winning players.

"Road Hustler" was a great book and one of the most intelligent looks at professional cheats. I will pounce on a copy if I ever find one. Actually the card inside the book said that I was the first person to check it out since 1988, I should have just applied the teachings of the book [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]