I’m right in the middle of Dealer’s Choice: The Complete Handbook of Saturday Night Poker, and it rocks. If you ever thought about setting up a regular poker night with your buddies, this the how-to manual you need. Even if you’ve been playing in such a game for years, the book comes with over 200 poker variants for you to spring on your friends in the middle of your next session. I haven’t been in a regular poker game for years, but this book makes me want to set one up and give it a whirl again.
Best of all, some game designer friends of mine wrote the book: James Ernest (of Cheapass Games), Phil Foglio (of Studio Foglio and Girl Genius), and Mike Selinker (of Wizards of the Coast/Avalon Hill and now, with James, Lone Shark Games). Phil’s one of the funniest cartoonists around, and between James and Mike they’ve created some of the greatest games of the last decade, including Pirates of the Spanish Main from WizKids. When they turn their attention to poker, it’s by turns riveting and hilarious. If you have any interest in poker at all, pick up this book.
