For those who spend time at the card clubs of California, these places can almost become a second home. For those who haven't spent time in these places, they may as well be a foreign country, filled with unfamiliar people, customs, and an unintelligible language. Breaking into this foreign culture can be daunting, so anything that helps get a novice up to speed can be helpful.
Fischer's book begins with a brief personal background and history, followed by a few pages on the history of poker in general, a little more information on California poker, and finally a history of one California card club in particular, the Oaks in Emeryville. Throughout the book Fischer focuses on the Oaks, although much of what he says applies to other card rooms in the state, although most are much smaller and a few are much larger.
The book moves on to discuss what goes on inside the Oaks. The management, rank and file employees, and amenities are all explained. Fischer discusses the diversity of the player base and describes several denizens of the Oaks that he finds especially noteworthy. He ends the book with discussions of various poker issues, including some terminology, poker superstitions, bluffing, and cheating.
The book is very short, measuring 88 pages in total. As a consequence, Fischer doesn't cover anything in any real detail. In fact, there is so little specificity here that I'd honestly have to say that the book is unlikely to be informative to anyone who has even a passing familiarity with poker as it is played in public.
Further, in many places the author makes misstatements about the way these card rooms operate, as well as make significant omissions that may lead to misapprehensions by readers. As one example, Fischer states correctly that California card rooms cannot provide staple casino games such as slot machines and dice games. He then states that California Native American casinos do not face such restrictions. He's only part right. They do have slot machines, but they cannot spread dice games. There are several other places in the book where the author's imprecision is noteworthy.
Frankly, I'm not sure who is the intended audience for Poker Passion. Anyone who has played casino poker understands all of the issues presented in the book, and possibly better than the author. I also don't think there are that many people out there without this experience who would find this book worthwhile. This book is scatter-shot on how it reports procedures, common vocabulary, and customs of these places, so it doesn't work as a guidebook for novices either. I suppose if someone who had never played public poker asked me what the California card rooms are like, I could save myself some effort by tossing them this book rather than going through the explanation myself. Outside of this scenario, though, I really can't imagine who would have much to gain from reading this book, so I really can't recommend it.
Poker Passion is a short book that provides a superficial and occasionally inaccurate view of the card rooms of California, and in particular, the Oaks in Emeryville. The book contains little, if anything, that isn't already known by those who frequent such places, and it's difficult for me to imagine who else might find this topic interesting. In some sense, the book is an homage by the author to one of his favorite places, but I don't expect I know too many people who would find reading it to be worthwhile.
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