Final Table

July 9, 2012
The first Canadian to win the main event of the World Series of Poker, the world’s most famous and most lucrative no-limit Texas Hold ’em tournament, Duhamel presents short essays on the 18 skills or qualities that all players need to win, since “luck plays a much smaller role than people think.” These “skills,” ranging from passion (“an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and self-improvement”) to taking risks, seem at first glance to be fairly standard self-motivational topics that can be seen in sports and business books alike. The difference is that once Duhamel has dismissed with generalities, he shows specifically and precisely how to use the skills in the four betting rounds of a hand of Texas Hold ’em, where the “goal isn’t to win the most hands” but to help players make mathematical and psychological decisions “that might allow them to win on a regular basis.” And while it is not the focus of his book, Duhamel makes a provocative—and compelling—argument about how the Internet has influenced the world of poker by allowing younger players “to play the same number of hands in a few months that their predecessors took their lifetime to work up to,” as well as giving them an “acute instinct for innovation and creativity that is sometimes lacking in older and more experienced players.”