All In, Pete Hautman

I read All In by Pete Hautman not realizing that it is actually a sequel to the book No Limit. I haven't read No Limit, and it didn't matter - I mean, it wasn't central to the story that I read No Limit first as everything that happened there is summarized here and it is easy enough to follow along.

All In is the story of Denn Doyle, age 17, who is a poker mastermind and apparently in No Limit discovered his talent and made a lot, I mean a lot, of money and left home for Vegas (with a fake id so he could gamble there). So in All In Denn is gambling in Vegas with big time poker players. Sometimes I catch the big poker tournaments on tv and I don't really know what's happening, but this book actually helped me understand poker better and how those tournaments are run.

Of course, it isn't a smooth road for Denn - he falls for a girl, the wrong girl of course, and gets mixed up with some people who aren't rooting for him to win. I liked this book because it was a quick, fun read, and the story wasn't as predictable as you might imagine. I also like that the narrative changes viewpoints so you get to understand what many of the major characters are thinking as it goes through. And finally, I liked that Denn is not really your typical main character - he isn't as good or as bad as you normally get in a book. In fact, he's rather average. I like that for a change.