Steven G.

Baseball has been defaced and consumed by corporate America. As Moneyball-thinking and Ivy League graduates grabbed hold of the sport, the Astros set out to build a cost-efficient winning machine on the principles of the outside business world, squeezing every dollar out of every transaction, player and employee. In less than a decade, Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow helped revolutionize the game and create an environment that led to one of the worst cheating scandals in baseball history, a Shakespearean tragedy of innovation and failed change management.

These are the words of Christopher Columbus - the record of his first voyage to America. His private journal from the trip was lost, but not before being studied and condensed by later writers like Spanish historian and Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas, whose abridgement has been changed to first person perspective for this production (Columbus' actual words were often included by the friar). The result is a personal record of an enterprise which changed the whole face of history.

When Pigeon finds a delicious hot dog, he can’t wait to devour it. But then along comes a sly duckling who wants a bite. Who will be the more clever bird?

So often in Texas hold’em poker, you just don’t know where you stand. Do you have the best hand? The worst? Within the great gray area between the stone nuts and a pure bluff it’s often hard to tell. But take heart, because in this innovative new poker single, Annie Duke and John Vorhaus dive deep into the murky decision space of the middle zone, show you what it is, how to avoid it, and what to do if, alas, you step in something sticky.

Ask the great poker players how they'd play a hand and the answer is always "it depends." That answer can be infuriating. But guess what? It really does depend. The key to becoming a great poker player is in knowing what it depends on. At last there's a book that gives you that answer. Poker is a game of so many variables; table position, flop texture, the number of players in a hand, the personalities of your opponents, and so much more.