When I first heard of “The Making of a Poker Player” by Matt Matros I was, at best, a bit skeptical and, at worst, quite cynical.

My first thought was, well, here’s a guy who has made one World Poker Tour final table, and suddenly he’s qualified enough to write a poker book? Granted, that’s one more WPT final table than I’ve made, but if you regularly follow those shows, it’s not difficult to wonder how some of the final table participants made it that far.

What’s more, I assumed Matros simply was trying to jump on the poker book bandwagon by crashing into the deep end of an already diluted pool of titles that often don’t offer anything more than recycled information, basic strategy concepts and sometimes less-than-captivating personal stories.

So why did I give Matros’s book a shot? A couple of reasons: one, I’m willing to read just about any poker book if I believe there are one or two pieces of useful information I can glean from it and, second, a friend of mine had a copy I could borrow at no charge and he highly recommended it.

Turns out my friend was correct. “The Making of a Poker Player” is worthwhile not because it’s a spectacular strategy guide nor a made-for-movie personal tale. But it is, in fact, pretty good on both fronts.

But what I liked best about it – and what might appeal to a majority of his readers – is that I could strongly relate to Matros’s personal journey. For instance, although he is a few years younger, we are in the same age range and we both got hooked on the game around the same time, about six or seven years ago.

And even though I am not Ivy League-educated like Matros, our approaches to learning and understanding the game were eerily similar. Not to mention that I have nowhere near his math acumen; he has proved his expertise in this area with an outstanding regular column in Card Player magazine, in which he has discussed myriad topics from setting odds on the World Series of Poker to the implied odds of a player going all-in against him with a garbage hand in a charity tournament in the hopes of winning a bounty on Matros by knocking him out.

In “The Making Of a Poker Player,” Matros leads readers on his path from a college kid who was inspired by watching the movie “Rounders,” to earnest beginner whose poker education included several home games with fellow students at his father’s house and, ultimately, an advanced player who cashed for more than $700,000 by making the final table of a WPT event.

Along the way, the author provides strategy tidbits that seem to increase in their complexity as he becomes a more sophisticated player. This is a delicate balancing act, but one he pulls off well. Some poker books suffer when they try to mix storytelling and poker strategy within the same chapters, but Matros intertwines them rather effortlessly. What’s more, his quick primer on the basics of hold’em – blinds, betting structure and how it all comes together – is one of the best I’ve seen from any poker author.

But the book’s lasting impact for me is how frequently it hits home. In other words, I see a lot of myself in the author’s reflections. I found it easy to laugh out loud or smile at some of Matros’s recollections, and I think many readers would be able to relate to his excitement upon discovering the game, and the subsequent ups and downs that go with that passion.

For instance, I found myself reminiscing with the author when it came to taping and analyzing every ESPN show on poker that was aired, and reading every credible book he could find. Or how he used to dream about crushing a $20 buy-in weekend tournament at a nearby casino, an event he now considers a high-blind, low-chip donkfest that barely resembles poker. But at the time, the tournament meant everything, and memories of the anticipation and restless nights leading up to the tournament are details I could vividly recall from personal experience.

One more pertinent example is when Matros moved up in stakes and suddenly realized that players were looking at each other instead of their cards or the flop, and that the aura of friendliness to which he was accustomed was replaced by intensity. Matros found himself thinking that he knew he should try to play better, but he wasn’t exactly sure how to do so.

Upon reading this, my instant reaction was, “That used to be me.” Matros tends to do that to you a lot and, if you’re a fan of a reading a good poker story and trying to live your own, then “The Making of a Poker Player” should have a place in your collection.