Thousands of books have been written over the years on how to play winning poker.

The latest poker tome, however, is nothing less than a pure sign of the times.

It teaches you how to cheat.

In an era when New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick can cheat his way to multiple Super Bowl victories by spying on his opponents and Barry Bonds can win a home run title by using illegal drugs, it should be no surprise that a book about cheating at poker has been written.

And, likely, will sell a lot of copies.

Titled “52 Ways to Cheat at Poker,” the 192-page book was written by Allan Z. Kronzek and published by Plume Books, a division of Penguin USA.

The book deals only with real-life poker.

There’s nothing about online poker, which is a shame considering the number of online poker cheating scandals in recent months.

Among other things, the book details the various methods poker players use to cheat, including manipulating the cards, the chips and the cash.

For example, the book explains cheating techniques that can be employed by the dealer, such as dealing from the bottom of the deck, dealing the second card from the top of the deck instead of the top card, false shuffling, secretly switching cards and decks, peeking at cards and shorting pots.

In an effort to appear as if he’s taking the high road and is not advocating cheating, the book’s author claims he’s exposing the various methods of cheating at poker so honest players can avoid being swindled.

In other words, he’s saying, “Here’s how to cheat, not so you can do it, but so no one can do it to you.”

That’s a laugh.

That’s like writing a book on how to rob banks and saying it’s not so crooks can learn bank robbery but so banks can learn to prevent them.

There used to be a saying that went, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

Apparently the 21st century version of that axiom, at least for poker players, is, “If you can’t beat ‘em, cheat ‘em.”

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.) =A0=A0