Thanks! I emailed him back and will keep him updated on my progress.

Week in Review, Goals for 3/1-3/7

struggled with volume these week because writing took precedence over playing, which is fine. I'll be submitting a major project of mine on Wednesday (the Gary piece that I mentioned above) and that will be a huge load off my shoulders!

Poker has continued to go well. I'm make tiny, incremental progress and have been putting in study time, even if playing time was low this week. I started this week off with a good six-hour session.

Reading

[ ] continue reading Roll the Bones

Writing

[ ] submit gary
[ ] finish macau

Poker

[ ]15-20 hours at the table. have a friend coming into town, so this may affect volume (not sure in which direction since he does like to play), but I'll hit the low end of this goal at least.
[ ] Ed Miller, How to Read Hands

Congratulations!

lost ten buy-ins last night. I knew the game was good when someone check-raised a 336 board and called a shove with ten hi.
Unfortunately
Fortunately
Thanks Digger! Part three is out today: http://www.fulltilt.com/blog/poker-r...on-louisville/

lol on the ten buy-ins and ten hi call, was getting scared until I saw the spoiler .

Once again awesome article, glad you got to play up near my hometown of Chicago.

Thanks Rehab, looking forward to meeting up this week!

Brief Week in Review

Knocked out my writing goals, barely played poker (5/20 hours), had a good time with a friend in town. Two twelve-hour days of drinking in a row, can't remember the last time anything even close to that has happened. Put in a session on Sunday to kick off the week and will be hitting the tables hard later this week.

It looks like the Poker Road Trip series will continue to its conclusion. I've really enjoyed writing those pieces and look forward to rounding it out.

lit some money on fire yesterday in a spot with the second nuts vs. two straightforward opponents:

JT on QA3.

When I reviewed the hand afterward, it was clear that V1 could have neither the K or Kx because his flop action (raise) was inconsistent with his turn action (just call V2's donk lead on a blank). Although K would call turn, it wouldn't raise flop; although Kx would raise flop, it wouldn't flat the turn (this player would fear a paired board on the river).

V2, on the other hand, who just flatted a flop raise and bombed a blank turn, can have all Kxcombos and, even if he spazzes with a lower flush some of the time, has a range far ahead of me and V2 (who had a hand consistent with his flop/turn action: 33).

Need to get better at in-game execution and exploitative play, which will come with time and practice.

Big shout-out to my Lafayette Leopards who will be making their first NCAA tourney appearance since 2000 weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Fun spot yesterday with some table talk.

Villain is a spazzy reg, definitely a winner, aware of his LAG image and does a good job punishing weakness, but has massive leaks of his own. For example, flatted a huge limp/reraise, open shipped Q9x flop and got there with JTo.

I have direct position on villain and 3bet/called him pre with AKss when he raised a straddle (we chopped). So we have a bit of history but nothing major.

I have 400ish, villain covers

The hand:

Button straddle, 2 limps, I raise to 30 with AQ, two callers including villain on my direct right, I cbet 70 into 90 on Q83, villain calls. Turn 8, he starts talking.

“Want some information?”

“Yeah, I want some information,” I say.

He grins. “Whatever you bet—I'm gonna call.” Then he flips over the 9.

Pot is 240, I have 300.

What's his range?
What's the best action given his range?

My immediate read of him showing the 9is that he doesn't want you to bet. It's similar to your opponent reaching for his chips, when you're about to bet. In this classic scenario, Villain is usually indicating strength, when he really has weak showdown or a draw.

Live tells aside, the 8 reduces his 98s suited combos to zero! Obviously J9 and T9 are within his range. You have the A which is significant. You could put both 9s and Q9 in the showdown segment of his range.

Sorry to ask the obvious, but did he look at both cards before showing the 9? If not, then the combos draws have more weight. If he looked, this fact raises the likelihood of 89o.

Regardless, I like a shove here. If you check behind, I'm calling all spade rivers, and only contemplating a fold to any J or T. Checking behind has some merit if you believe he will bluff river a fair amount of the time.

At least by shoving, you get him to make an incorrect call with the combos in his range. If he does have 89o, we'll he's betting river anyway for probably >$150, and you're calling. There's also the chance he may incorrectly call with 9s or Q9o to a shove, due to your history and the element of pride that accompanies his show and tell.

Roll the Bones: The History of Gambling by David Schwartz (Penguin: 2007, 570 pages)



"In the forty-thousand or so years that we have thrown sticks, drawn lots, rolled dice, tossed cards, and pulled handles, humans have left ample evidence of our gambling passion in the historical record. By piecing together these traces, we can reconstruct the evolution of gambling" (xix)

David Schwartz directs the Center for Gaming Research at UNLV (http://gaming.unlv.edu/about/dgs.html) and writes about gaming in Las Vegas. Roll the Bones is his big, ambitious, informative history of games of chance. It's one of those books that starts with cavemen and spans thousands of years, myriad cultures, and oodles of games. As such, the book is more valuable as a reference book than as a compelling narrative (although Schwartz, a trained historian from UCLA, writes in clear eloquent prose). An updated Casino Edition was published in 2013.

Notes, Stories, Stats

In 2004, Americans lost 78 billion on a variety of games of chance. About half of this money went to casinos...'while the balance was wagered on lotteries, horse and dog race betting, bingo, and noncasino card games...approximately 54 million American visited a casino, and countless more bought lottery tickets (xviii)

The Egyptians claimed that the god Thoth (usually depicted as an ibis-headed man or dog-faced baboon) invented gambling; the Greek god Hermes (known to Romans as Mercury) was identified as the god of luck and patron of gamblers (15, 22).

Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576) was one of the first to turn his fascination with gambling into a scientific study of the activity. He maintained that, for those without better options, "In times of great anxiety and grief, [gambling] is considered to be not only allowable, but even beneficial" (76). Cardano himself turned to gambling as a means to escape his "odious," depressing life.

Pascal's wager (83)

The great French philosopher Voltaire gamed the lottery system, assembling a team of bondholders who too home over a million francs! (89)

Faro's importance to American gambling is largely forgotten today, but in the nineteenth century it was the national game (153)

Early gambling houses in New Orleans, Charleston, and Mobile were modeled after the ornate West End clubs of London (155).

"When Thomas Jefferson bought Louisiana from Napoleon in 1803, New Orleans became the gambling capital of the United States overnight, and it would hold the title for most of the first half of the nineteenth century. The three most popular games in the United States over the next hundred and fifty years each began or were introduced to Americans in New Orleans” (248).

From Poque to Poker

“By the time it reached the US in the late 18th century, poque was played with a twenty-card deck (A-K-Q-J-T) that allowed four players five cards each. There was only one round of betting, and no discarding or drawing of new cards” (149)

“Poque was introduced to North America via the French colony at Louisiana and became poker, thanks to casual American pronunciation of the French original, sometime between 1820 and 1825. As it was played then, the winning combinations were one pair, two pair, triplets, a full house (a triplet with a pair), and four of a kind Two hands were absolutely unbeatable: four aces, and four kings with one ace. Between 1830 and 1850, poker players started using the full fifty-two-card deck, and both straights (a consecutive sequence of unsuited cards) and flushes (cards matching in suit) became winning combinations” (247).

Cliffs

The subtitle of Roll the Bones says it all: as "The" history of gambling, the book is both comprehensive and superficial; Schwartz sacrifices depth for breadth. Neither does he try to explain why we, as humans, are drawn to games of chance. Schwartz is content to merely describe the various incarnations of gaming across civilization, which is probably a wise choice.

I'm excited to read Jackson Lears's Something for Nothing, which does attempt to get to the roots of Americans' fascination with luck.

He did check his cards. Definitely an important detail!

His flop calling range looks like this:
89o (6 combos)
99 (6 combos)
Q9o (6 combos)
J9ss, 9Tss, JTss(3 combos)

Which hands will villain stack off with on the turn? My decision was pretty heavily based on this guy's tendencies. He was no fool, which makes me eliminate Q9o and 99 from his turn calling range, and he liked shoveling money into the pot, which made me think he'd bluff rivers. That leaves his monster draws and his 89o combos, vs. which we're a 29% dog. I suppose betting smaller on the turn could be an option to get value from the weakest part of his range.

I decided to check the turn, planning to bluffcatch or valuebet good rivers.

On Beating LLSNL

For those of you who aren't aware of DGIHarris, his whole thread is gold and he's given a lot to the 2+2 community: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...inder-1333131/
Recently, though, some trolls have broken out the Haterade and are questioning his ability and playing style (which is often LAG and unorthodox, to be sure). Fortunately, others have stepped up in his defense and, in the process, have offered some great reminders on how to beat LLSNL. Here's a piece of advice that I want to preserve as a self-reminder:

"My advice to DGI would be just to remember that the single biggest leak, THE SINGLE BIGGEST LEAK, at LLSNL is that people do not fold. They don't. I see a some of his hand histories where he says "well I know villain has xx and I feel I can get him off of it"

For example a DONK on Q23r is always some dumb queen or like 66-99. But the issue is people aren't folding. This is a good thing. It's a great thing. In live poker you don't need to know anything about balancing or ranging or GTO, you just need to sit and wait for value hands and completely rape stations.

I call it "waiting for gifts". Because that's what live villains do. They give you gifts of money. Open AQ+ early AT+ late and 56s+ on the CO and BTN, only overlimp suited aces, bigger suited connectors (NOT GAPPERS), and small pocket pairs. Bet near pot with value hands. Check / give up when you miss unless like exactly heads up on K23r and its checked to you. Bet/fold even your strongest value hands like AK on K78r barring exceptions like spewy villains. Make ridiculous folds to 3bets preflop. AK/QQ even. Peoples 3betting ranges or raising ranges post are so value heavy that you can pretty much always fold and rarely be making a mistake.

That's all you need to know to beat 1/2 & 2/5 for a decent clip. Not trying to sit on my high horse here but more so just trying to remind the guy that first got me into this line of thinking. Play a tight value range and play it strong, anything else is fancy play syndrome." http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...postcount=2009

Something for Nothing: Luck in America by Jackson Lears (Penguin: 2003, 392 pages)


“Debate about gambling is not just about gambling: it is about different ways of being in the world” (6).

Compared to David Schwartz's history of gambling (discussed above), Rutgers historian Jackson Lears's Something for Nothing is shorter, denser, and--to me--more illuminating.

Gambling has always been a contentious topic. But the struggle over gambling in America, Lears argues, is especially bitter. Why? Because, in his words, “debate about gambling reveals fundamental fault lines in American character, sharp tensions between an impulse toward risk and a zeal for control” (2). He defines the tension in terms of two contradictory attitudes towards luck:

The Culture of Chance respects, and even reveres, luck and uncertainty. In America, this sentiment has appeared in the early settlements of Jamestown and Massachusetts Bay; in risky ventures in real estate; and in the confidence man whose eyes are on the Main Chance rather than the Moral Imperative. The culture of chance “implies a contingent universe where luck matters and admits that net worth may have nothing to do with moral worth” (3).

The Culture of Control asserts that we can master chance through force of will, and that rewards will match merits in this world as well as the next. This outlook, which originated in Protestant and Puritan culture, “assumes a coherent universe where earthly rewards match ethical merits and suggests that Providence has ordered this world as well as the next” (3).

Examples: “There is no such thing as fortune or chance” (John Calvin)
“America is rich because it deserves to be.”
“I make my own luck.”

Although these two narratives often overlap and intermingle, contemporary public opinion, in Lears's opinion, has been dominated by the culture of control. We live in a society that prides itself on having answers—or “the” answer—thanks to technology, reason, and resources. Lears's books tries to correct what he sees as a rhetorical imbalance by foregrounding practices and intellectual trends that embrace, rather than contest, the culture of chance.

(Secret of) Mana



Wherever the culture of chance appears, at its center is the force anthropologists call mana, a kind of energy that can reside in sticks and stones, rocks and trees, and animals, and that can be channeled, via ritual, for good or ill. Mana is luck made material, palpable, and accessible (26).

Voodoo, for instance, which is a complex synthesis of African beliefs and French Catholicism, shares animistic assumptions with most other participants in the culture of chance (50). These practitioners believed in the interpenetration of mind and body, the cohabitation of matter and spirit. “The voodoo synthesis flourished in Louisiana and the Mississippi Delta, especially in the region around New Orleans,” Lears writes. “By the early 1700s conjuring lore had become an important ingredient in the city's multiracial cultural stew. (So was high-stakes gambling.)” (50).

Rambler-Gamblers

What could be more subversive in our culture, Lears asks, than the readiness to reduce money to mere counters in a game?

riverboat culture (114-116) and prominent riverboat gamblers and card-sharps: Elijah Skaggs, James Ashby and son (120), John O';Connor (Wanderings of A Vagabond), “Canada Bill” Jones, George Devol. More on these guys soon. “The gambler's ethic resembled the soldier's: in defeat a stoical calm, in victory a reliable generosity” (124).

Mark Twain and luck (185)
J.B. Lillard, Poker Stories (154)
woman gambler, Cherokee Hall, from A.H. Lewis's Wolfvillle stories (219)

William James, “our greatest philosopher of chance”: “In a society committed to fine-tuning the organization of everyday life, where the actual practice of gambling was driven to the margins of society and placed under unprecedented surveillance, randomness and risk acquired a fetishistic charge—especially to the artistic and literary avant-garde. As in archaic cultures, chance became a path to esoteric knowledge” (220-227).

part two tomorrow.

Something for Nothing, Part Two: Poker and "The Two Cultures"

Gambling, as I mentioned in part one, is a big mover-shaker within the culture of chance. But what about poker? As a gambling game, it must occupy the same cultural space, right? Well, no. My own view is that, just as America contains two competing narratives or attitudes towards luck—chance vs. control—the poker community reproduces this same tension. These days, the poker culture of control is in control—especially here, on 2+2, where we debate +EV lines, seek optimal strategies, and discuss when hold-em variants will be “solved.” Poker resources are abundant and hyper-specialized. Years ago, no one would have considered working on one's “mental game”; now, Jared Tendler and others are available for hire.

On the other hand, the culture of chance is alive and well in the poker community. You, like me, probably know it when you see it (or feel it): being “in the zone” in a particular hand, feeling like you're an invincible soul-crusher who will run over the table, wanting to play on a particular day or sit in a special seat. Maybe—just maybe—the poker gods are watching us. Best not to piss them off.

Gambling for Grace

By reconsidering the culture of chance, Lears advocates a willingness to live with unresolved conflicts—“to embrace accident while affirming the possibility of transcending it, to acknowledge absurdity while sustaining a vision of cosmic coherence. This acceptance of paradox and contradiction undergirds a tragic sense of life: a capacity for hope in the face of inevitable, pointless loss—a state of grace where the cultures of chance and control can somehow come together” (10).

One problem with this position (as Lears himself admits) is that he tends to skirt the material, ugly side of gambling. As one reviewer put it:

"Lears does raise the question ''When play becomes compulsive, is it still play?'' But he doesn't answer it, and often he praises gambling as play despite its mechanical, repetitive character. He also praises gamblers for their stoic attitude to ''the precariousness of wealth, the impermanence of life and the arbitrariness of money as a measure of worth.'' But a person may believe that accident rules the world without feeling any wish to gamble: one does not necessarily want to worship the prince of this world just because one admits that it's his" (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/09/bo...l?pagewanted=2).

Overall, though, Lears is fair-minded and transparent—he's interested in the discourse of gambling, not gambling itself—and he comes down squarely on the side of chance. Or, as he'd probably say, of grace.

Cliffs

Something for Nothing: Luck in America is a valuable read for anyone interested in cultural attitudes towards luck in America. Be warned: Lears favors dense intellectual history over witty gambling tales. But it's all good. Both are important.

Next week I'll read something a bit lighter—probably Knights of the Green Cloth or Ghosts at the Table.

In the hand when he showed you the card I think he could have done that to induce a shove with 98o, or he could have a fd but it wouldn't really make sense to show a card in that case.

When you talked about mana I instantly thought of magic the gathering haha.

Yea I think the villain is his own worst enemy a lot of times, I played with him again and he's just a constant talker/card-shower. The interesting thing is that he'll do things that should never work, but that actually do: on the turn, with like 200+ in the pot, he paid a guy four dollars to show his hand. And the guy accepted! He showed, allowing villain to fold a lower pair. lol live pokerz

It's funny, I've had a bunch of conversations about Magic necently. Never really played the game myself, but I think I'd like it. I was a big Secret of Mana fan back in the day.

Great to see William James appear on 2+2. Any idea of which James text this quote is from?

The fact that Villain looked before showing is significant, especially given his past tendency for this kind of angle. Your general sense of whether you felt he wanted you to bet or check is relevant, too (as William James might say, we can legitimately use "feelings" as a relevant mode of perception). Spots like this are interesting because we want to believe that such extravagant tells are "coded", but the reality is that we are merely receiving more information, which should be thought as incremental more than conclusive.

That quote is Lears on James. Lears quotes from "The Will to Believe" and "The Dilemma of Determinism." Reading that section was like eavesdropping on old conversations among grad school friends who specialized in James, Derrida, and Charles Peirce. I never understood what they were talking about but it was nice to listen.

I've never seen a guy talk/angle more than this villain, and I've only played two sessions with him. Since he's so jovial, no one seems to mind. And, in my case, I definitely didn't mind since he gave away so much info! I strongly felt that he wanted me to bet. The problem is that, given times that I've been "wrong" about reads in the past, I get into a leveling war with myself: should I trust my intuition, or should I do the opposite? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUvKE3bQlY.

This time I followed my instincts and took the action that I felt he didn't want me to take (checking). Don't think I posted results: the river paired the queen, so the final board was Q838Q, and he snap shoved. I snap called, obviously, and told villain that I had a queen. He seemed surprised and mucked, so I didn't see his hand. Afterwards he told me that he had an eight, which I think is possible but less likely given the river play.

Ghosts at the Table: Riverboat Gamblers, Texas Rounders, Internet Gamers, and the Living Legends Who Made Poker What It is Today by Des Wilson (Da Capo Press: 2008, 342 pages



"Poker's history is always there, hovering over every hand, not least because some of the greatest names in its history are still alive, still competing and seemingly destined to play until the day they're carried from the card room, their last hand dealt" (ix).

In Ghosts at the Table, English writer Des Wilson explores the American side of poker. He splits the book into "four ages of poker"(summary courtesy of Martin Harris): "The first age deals with the 19th-century version of the game as it was played in Old West gaming halls and on Mississippi riverboats, focusing on figures like Hickok, Holliday, Wyatt Earp, and George Devol. For the second age, Wilson jumps ahead to the mid-20th century and down to Texas to consider the stories of Johnny Moss, "Amarillo Slim" Preston, T.J. Cloutier, Crandall Addington, and to try to determine the true origins of Texas hold'em.

"The third age begins with the birth and growth of Las Vegas. There Wilson presents two extended portraits of the men he dubs the "Godfathers" of poker, Benny Binion and Doyle Brunson. He then discusses the origins of the WSOP, focusing on some of the more remarkable Main Event final tables as well as the "Big Game" at Bobby's Room. The book concludes with the fourth age in which "poker takes off" with the explosive growth of the online game, poker on television, and the WSOP" (http://www.pokernews.com/news/2008/0...osts-table.htm)

Elementary, My Dear Wilson

The book, a hybrid of history, journalism, and memoir, is a fun, breezy read in which Wilson sees himself as a kind of detective. “My aim,” he writes, “has been to identify [poker's] special characters and the stories that matter, and, above all, to answer some of the game's unanswered questions and solve some of its mysteries” (ix).

Some of these “mysteries” include:

What was the fifth card that Wild Bill Hickok held in his hand when he was gunned down in Deadwood?
Is Benny Binion a crook or, as Steve Wynn exclaimed, “the greatest guy we ever met”?
What happened to 1979 WSOP champ Hal Fowler?
Is Doyle Brunson a “straight” gambler?
Did Johnny Moss ever play Nick the Greek?

And so on. Many of these questions strike me as pointless or unanswerable. Take another "mystery," the origin of Texas Hold'em. Doyle thinks hold'em originated in the 1950s in Waco. Amarillo Slim thinks it came from Brenham, Texas, a tiny town between Houston and Austin, in 1959. The state of Texas officially dubbed Robstown the home of hold'em in "the early 1900s": http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs...l/HC00109H.htm. And Wilson, after digging around a bit, finds evidence that hold-em was played in Dallas as early as the 1930s. Exploring poker's past is tough because, unlike baseball, football, golf, the Olympics—unlike most sports—poker players haven't left behind any records of their play. I suspect that, for Wilson, the search, not any definite "answer," matters most.

Some of the sections—on Johnny Moss, Doyle, Benny Binion, the WSOP—are familiar territory. Wilson also covers new ground, and he does it well. Thanks to extensive personal interviews, his chapter on the Texas road gamblers is especially good. By all accounts, it was a difficult life. In the words of Carl McKelvy, an old-timer from Houston, “We used to call it the three ifs...IF you can beat the game, IF you get paid, IF you get out of the place with the money. It was tough” (119).

My favorite part of the book is the section on Hal Fowler and Bobby Hoff. With characteristic doggedness, Wilson tracks down Fowler's whereabouts and interviews Hoff, a player consistently beat high-stakes cash games for a half-century. Hoff recounts their memorable 1979 heads-up match in 1979 in which Fowler ran like god and snatched the title before vanishing. Both men are ghosts now: Fowler died in 2000, Hoff in 2013. But, thanks to Wilson, they live on.

Cliffs

Ghosts at the Table is less about solving mysteries than telling stories. Wilson revels in poker lore, and his enthusiasm for the game is infectious. Jon Bradshaw's Fast Company is still the best portrait of the old-time gamblers: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...0&postcount=97. But Wilson's account is more comprehensive and is definitely worth a read.

Inside Macau’s Poker Scene

http://www.fulltilt.com/blog/poker-in-macau/.

Unlike the poker road trip series, this one is straight reporting. was fun to write.

Very interested and gl

March Month in Review

"Life is only a game of poker, played well or ill;
Some hold four aces, some draw or fill;
Some make a bluff and oft get there,
While others ante and never hold a pair."

Reading

I've been delving into the history of poker and gambling, which has been fun and interesting. I'm reading what's perhaps the best book yet—although all of them are very different—a little-known history of frontier gamblers called Knights of the Green Cloth. I'll post my thoughts in a day or two.

Will soon read The Control of Nature by John McPhee.

Writing

Things are going well on the writing front. Finished a draft of my biggest project and sent it out for feedback. Will continue with the poker road trip series, and am starting two or three other projects (two of which are poker-related) that I'll be tackling for the next six months or so.

Pokering

Target Hours: 80
Actual Hours: 50

Had friends in town three of four weekends, which hurt volume. Also struggling to balance all the **** I have going on, which is cool. I'll figure it out. This month should be less hectic.

Life-wise, things are very good. I'll be here for 1.5 months, through the WSOP Circuit, before heading to Las Vegas for the World Series.
Mardi Gras Indian from Super Sunday

My neighbor in St. Roch (he's a dead ringer for Steve Zahn's character in Treme)

Thanks!

That reminds me of how much I loved (and miss) Treme!

same here! I enjoyed the show despite the inevitable comparisons with The Wire.

Knights of the Green Cloth: The Saga of the Frontier Gamblers by Robert K. DeArment (University of Oklahoma Press, 1982, 423 pages)



“We recognize him at a glance. He is tall and thin, almost emaciated. His hair is dark and he is clean-shaven except for a drooping mustache that adds to his saturnine appearance. He is dressed in black and his mien matches his attire. His pale, somber features could have been carved in ivory. Only his eyes move. They flick over everything, ignoring nothing. Jewels flash at his hands and breast. He is not visibly armed, but it is certain that several weapons are concealed on his person. We know that he can be extremely dangerous when angered, that he lives by taking the wealth of others and can be ruthless in the taking. We also know that he is fearless and willing to risk all he owns to achieve his ends. He can be generous to the unfortunate. He is at all times courteous and protective to women, children, and other defenseless critters.”

This image of the Frontier Gambler lives on in the popular imagination, appearing in every kind of media. But who were the actual men who lived, breathed, and gambled on the American frontier? The historian Robert DeArmament provides a window into the lives of these fascinating figures who, between 1850-1910, plied their trade in mining camps, cattle towns and army outposts. His book allows us to move from stereotype to reality—although, to be sure, there's no getting past the myths.

He breaks the book into four sections:

1. unusual men of great card skill who were viewed with a kind of awe—the Aces
2. Those who achieved economic or political power through the gambling profession—the Kings
3. The few hardy females who carved out legacies in the masculine world of gambling—the Queens
4. the crooked gamblers—the Knaves.

Vivid History

“Here came the Texas cattlemen after their trail drives, pockets bulging with the proceeds of their beef sales; army officers on leave from a dozen scattered frontier outposts, back pay smoldering in their billfolds; bearded hunters from the buffalo ranges of western Kansas, receipts from the sale of thousands of hides hot in their horny hands. With them, like flies after honey, came the gamblers to vie for a share of his bonanza” (69)

The thing separating this book from the pack is that it's both rigorously researched and readable. In fact, parts of the book read like a historical novel. DeArment is a skillful writer and storyteller, and his account is anchored in people and the often-bloody adventures. Here's a sampling:

Aces and Kings

Bat Masterson (1853-1921)



“The Boss Gambler of the West,” Bat Masterson, was said to be “the best known man between the Mississippi and the Pacific Coast” (114). Was tight with Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday.

Benjamin F. Thompson (1843-1884)



Englishman who made his living as both a lawman and a professional gambler. reputed to have killed a Frenchman named Emil DeTour in a knife duel at New Orleans (83).

James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok (1837-1886)



“Hickok was a gambler by profession and, while no one would say that he was a man to violate the peculiar code of ethics governing the gamblng fraternity, it is not improbable that his reputation as a gunfighter won for him many a stake over the poker table which his cards could not win.”

Once, for example, when Hickok was in danger of being cleaned out by cardsharps in a poker game, he called the last of his money on the river and watched as his opponent revealed the winning hand and smugly raked the pot. “Hold it!” he exclaimed, drawing both revolvers. “I have a pair of sixes and they beat anything.” Bill took the pot and left.

more soon, in part 2