Poker Nation
New Journalism, Old GamePoker Nation is not a new book. Nor is it a book that teaches you how to play poker - anymore than George Plimpton's Paper Lion would teach you to play football - - a few tips here and there, sprinkled with some theory - but only enough to help you understand the narrative. Plimpton actually played a large part in bringing Andy Bellin to The Paris Review where he remained for several years. And it is no surprise then that Bellin gives tribute to participatory New Journalism by writing about poker.
Andy's story is one of a New York undergrad who finds himself spending weekends at the Connecticut Indian Casinos and later the infamous underground poker clubs in NYC famously portrayed in the movie Rounders. Along the way the format resembles the participatory romps of Bellin's mentor Plimpton who sprinkles his foibles with the legends, pranks and horror stories that surround the game he describes.
In this respect Poker Nation feels a bit formulaic. Half the work is compiling tall tales. Andy is no slouch in this. We get Doyle Brunson. We get Amarillo Slim and the history behind the "World series of Poker". We also get the easy titillation of learning the slang in poker: the turn, Siegfried and Roy, the nuts, the stone cold nuts. All of this is easy for the author and easygoing on the reader. But not every drink has to be Miles' elusive and subtle Pinot Noir. Sometimes a few tumblers of everyday scotch does the trick. Poker Nation does the trick
The addictive aspects of the game are embodied in Dicky and Dolly who try to grind out a life playing poker in Vegas. While ESPN shows alot of the "high life" (cue Miller Beer commercial) and "high stakes" of poker - the subtitle of the book and common sense should alert us that the poker world is low-life and full of low lifes. Think of the endemic corruption that has often spoiled boxing. Now imagine dozens of illegal boxing circuits in each city - in which anyone can participate in a 10 man fight. Poker, outside of the $5- $25 dollar range is just like that - despite the flashy bourgeois aspirations of cable t.v. poker.
But the real pleasure of the book is in Bellin's tales of his own poker misadventures. His bad beats, the bad beats he puts on others. The sweating, askance looks. The dangling cigarettes and bizarre table manners. One moment you are unbeatable, you are pushing money into the pot and putting someone else's wallet into the vice grip. Then the turn comes and the card you did not want to see - the card you knew your opponent needed comes out and he's leaning back in his chair while he's pushing the money in. He's giving you "pot odds". You have to call, the way someone has to shuffle themselves to the noose that hangs them. Then the river comes and everything changes again. You are all in. Unbeatable again.
Poker Nation is a book nearly anyone who considers themselves " a reader" will enjoy on a Saturday afternoon. It's 250 something pages can go by in just a few hours. New Journalism's appeal runs thin beyond that. Plimpton's Open Net (one of the best books on hockey) is one or two chapters too long. It has a similar page length as Poker Nation but labors with a much smaller font. Bellin succeeds where too few do today - in writing the good "good-book".
(retroactively posted on Review Monday)
Michael Brendan Dougherty
in Review Monday
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