Customer Reviews

Fast Company: How Six Master Gamblers Defy the Odds - and Always Win

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This forgotten book deserves attention. Critics have always loved it, but the unfortunate title ("Fast Company: How Six Master Gamblers Defy the Odds--And Always Win") confused the reading public. It never sold well. It is NOT a collection of get-rich-quick drivel. It's a group of incredibly poignant, expertly delivered portraits of some of the most colorful professional hustlers of the 20th Century.

At once informative, funny, and deeply moving, Fast Company is one of two favorite books on my extensive shelf of gambling titles. If you're at all curious about the subject, you must buy it.

I'm sitting here and recalling some of my favorites of the nearly hundred poker/gambling books I bought between 1999 and 2002 while learning the ropes. Looking through my collection I find not one but three copies of Fast Company. The memories come flooding back! I have three copies because back then it was out of print and I bought every used copy I could find online, just to be sure I always have a copy. It is that good.

Bradshaw was a truly gifted essayist and observer and was never out to sell the gamblers here as heroes. What he did instead was get inside their heads like a master poker player, and then show us what made them tick. Add to that their own reminiscences of many of the other greats and you get one of the most in-depth of all books on gamblers and their passion. (Those who judge gamblers as somehow unholy might learn a thing or three from this book, and might consider that our entire global economy is run by Wall Street gamblers who have recently made some of the worst wagers in history...though when you keep your billions in profits but your debts are picked up by the taxpayer, it's always a good bet!)

The extra stroke of genius of Fast Company is that Bradshaw was able to meet and chronicle the lives of some of America's greatest gamblers (and what country is more based on gambling?) before they died, and before most in the mainstream realized how special they really were. Each of the six portraits is a masterpiece.

It's hard to pick a favorite as each article is so fine, but the pieces on Johnny Moss and Titanic Thompson are truly legendary, as were their subjects. I won't go into detail other than to say that I just reread the last paragraph and got a chill up my spine remembering what I felt when I first read this book. I learned a lot about poker and life from Fast Company, lessons that have served me well and made me money ever since. Never underestimate the power of a great book!

No hyperbole could match how far beyond other gambling writers Bradshaw was/is. He understood how complex and incredibly sharp and funny and wise and foolish these men were, because he was in their league. He doesn't lionize them nor does he demean them. He shows full respect for their incredible lives and exploits (and is willing to slyly point up their hubris, as with Fats) and by the time you've read about these six gamblers (three of the greatest poker players included, Moss being perhaps the finest of all time) you have a true feel for what being a real road gambler back in the day meant.

There's also wry laughs aplenty, as in the Bobby Riggs tale, and so many great anecdotes. So many! The Gods of Gambling made sure that a writer of Bradshaw's calibre was able to meet Moss and Thompson et al before they (and he) died, so that we would have a book that finally reveals the depth and breadth (as well as the shallowness) of the life of a world-class gambler. These are not always the greatest of men but they are all great characters, with all that implies.

For some reason I've never loaned this book to any friends; it's always felt like my own little secret world in some strange way, a hidden canyon full of dapppled sunlight and dark corners that shows how glorious and venal life can simultaneously be. Read it and you'll see why. It is a very special book indeed, and it amazes me that it has never received anywhere close to the acclaim it deserves. Only two reviews five years after the second reprint in three decades? (Blessings to the reprinters, by the way! Few books are more worthy.) Truly incredible, especially in light of the poker boom and resultant poker book boom (most of which are trash and not worthy of sitting on a shelf next to this tome).

And a dime for a used copy? Deal of the century! Buy a copy for everyone you know who appreciates great writing when they read it, or who has ever stayed up all night in a game trying to get unstuck.

Thank you Jon Bradshaw, wherever you are, for writing the definitive book on what it means to be a gambler, warts and all. You are in the same class as Thompson and Moss: the best in your field, and sadly underappreciated by history. That will change. (One day you will hear this book mentioned and quoted by every lame tv poker commentator out there. Everyone tells the Moss/Greek story, but this is the only version in Johnny's own words.) This book will also sooner or later be accorded its just position atop the gamblers' literary pantheon beside Dostoyevsky and friends.

Then again, true greatness is its own reward. As any real gambler knows (and who amongst us is not gambling every day, even just by driving on the highway or eating genetically modified "food"?), it's living the peaks to the fullest that counts, and then surviving to scale them again. Some of the finest and most interesting people I have ever met were at a poker table. Beauty is oft found in the most unlikely places.

Fast Company has my highest recommendation for those who respect men who live life the way they want to, and long to slip back in time to a world before plastic was invented.

Not really a travel book, like the rest of the Vintage Departures line, but an examination of another culture just the same. Bradshaw profiles six men with something in common--they are all hustlers, that is, gamblers who make a living by their wits. The range here is great, including the tennis player Bobby Riggs and backgammon great Tim Holland, as well as more "traditional" gamblers Minnesota Fats (pool), Pug Pearson and Johnny Moss (poker), and Titantic Thompson (proposition). But these were just what these men were best at--they all exceeded at almost every game they undertook, golf being an extremely common one for each. Bradshaw was a gifted writer. His style makes this book difficult to place down; the subject makes it nigh impossible.

This book by Jon Bradshaw is composed of vignettes from the lives of six master gamblers: Pug Pearson, Johnny Moss, Titanic Thompson, Bobby Riggs, Tim Holland and Minnesota Fats. Bradshaw is definitely a good writer (he co-wrote "Backgammon -- The Cruelest Game" with Barclay Cooke). There is no question that the book is interesting, but for some reason it seems to be lacking. One thing that bothered me was the inordinate space given to Minnesota Fats, a character who is perhaps the least interesting of the six. Also, Bradshaw seems to give a different impression of the gamblers from other sources I have read. For example, Johnny Moss is portraited as a good man, introspective and caring. Most other accounts portrait him as vicious, cruel, and almost sociopathic. He also portrays Tim Holland in a much better light than I have read elsewhere. Most of Titanic Thompson's propositions have been listed repeatedly in the gambling literature; there is nothing new here. I suppose that considering the subject matter, these faults mean very little in the scheme of things. But they prevent me from giving the book five stars. (Incidentally, you can have my copy by going to Bill's_Books at the Amazon Marketplace!)

...because I just didn't get where the fuzz's about.
It's an okay book and very well written, but the title alone just promises you more then you get.
If you are a read-everything-there-is-about-gambling kind of person, then it's a "must buy".
But if you are not...well, then buy it if you like autobio's, this one being about 6 separate guys from between the 30's and 70's living of different kinds of gambling and there stories.

Lots of better books out there for poker and gambling readers. Book was just too bland and uninteresting for me.

This book helped me incredibly understand the odds and help beat the casino at their games. I recommend it.