A Friendly Game of Poker: 52 Takes on the Neighborhood Game [Paperback]

Jake Austen (Editor), Ira Glass (Foreword), Robert K. Elder (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2003

Essays by a diverse group of writers capture the joys, regrets, friendships, philosophies, and adventures experienced through neighborhood poker. This collection of 52 original pieces features a section of practical and impractical tips for home poker games and a cornucopia of fascinating facts about poker paintings, poker movies, poker books, and other poker-themed masterpieces of popular culture. An interview with Edie Adams demonstrates Ernie Kovacs’s poker obsession; Nick Tosches reveals Lester Bangs as a sucker; Chris Ware illustrates Bert Williams’s “Darktown Poker Club”; Bill Zehme discusses Johnny Carson’s celebrity poker game; and Neal Pollack discloses how his grandfather brutally introduced him to the game. With far more humor and clarity than a formal poker guide, these essays encapsulate the experience of spending a long evening drinking beer and playing pasteboards.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"There's no such thing, of course, as a friendly game of poker," says James McManus, author of Positively Fifth Street, in a blurb for this entertaining collection. So perhaps it's best to play as Ira Glass does-online. Glass also poses the central question: "if poker's so wrong, why does it feel so right?" Greg Dinkin describes the agonizing, moment-by-moment thought process of playing a hand. Bill Zehme explains why Johnny Carson, who hates parties, attends sessions of the Gourmet Poker Club ("the card game becomes secondary the minute somebody has a good story to tell," says fellow player Carl Reiner). And David Quantick and Karen Krizanovich explain why Americans prefer poker and the British prefer bridge (poker is more democratic). Anyone who's ever been in a weekly poker game will find much to identify with in this delightful volume.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The weekly poker game is an American phenomenon, and this collection of essays reflects that provenance as well as the special passion Americans bring to the game. Of course, there are several pieces relaying poker anecdotes, such as "He Who Steals My Purse Ain't No Friend of Mine," by Nick Tosches. But those make up only the first section, called "Table Tales." There are also sections called "Practical and Impractical Tips" and "Poker in Culture" (where Dan Kelly, in "Poker for Bastards," relates how one book taught him the Machiavellian art of bilking friends out of their hard-earned money). The essays are short and pithy, often silly, and usually just plain funny. As the editor says in "Fifty-Two Poker Terms," "Part of what makes poker night fun is acting like a bunch of knowledgeable low-life big shots." A nice, light offering to complement the hundreds of how-to poker books. Mary Frances Wilkens
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 252 pages
• Publisher: Chicago Review Press (October 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556525125
• ISBN-13: 978-1556525124
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,791,135 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars For Poker-Playing Bathroom Readers Only, September 19, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: A Friendly Game of Poker: 52 Takes on the Neighborhood Game (Paperback)

My initial inclination was to say that this book is for that small minority of poker lovers with poor literary judgment, but I've decided that would be unduly harsh. It may have some tidbits of knowledge interesting to poker lovers, but most people will just not find the book a satisfying read. It's generally superficial, and yet too dry and boring for a fun bathroom read.

I purchased the book due to my interest in poker dogs; my book "Poker Dogs" is appearing in March 2004. While I wasn't sure of the book's contents, there is in fact a poker dogs chapter, "It's a Dog's World, According To Coolidge" by Moira F. Harris. This is an updated version of a little essay she wrote several years ago about the original poker-dog artist, and continues to contain serious errors. She continues to parrot the falsehood by the Brown & Bigelow calendar company that they owned Coolidge's original paintings. The information about Coolidge's work for cigar companies is also, I think, basically false. The idea that Coolidge was "well known as a painter of dogs prior to his affiliation with Brown & Bigelow" is ridiculous. There are other cavils I could offer, but I won't bore you. I told Ms. Harris years ago how Coolidge's calendars were not the 12-month calendars of today, and she repeats my information in the essay. If information about ripping off monthly sheets from a little pad fascinates you, this is for you. Mostly, the essay catalogues latter-day instances of poker dogs in a dry fashion. Not very intriguing.

Anyway, moving on from my speciality, the book overall is not very successful. Its portmanteau format, collecting works by various authors, strikes me as agent-driven, whipping up a book that has no reason for being. Using a few "names" to lure people to the book does not mean that their offerings are all that good. The cover mentions the cartoonist Chris Ware, and yet his only contribution is a drawing of the entertainer Bert Williams. Mr. Ware may be a great cartoonist and a superb designer, but this drawing looks to me like mere commercial art--Bert Williams drawn in the style of those fashion drawings that used to appear in department store ads, or in the style of those 1970s children's-book illustrations ...

And why does the cover credit Edie Adams--the actress?--with a contribution, when there is no indication inside the book that she actually contributed to the book? Is there some mention of her name inside the book that I missed, or did the cover designer just make a dumb mistake, misremembering the name of non-famous contributor Ashley Adams?

The editor of the book refers to the entertainer Bert Williams, whose lyrics appear in the book, as "little known today." That's like calling Caruso "little known today." Anyone who knows a little about the history of American popular music knows who Bert Williams was. And yet in the list of contributors at the back of the book the editor refers to writer Bill Zehme's magazine work as "renowned magazine journalism." Renowned? Respected, perhaps. But renowned? Come on. I think these small instances evidence the kind of sloppiness and superficiality that produced and pervade this book. ...