Poker Stories

Through fascinating and intimate profiles, the authors reveal the ground-breaking strategies and outrageous lifestyles of the games most influential players, including Puggy Pearson, Stu Ungar, Phil Hellmuth, and Chris Ferguson. The authors take you through the evolution of modern poker from shady back rooms to the world of high-tech mainstream entertainment, including tales about legends and street-smart hustlers who stormed the poker rooms of Las Vegas in the 1960s. 281 Pgs. 2006 ...

Slim, a World Series of Poker champion, offers an entertaining blend of stories, hustles, con men and powerful players from Texas to Nevada and everywhichway. Dinkin spent hundreds of hours interviewing Slim and captures his persona in his drive to find that elusive edge at whatever he played. 270 Pgs. 2003

A modern poker classic (out of print for a while) that tells the tale of a year in the life of biographer Holden, who took off to experience the life of a professional poker player. He recounts his days and nights in poker rooms in Las Vegas, Malta, Morocco, and at sea. Holden rubbed elbows with the greats of the game, sharpened his skills and aimed for the ultimate in pokerdom, the World Series of Poker championship. 384 pgs, paperback, 2002

From the moment he wins $10,000 in a tourney pitting journalists against three world champs, Holden hits a hot streak, spiriting readers to an instructional camp in Vienna and the World Cup of Poker in Spain before returning to Las Vegas to compete with 8,772 other hopefuls in a WSOP "crapshoot." With Congress restricting Americans' ability to play poker for money online, the semipro invasion might have peaked, but Holden still has a gift for finding the romance in holdem. 291 Pgs. 2008

Masterful wordsmith Wilson has written what may be the games first definitive history. He traces pokers Wild West origins in Deadwood to the annual World Series of Poker and amazing high-stakes games of modern Las Vegas. A story full of unforgettable characters riverboat gamblers, Texas rounders, roadside hucksters, and living legends who have made poker the worlds most popular game. 368 Pgs. 2008 Hardcover

Listed as An All-American Tale, this book chronicles the author’s journey to play in poker’s big leagues: The World Series of Poker. Walsh begins by playing online poker for pennies, continues his expedition with stops at church basements, a mansion, the back room of a bar, an Indian casino and finally, the hallowed poker rooms of Las Vegas. On the road to triumph (or ruin), he lives out a dream he shares with millions of other players and fans - all the while trying to juggle his...

Sit side-by-side with Doyle as he replays the excitement and life-changing moments of the most thrilling and crucial hands in the history of pokerfrom his early games as a rounder in the rough-and-tumble Wild West years, where a man was as likely to get shot as he was to get a straight flush. to the nail-biting excitement of his two world championship titles. Doyle brings to life the high stakes tension of sidestepping police, hijackers and murderers, competing for hands worth more than $1...

Poker is a game of many different concepts and ideas, and the relative importance of these ideas has changed over the years as different forms of poker gain and lose popularity. But the underlying theory of how to approach poker, and in particular no-limit hold em, still remains the same. Since 2005, David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth have each been writing four essays a year, covering a variety of topics. Some of these essays are easy reading, while some of them address the more challenging...

If you know Phil Hellmuth then you either love him or hate him! His rants, tirades, and lines like “I can dodge bullets baby” and “If it weren't for luck, I'd win them all” are epic and have earned him the nickname the “Poker Brat.” However, whether you love him or hate him, he is undoubtedly the greatest poker player of our time. Phil is a global poker icon who holds every record at the World Series of Poker, including an extraordinary 14 world championships. In Poker Brat Phil paints a...

On assignment for a major magazine, McManus traveled to Las Vegas, where he made it to the final table of the World Series of Poker, winning 5th place against Hall of Famer T.J. Cloutier (whose book he credits for his success) and 2000 world Chris Ferguson. He weaves together his World Series adventure, the murder trial of Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish, accused in the murder of Ted Binion, the world of high-stakes poker and the underbelly of the Las Vegas gambling scene in this NY Times best...

Beginning with a female pool shark named Booboo, this anthology goes through a litany of stories that not only deal with games of chance, but more intensely with the people who play, why they take part, and what they gain besides the gratification of winning, or the discontent of losing. Included are tales of humor, anxiety, love, war, and magic. When asked to name his favorite, the author replied, "That's impossible. One day I would say the western, the next it could be the baseball story,...

Craig captures the excitement of the big game, featuring the real-life duel between the Professor (Howard Lederer), the Banker (millionaire Texan Andy Beal), and the Suicide King (the king of hearts, which holds a broad sword) in his book about poker and people, what makes players tick, what draws them to the cutting edge of the game, who the best are, how and why they play. Packed with history and biographical notes on some of the biggest names in the poker business, including their highs and...