A Friendly Game of Poker

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.