|
 There
aren't a lot of narratives about poker floating around in the literary
world. That's actually something of a surprise; the world of poker is filled
with so many interesting characters and so much conflict that it's really
ripe for the right author to come around and pick it clean. Perhaps that's
the key here - a good poker novel requires the right author. Anyone who
wants to read a novel about poker is most likely a player himself, and if a
book purporting to "tell it like it is" gets something wrong, any real
player will toss it aside in the blink of an eye. A realistic poker
narrative requires an author who's been there.
Enter Jesse May, American poker player and writer, whose novel Shut Up and
Deal tells it like it is - and then some. It's completely obvious from
the outset that May is the real deal. From the moment his narrator Mickey
Dane started talking I slipped away from the world around me, suddenly
transported to the Taj Mahal poker room. If May were unconvincing - if I
believed for one second he hadn't been in the middle of the beginning of the
early 1990s poker boom - I would have merely been reading words on a page.
Possibly they might be entertaining words, a nice diversion in the middle of
the day, but they wouldn't be real. That's not a concern with Shut Up and
Deal. The scent of high-stakes poker coats May's words, sticking to them
the way cigarette smoke stuck to your clothes in the days before so many
poker rooms banned smoking.
In some ways Mickey Dane, the narrator, might resemble other people you've met
through poker. He's been gambling since long before he was legal but came to
the conclusion that poker was the only way to come out ahead in the long
run. He puts on an act to convince the other players that he's a "live one,"
the one mark in the game that keeps the game going. And like a lot of
players, he started off with a bankroll much too small for the game he was
playing but went on a rush and has never looked back.
In other ways, though, Mickey isn't like the players you've met. He's traveled
all over the world playing the game since he went pro, playing in Vienna and
Amsterdam, Vegas and Atlantic City, Indian casinos and government casinos;
anywhere there's a game, he's been ready to play. He's carried upwards of
$30,000 on him walking into the Taj Mahal, in stacks bound by rubber bands,
stashed in his pockets and his shoes and wherever else he can find a spot.
Most of all, he's different because he's played 150-300 mixed games with the
world's best and held his own, all while decked out in the most garish
outfits the Blackhorse Pike Salvation Army can provide.
The life Mickey lives isn't like yours, either. The poker room is a world
apart, a climate-controlled virtual reality with no time, no real money, and
no real friendship. Everyone is friendly enough on the surface but they're
all out to get each other. There's Bart Stone, a top-limit player with a
death-rattle rasp of a voice who is as cutthroat an angle-shooter as you'll
find, a man Mickey labels "evil incarnate." Then there's John Smiley, a
completely innocent looking man from Ohio who's one of the most skilled
players Mickey has ever seen, a man who runs well in games despite the fact
that he's almost always twisted on cocaine or pot. Or consider "Uptown"
Raoul Abdul, always decked out in a Taj Mahal tracksuit, borrowing money
from anyone he can find to feed his gambling jones and stiffing his backers
if he thinks he can get away with it. Mickey weaves his way between these
characters, crossing paths and becoming intertwined and unraveling himself
again, with a breezy attitude that's admirable at the best of times and
crazy at the worst.
When it comes down to it, the reason Mickey survives is his attitude. "The
trick to poker is mastering the luck," he says. "That's philosophy.
Understanding luck is philosophy, and there are some people who aren't ever
going to fade it. That's what sets poker apart." He understands the luck,
the swings in the game, the way that poker works - and any reader who's
paying close enough attention will learn these lessons himself. The front
cover of
Shut Up and Deal proclaims it to be a novel, but in reality it's a
collection of poker wisdom brought to life in breathtaking detail. Anyone
who plays the game with regularity - and wants to continue doing so - owes
it to himself to read this book.
|
