| PRODUCT DETAILS | | Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker |  | |
Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker
Rough sex, black magic, and the science--and eros--of gambling.Meet in the ultimate book about Las Vegas.James McManus was sent to Las Vegas by Harper’s to cover the World Series of Poker in 2000, especially the mushrooming progress of women in the $23-million event, and the murder of Ted Binion, the tournament’s prodigal host, purportedly done in by a stripper and her boyfriend with a technique so outré it took a Manhattan pathologist to identify it. Whether a jury would convict the attractive young couple was another story altogether.McManus risks his entire Harper’s advance in a long-shot attempt to play in the tournament himself. Only with actual table experience, he tells his skeptical wife, can he capture the hair-raising brand of poker that determines the world champion. The heart of the book is his deliciously suspenseful account of the tournament itself--the players, the hand-to-hand, and his own unlikely progress in it.Written in the tradition of The Gambler and The Biggest Game in Town, Positively Fifth Street is a high-stakes adventure, a penetrating study of America’s card game, and a terrifying but often hilarious account of one man’s effort to understand what Edward O. Wilson has called "Pleistocene exigencies"--the eros and logistics of our primary competitive instincts.
Manufacturer: Macmillan Audio
Price: $7.99
 Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker
|
| User Reviews |  | A Classic
rating: 5
McManus has written a deft, funny, and literate work that is hard to put down -
if you like poker, that is. For non-poker enthusiasts, or those unwilling to at least learn the basics of Texas Hold'Em, the many detailed descriptions of Bad Jim's amazing run at the WSOP will undermine the power of this terrific book.
McManus has many things going for him. He's an intelligent novelist who brings his keen observation to the worlds of poker, Las Vegas sleaze, and the murder trial of Ted Binion. He's also a fanatic poker player ( and a very good one, better than even he realized when he first landed in Vegas to cover the World Series ). He is well read in a variety of subjects, and thus the book has a Moby Dick feel, with Good Jim the writer making countless excursions into other areas and interests in his investigation of poker, sex, power, addiction, and art. Best of all, Good Jim has an ironic detachment about himself and his own weaknesses, and is not afraid to play the part of nebbish, though he is anything but one. Some of Good Jim's digressions don't really lead anywhere and slow the book down ( i.e., the pointless two pages on his former student, humorist David Sedaris ). And some of the digressions into psychology also bog down a bit. But these are compensated for by his quick, funny portraits of some of poker's great characters. All in all, a classic.
|
Fun and information packed.
rating: 5
I still cant' believe the guy made it to the final table. What an incredible feat. He writes really well too. Great story, well written. Ah, the catch is, this is definitely a GUY book, whatever that mean.
|
Poker...and everything else
rating: 5
An amazing book. Somehow the author is simply telling the story of how he played in the World Series of Poker but also weaves in all of the following:
- Murder
- Adultery
- The history of poker
- The history of cards
- The history of Las Vegas
- The mob
- What constitutes "cheating" on your wife?
- High ethics
- Discussions of game theory
- His own family tree
And just about everything else. All of it in brilliant prose that makes it fascinating.
At the same time he brings you to the poker table and you feel the tension of re-raising TJ Cloutier with the author. I felt sick a few times as the author described playing pocket jacks aggressively.
If you love poker or gambling or marriage or reading or life, read this book.
|
excellence and mendacity
rating: 3
McManus has taken several plot lines of varying interest and wrapped them into one messy book. The real-time WSOP diary part of the book is outstanding--funny, gripping, and a great way to live out every small-time rounder's dream vicariously. It's well worth the price of the book. The rest of it... I wasn't nearly interested enough in McManus as a personality to enjoy the insights into his poker-playing youth, and the coverage of Ted Binion's weird life could have been cut without me missing it.
At half the length, this would have been a positively five star book.
|
Required Reading for Rounders!
rating: 5
For decades, I went to the World Series of Poker as a side-game player and a writer. Like so many, I played mostly and wrote a little. All the writers I met over those years just have to be jealous of James McManus. He played well and made the final table and the big bucks AND he wrote a best-seller about it. I am a poker writer, but I do not pretend to have a fourth of the skills of the eloquent Mr. McManus. He is the Dean of American Poker Writers. England has some fancy wordsmiths. This book is not just for poker players. It would make a great gift for anyone. McManus throws in the saga of Teddy Binion, to boot.
Johnny HughesTexas Poker Wisdom
|
|
Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker
|
|
|
|
