My poker book project

So, my "follow along, " is a bit different. I'm working on a book project and wanted to post stuff here to get feedback, ideas, inspiration, constructive criticism, etc. I suppose it's a bit like bob_124's poker project thread.

Granted, there is a parallel storyline of me diving back into poker, studying and trying to get better but I'll just post stuff related to that when it's interesting or marks a milestone. The book's focus is more on telling the stories of different poker players and less about my playing journey.

About me: I'm a writer, photographer, professor living in Washington, D.C. Got into poker during the Moneymaker boom. I quit my job as a journalist in 2006 to chase the dream in Atlantic City where I ground it out for 15 months on the 10-20, 20-40 limit hold em tables at the Borgata. Went broke, crashed on my parents couch, got a job in DC and played poker sporadically over the next 17 years. Recently, out of boredom (or because of a horrible run with sports betting), I got back into online poker. Got hooked again and started studying obsessively and came up with a book idea.

If you want a deeper dive on how it has been going, you can get caught up on my substack.

As introduction to the book, here's a recent post from the substack:

A lot of the research for this book comes from reading and re-reading some of the great poker literature of the past 40 years, not so much the strategy books but the non-fiction narratives that capture the drama and excitement of competitive poker and the over-the-top lifestyles of its top players.

There’s no shortage of well-written, first-person accounts: James McManus’ Positively Fifth Street, Al Alvarez’ The Biggest Game in Town, Colson Whitehead’s The Noble Hustle, Maria Konnikova’s The Biggest Bluff and Anthony Holden’s Big Deal and the follow up, Bigger Deal, are in my reading pile.

Except for Alvarez, the great British poet and essayist, the narratives are through the eyes of the authors playing in the World Series of Poker, a month-and-a-half long series of tournaments held each summer in Las Vegas, culminating in the Main Event, the biggest, most prestigious tournament of the year. The books cover the gamut.

McManus made it all the way to the final table of the 2000 Main Event, where he finished 5th. Konnikova chronicled her year-long journey, going from never having even played poker to cashing out in three tournaments at the 2017 WSOP. Then there’s Holden and Colson, better writers than poker players — both of whom found themselves a bit over their skis.

There’s only one problem with this approach. I’m reserved by nature and not too keen on the idea of writing an entire book in the first-person. Too self-indulgent. Too much me. And really, who cares about me?

A commenter on reddit described one writer’s attempt at the first-person poker genre this way: “He wanders into personal musings that are annoying at best and offensive at worst. He’s unlikeable to everyone but himself. He should retitle it ‘Smelling my own farts and telling you about it’ ”

That one made me shudder.

I’d rather focus on the stories of elite players, exploring the secrets of their success. A collection of vignettes?

Yet, as I sketched out a narrative arc, I kept coming back to the idea of making it about one man’s search for “poker enlightenment.” I kept thinking of Hermann Hesse’s 1922 novel Siddhartha, where the titular hero wanders through ancient India on a journey of self-discovery. In the end, Siddhartha realizes that nirvana is not a destination but a journey where the sum of all experiences and actions along the way leads to the ultimate truths.

He ends up, of all places, at a river. Hello poker metaphor! (The river is what we call the final card dealt in a hand of poker.)

Journeys of self-discovery, self-reflection and redemption are a tried and true literary device. Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson, J.D. Salinger all come to mind.

I can work with this idea: The journey of an imperfect player trying to unlock the secrets of greatness. I jot down a list of four highly successful poker players whom I’m personally connected to; all of whom have done well at the WSOP, including one who won the Main Event, itself, and two others who have won coveted gold bracelets, which are given to winners of WSOP tournaments. (I introduced the fourth player in my last post.)

I envision my journey to enlightenment starting with me seeking them out. Could each of them reveal an “ultimate truth”? Where would those conversations lead?

To become a modern-day Siddhartha, it meant I needed to come clean on the book’s premise. This wasn’t about me wanting to know why the top players are successful, as much as me wanting to know why I was not. Where did our paths diverge?

Wasn’t that something Aristotle said? Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

Is that the first step on the path to enlightenment?