TOTAL POKER

A poker buff's delight, featuring some of the great games of the past two centuries, including many in books and films: Private Prewitt, a loser, dropping the $200 pot to M/Sgt Warden in From Here to Eternity (""It was true poker, hard monotonous unthrilling, and he truly loved it""); Steve ""The Kid"" McQueen being busted in a huge hand of five card stud by Edward G. ""The Man"" Robinson in The Cincinatti Kid (when Robinson wins an early pot on nothing he tells the downcast loser, ""All you pay is the looking price. Lessons are extra""); poker in Westerns as an aspect of machismo, and male bonding in The Sting and California Split. There are tales of presidential poker: Jimmy Stewart teaching Naval Lt. Richard ""Nick"" Nixon how to play (Nixon won $6,000 in his first two months of conservative betting); avid Harry Truman, playing morning, noon and night; Henry Clay against Daniel Webster and John Quincy Adams; and even, by extension of theory, Kennedy versus Khruschev in the Cuban missile crisis. Plus!--Jimmy the Greek and World Champions Puggy Pearson and Amarillo Slim in marathon games at Vegas, and more, much more. Gorgeous, unstoppable reading.