Leatherface vs. Tricky Dick: ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ as Political Satire General Release Today!

It's an exciting day here on the farm, as today marks the official "street date" of my new book, Leatherface vs. Tricky Dick: 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' as Political Satire!

The book has been available for a while already, actually, at the publisher's website, Headpress. However today begins the book's "general release," which means people can start ordering it via the usual outlets online like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the like.

There is a paperback version, an e-book, and an audiobook. There's also a cool hardbound version, though that one is available only at Headpress.

I've shared a bit about the book here already, and if you visit the Headpress site you'll find more about it, including excerpts and a couple of other posts. For poker people, there isn't a lot of poker in there, but there is some. The story of how the movie got its title does involve a poker game. And of course there are a couple of references to Richard Nixon's poker playing, which readers of this blog and/or Poker & Pop Culture already know is a special interest of mine.

On the whole, though, the book explores different ways the 1974 horror film appears to reference and even comment in a satirical way politics of the day, in particular the corrupt and criminal Nixon administration and the Watergate scandal that played out just as the film was conceived, written, shot, edited, and produced. Incidentally, today is the anniversary of Nixon's resignation (August 9, 1974) which came less that two months before the movie premiered.

If you're interested in Chain Saw or horror movies, generally speaking, the book definitely has something for you. Even hardcore fans should discover new items about the film, I think, as it presents a minute-by-minute "deep dive" highlighting its references to politics and Watergate but also other aspects of the film and how it was made.

If the most recent president's two impeachments and other scandals piqued your interest to learn more about Watergate, the book does that as well. I've been teaching a "Nixon class" at UNC Charlotte for the last several years in which we obviously cover Watergate, and the book takes a similar approach toward informing readers about the complicated scandal and its many wild details. You'll also learn about how Watergate was experienced by Americans as it played out, and how Chain Saw compares to other contemporary satire of the period criticizing Nixon and his co-conspirators.

I'm excited about a couple of other book-related activities I'm doing soon. One is to participate in this "international conference on slasher theory, history and practice" called the Slasher Studies Summer Camp.

The conference is online and entirely free to attend. It starts this Friday the 13th (natch) and continues Sat. and Sun. My talk about "Leatherface and the Nixon Mask: Political Satire in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is early Saturday the 14th at 7:00 a.m. ET / 12:00 p.m. BST.

There are tons of other great talks and guest speakers and panelists as well, especially if you're into academic inquiry into slashers. You can register for the Slasher Studies conference here.

I'll also be doing a less formal "Q&A" with Headpress on Tuesday, Aug. 17 at 2:00 p.m. ET / 7:00 p.m. BST. That one is also online and also entirely free. Actually that's an "author reading" as well, so we'll start with me reading a bit from the book, then answering questions about it. You can register for the Q&A here.

I'm also likely to appear on at least a couple of podcasts to talk about the book -- not a full-fledged "book tour," but a fun approximation, I guess. Looking forward to all of these and, of course, for the book to get out there once and for all.

If you do pick it up, thanks! And let me know!

Leatherface vs. Tricky Dick Now Available for Purchase from Headpress!

Hello all. A quick check-in to announce that starting TODAY my new book, Leatherface vs. Tricky Dick: 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' as Political Satire, is available for purchase via the Headpress website!

Today is what they call a "soft" launch, as the book hasn't officially hit the "street," so to speak. The actual publication date is August 9, the anniversary of the day Richard Nixon resigned from office in 1974. But you don't have to wait until then to get it -- you can order it right now from Headpress.

The book presents a minute-by-minute analysis of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre highlighting the film's ongoing commentary on contemporary politics. In particular, I highlight how the film contains many uncanny allusions to the Watergate scandal that played out while the film was conceived, written, shot, edited, and produced. (The movie premiered in early October 1974.) 

I was motivated in part by the filmmakers' own comments about Watergate having in some ways inspired the film. I wrote a blog post for the Headpress website referring to those comments and how they encouraged me to conduct such a deep dive into Chain Saw. You can read that here: "Taking Tobe Hooper's Comment That Watergate Inspired 'Chain Saw' and Running With It."  

You can order the book through the Headpress site as well. Right now you can get the paperback, an e-book version, or a special hardback version (with color photos!) that will only be available via Headpress. Later an audiobook is coming as well. 

Headpress is in the UK, so the prices are as follows: 

• paperback - £17.99 
• e-book - £11.99 
• hardback - £25.00 

If you want to get the hardback, they are running a promotion for the next week. Use the code "1974" when you make your purchase, and the cost is just £19.74. Get it? 

Speaking of 1974, Headpress has created some other fun items to go along with the book -- a "Leatherface 1974 Face of America" shirt and coffee mug. You can find all of that at the Headpress site as well. 

The book will be available everywhere once we get to August, but I wanted to let you know you can get it now. 

(By the way, I've created an Instagram account associated with the book and project, if you're on IG. The account is leatherfacevstrickydick.)

Meanwhile, take a look below at the cool "trailer" Headpress pulled together for the book.

Now available exclusively from the Headpress website, Leatherface vs. Tricky Dick: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as Political Satire by @hardboiledpoker: https://t.co/68zRnTblWj #horror #HorrorFam #cult pic.twitter.com/0XPi2Vq13l

— Headpress (@Headpress) May 20, 2021

Book News: Leatherface vs. Tricky Dick: ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ as Political Satire

Not long ago I appeared on The Poker Zoo podcast to talk about my book Poker & Pop Culture as well as other things concerning the state of the game today. It was a fun conversation covering a lot of topics, including the history and current state of poker blogs.

Near the beginning of the show I gave a quick summary of how this blog came about and where it fit into the larger story of poker blogs circa 2006. I talked about how blogs began to fade away, particularly after Black Friday (April 2011) when this big, global online "community" of poker players to which we all belonged suddenly became fractured, especially from the perspective of those of us in the U.S.

I persisted with Hard-Boiled Poker, however, continuing to post every weekday for another five years or so, then still posting quite frequently after that before slowing down to begin working in earnest on Poker & Pop Culture.

As we talked about on the podcast, writing P&PC is what really more or less moved me off the blog, as I didn't have the time or mental fuel to write about poker both for the book and here. (And the book is a monster, by the way -- 432 pages, 160,000 words.) As I have noted here before, I can't help but view Poker & Pop Culture as kind of a culmination of my poker writing, bringing together a lot of what I was sharing here on the blog and elsewhere over 12 or so years of writing about the game.

I was eager after that to write about something not poker. I had another novel in mind, and in fact was starting to work on it when the novel coronavirus emerged to distract. But by then I already had a different project in the works... and extra motivation, too, thanks to a deal with a house to publish it.

That book is now finished and in "pre-production," you might say. Editing, proofing, formatting, etc. The current schedule has it coming out either end of 2020 or early 2021.

I mentioned the book at the end of another enjoyable interview I did for Club Poker a while back. When mentioning the book there I suggested that with my next project I had decided to follow the "pop culture" path rather than the "poker" one.

In the past, starting a few years before my poker writing, I did some more "academic" writing while teaching full-time. Some of that writing was about horror films, and I placed articles in a few different publications including Film Literature and the Journal of Popular Culture. One of those articles was about The Blair Witch Project. Another concerned The Stepfather and its relationship to an episode in Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon.

Another focused on Halloween III: Season of the Witch and modern horror franchises, more generally speaking. If you're curious what I say in that article, here is a post I wrote for another blog that explains it a bit. You can also check the Wikipedia page for H3 to see a reference to one of the arguments I make in that article.

For a time I was considering a book-length project about horror movies. However that was around the time poker stepped in to create a big life detour that included leaving that idea to the side.

Readers of the blog know I've also had a significant interest in poker-playing presidents, in particular Richard Nixon who earned a lot of space in the "Poker in the White House" chapter in P&PC. Several years ago I began teaching a second American Studies class at UNC Charlotte that focuses on Nixon alongside my "Poker in American Film and Culture" class. In fact, for a while I thought I might write a short book about Nixon, examining his strange and remarkable political career through the lens of his poker playing.

I tell you all of that to help explain how I ended up spending a good part of the last year writing this new book, one that combines my interest in horror films and in Richard Nixon. The book focuses on the 1974 film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and the title gives a good idea of the book's approach:

Leatherface vs. Tricky Dick: 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' as Political Satire.

The idea for Chain Saw first came to director Tobe Hooper near the end of 1972. The film finally premiered on October 1, 1974 (46 years ago today). In other words, the movie was conceived, written, shot, edited, and ultimately premiered exactly as the Watergate scandal unfolded, with Nixon resigning (and getting pardoned) shortly before the first audiences got to see Chain Saw.

Over the years Hooper in interviews frequently made reference to the film's many social and political subtexts, including directly citing Watergate as having "inspired" Chain Saw. His partner and co-writer Kim Henkel has also made reference to the filmmakers' awareness of the contemporary political context when making the movie. Meanwhile the film itself includes many moments and details that further encourage a reading of the movie as a kind of commentary on Watergate, if you can stop being frightened enough to notice them.

My book does a deep dive into those details, providing a minute-by-minute analysis of the movie in order to explore its numerous political messages, many of which pertain to Watergate.

I don't argue away other interpretations of the film, or deny other intentions of those who made Chain Saw (including the primary one to scare the hell out of you). Nor do I suggest the film presents a consistent, ongoing "allegory" of Watergate, although I do often liken Leatherface and his murderous family to Nixon and all the president's men.

It was a very fun book to write, and I'm hopeful readers will enjoy it when it appears. I think fans of Chain Saw should like it, as should those interested in presidential politics and political satire. Speaking of the latter, I delve quite a bit into other examples of Watergate satire along the way (other films, books, columns, comedy records) as I show how Chain Saw also takes a similar, indirect and (darkly) humorous approach in its criticism of Nixon and his administration.

For a film that has been picked over as much as Chain Saw, I do think I was able to cover some new ground with my analysis and comparison of the film to the political horror show happening while it was being made. I also hope the book helps readers understand just how villainous a character Nixon was, and how at the time the film premiered it wasn't at all outrageous to compare him to a mask-wearing, chainsaw-wielding maniac. 

I will be sharing more details here soon regarding a publication date for Leatherface vs. Tricky Dick and how to get it. I also look forward to sharing the fantastic cover created by my publisher, Headpress, which is a scream. Stay tuned!

Book News: Poker & Pop Culture Now Available!

Checking in again to let everyone know my book Poker & Pop Culture: Telling the Story of America’s Favorite Card Game is now out! No more preordering and waiting... order it today and you’ll have it right away.

I received some author copies a short while back, and earlier this week I got a copy of the e-book from D&B Poker as well. Here is a short video that provides a glimpse of both -- take a look:

Valerie Cross also wrote a nice piece about me and the book for PokerNews last week. Check it out: “Martin Harris Shares Inspirations for New Book ‘Poker and Pop Culture.’”

Right now you can order the paperback from Amazon, and I imagine the e-book version is going to show up there soon as well. Meanwhile both the paperback and e-book can be ordered at the D&B Poker site. In fact, if you get the e-book from D&B, we’ve added a special bonus “appendix” that includes a list of “The Top 100 Poker Movies” with summaries, memorable quotes, and links to the films’ IMDB entries. (The appendix won’t be included with the e-book if you get it on Amazon.)

Also coming in the near future will be an audio book. Last month I spent many hours in a studio recording the book, and before too long that ought to start showing up as well both on the D&B site and Amazon.

Here are some places online where I’ve found you can buy the book:

D&B Poker

Amazon

Apple Books

Books-A-Million

Barnes & Noble

Book Depository

Target

ThriftBooks

Poker & Pop Culture is also on sale right now at the D&B Poker booth at the World Series of Poker there in the halls of the Rio. I’ll be heading out there next week for a visit, and I’ll surely spend some time hanging out there at the booth, too.

As I say in the video (and have talked about here on the blog), the book provides both a history of poker and a history of how poker has been represented in American popular culture -- i.e., movies, television, music, fiction, drama, plays, literature, and so on. Thus the book not only tells you when and where and how poker has been played over the last two centuries, but also when and where and how poker has been portrayed, too, and how those portrayals have influenced opinions about poker and the game’s significance to America.

There to the left is a picture of the list of the book’s chapters. It took me a while to settle on this way of organizing the book, and in fact once I did I had this piece of paper posted by my desk -- kind of a way to keep that “bird’s eye view” before me as I wrote.

As you can see, each chapter covers a particular place where poker can be found, with that idea being applied broadly to refer to locations in history (e.g., the Old West, the Civil War, etc.), in media (movies, television, music), in society (business, politics), in time (the past, the future) and in literal locations (homes, clubs, casinos).

The book is roughly chronological, starting with poker’s origins and ending with discussions of the game in contemporary contexts. But what I’ve really tried to do is create a kind of “geography” for poker with each chapter highlighting a different place for the reader to visit where poker exists. That includes real places, made-up ones, and many combining fact and fiction.

It’s a pretty complicated story, really. One theme that emerges fairly quickly in the book is how poker occupies this very paradoxical place in America as a game both beloved and condemned. There are just as many examples in popular culture of poker being romanticized and celebrated as there are examples of it being censured and demonized.

I’m not really an unrelenting “cheerleader” for poker in the book, having chosen instead to try to be somewhat objective as I chronicle and interpret all of these examples of poker from American history and culture. That said, I think just by writing a book like this I’m obviously taking the position of someone who thinks the game is worth studying and of historical importance.

It’s definitely satisfying to have reached this point in the book-making process. Of course, there’s also that difficult sense of “letting go” while knowing I might have said more, or said things differently -- something akin to ending a poker session knowing that while you did your best, there were still hands in which you might have made different (and possibly better) decisions. (To mitigate that feeling, I hang onto the idea of a revised, expanded edition down the road.)

Thanks to those who have picked up the book already, and thanks in advance to those who plan to do so later. And to you, reader of Hard-Boiled Poker, who inspired me more than you realize to take this interest in the game and writing about it in this direction.

Poker & Pop Culture Now Available for Preorder!

As I’ve shared over Twitter and Instagram, my book Poker & Pop Culture: Telling the Story of America’s Favorite Card Game is now complete, and in fact has already been sent to the printer in time for publication around late May-early June.

You can preorder either the paperback or e-book right now from a number of different outlets. (There will also be an audio version of the book coming soon as well.) Ordering from the publisher, D&B Poker, is the most direct way to get it (and the place I’d advise you to go) -- here is the site for that.

Looking elsewhere, you can also preorder the book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, and probably other places, too, that I’ve yet to discover. No matter where you go, if you buy it now it will be delivered to your doorstep right around the first of June. If I understand correctly, you also won’t be charged until it actually ships.

I delivered the completed manuscript back in early January, but after a decent amount of editing and additional work I truly didn’t have the sense the book was “done” until a couple of weeks ago. As visitors to this blog have probably surmised, a great deal of my poker-writing energy was poured into that project -- a primary reason why I’ve been scarce over here for a while.

I’ve appeared on a few podcasts lately to talk about the book. If you’re curious, you can listen to those to get a bit of a preview:

House of Cards, Episode 574 (January 20, 2019)

Thinking Poker Podcast, Episode 284 (4 Feb. 2019)

The Chip Race, Season 8, episode 5 (11 Mar. 2019)

There is an extract available over on the D&B site that includes the beginning of the book and part of the chapter “Poker in the Movies.” It also includes the table of contents, which gives you an idea of the book's scope.

On those podcasts and in other situations, I have been describing the book as having a couple of primary purposes. One is to share the history of poker in America, starting with the very first reports of games and carrying the narrative all of the way to the present. Another important purpose is to tell the story of how poker has been presented in popular culture -- e.g., in the movies, on television, in music, in paintings, in literature and drama, in magazines and in a host of other contexts -- along the way showing how those representations of the game have importantly shaped opinions about poker.

Regarding the latter (poker in popular culture), a lot of the focus in the book is on poker popping up in “non-poker” contexts. For example, in the chapter “Poker on Television,” I do spend some time talking about “poker television” -- i.e., the WSOP, the WPT, and all of the other “poker shows” that helped increase the game’s popularity, especially during the “boom” years of the 2000s. But I spend even more space describing poker being portrayed in TV westerns, dramas, and comedies -- i.e., not actual poker but fictional poker -- and talk as well about how those portrayals of the game have encouraged certain ideas about poker’s meaning and significance.

Another way of describing the two goals of the book would be to say Poker & Pop Culture tries to share the true story of poker’s origin, development, and growth while at the same time provide a comprehensive overview of fictional portrayals of poker. It’s a lot to cover, which is one reason why the book is more than 400 pages long.

When it comes to the true history of poker, a lot has been necessarily hidden, which requires writers like me to dig deep and sometimes be forced to settle for speculative answers to questions about the game’s history. Meanwhile, the fictional portrayals of the game might be a little easier to chronicle, but the “texts” nonetheless require some interpretation in order to figure out just what they are saying about poker and its place in American history and culture.

I’m very happy with how the book has turned out, and how it kind of represents a culmination of the nearly 3,000 posts I’ve written here on Hard-Boiled Poker as well as all of the other poker-related writing I’ve done over the last 13 years. (The cover is pretty awesome, too.)

Speaking of, eight years ago today -- April 15, 2011 -- if you had asked me whether I thought I’d still be writing about poker in 2019, let alone publishing a poker book, I’m pretty sure I would have said no. As many of you well remember, that was “Black Friday,” the day playing poker online was essentially removed as an option for American players. In fact, it still isn’t an option for most of us.

I was in Lima, Peru that day, helping cover a poker tournament for PokerStars. I remember how disorienting that day was, and how a few nights later my friends and I gathered to enjoy each other’s company and contemplate the future, each of us thinking how we’d somehow reached the end of something.

As it happened, aside from no longer playing online, the changes weren’t nearly as dramatic as we thought they might be. I was able to continue going on such “poker trips” to other countries and around the United States, too, and still do today (though not as frequently). And by continuing to write about poker, the seeds were planted that eventually grew into Poker & Pop Culture.

In a later chapter the book does cover “Black Friday” and the wild “rise and fall” of online poker in the U.S., a topic that could certainly take up an entire book of its own. Indeed, many of the chapters are like that, in my opinion, capable of being expanded greatly into much longer studies.

In any case, I’m super excited the book is coming out soon and to be able to share it with everyone. Feels a little like I’ve been dealt a premium hand and am now just waiting -- a little anxious, very psyched -- to see how things develop from here.

You may be wondering whether or not it is “positive EV” for you to go ahead and purchase the book now or wait until later. I’ve actually studied this situation, and it turns out buying Poker & Pop Culture falls well within your preordering range:

#pokerpopculture

Starting a short while ago -- a little before I shared here the big news of my new book, Poker & Pop Culture: Telling the Story of America’s Favorite Card Game, which will be coming out via D&B Poker next summer -- I had an idea for something fun to do over Twitter as I continue to work on the book.

I’ve mentioned here how I’ve found it hard to post on the blog since most of my time and energy has necessarily been going toward the manuscript. But I also find I want to share certain “poker & pop culture”-related items I’ve encountered (or that I’ve discovered and explored before, in some cases long ago) without writing entire blog posts about them.

I’ve started sharing those items over Twitter, using the hashtag “#pokerpopculture” whenever I do. I’ve delivered about 20 of those tweets so far -- here are a few of them:

The Marx Brothers were avid poker players. In fact, Groucho, Harpo, and Chico all got their nicknames in a five-card stud poker game from a monologist named Art Fisher. Harpo would later perfect the art of cutting the cards, as demonstrated in “Horse Feathers.” #pokerpopculture pic.twitter.com/Y6B9mefqQA

— Short-Stacked Shamus (@hardboiledpoker) March 21, 2018

“The Odd Couple” (1968): Felix moves in with Oscar and the weekly poker game suddenly becomes a lot cleaner.
“What’s that smell... disinfectant?”
“It’s the cards. He washed the cards!” #pokerpopculture pic.twitter.com/2uj9MdAfdS

— Short-Stacked Shamus (@hardboiledpoker) March 29, 2018

Bugs Bunny heads-up against Colonel Shuffle, the "rip-roaringest, gol-dingenest, sharp-shootinest, poker-playingest riverboat gambler on the Mississippi," in “Mississippi Hare” (1949). #pokerpopculture pic.twitter.com/oKcf9Hlt3U

— Short-Stacked Shamus (@hardboiledpoker) April 21, 2018

Game theory pioneer Oskar Morgenstern’s Feb. 5, 1961 NYT column “The Cold War Is Cold Poker” likened US-USSR diplomacy (or brinkmanship) to a poker game. “In poker there are always some winners and some losers; in power politics, both sides may lose. Everything.” #pokerpopculture pic.twitter.com/8b37angWk6

— Short-Stacked Shamus (@hardboiledpoker) May 17, 2018

From 1871, “The Saturday Evening Post” reports that among several “masculine accomplishments” demonstrated by women’s rights activists, “Susan B. Anthony plays a rattling game of draw-poker.” #pokerpopculture pic.twitter.com/wfNflDqw9Q

— Short-Stacked Shamus (@hardboiledpoker) June 13, 2018

As you can tell, the connecting thread here between the tweets are the way all highlight mentions of poker in the “mainstream” that help highlight connections between the game and American history and culture, generally speaking. That’s a primary thread of my book as well, although there the items are all presented in their appropriate contexts -- hopefully in ways that are both informative and entertaining.

Anyhow, you can follow me @hardboiledpoker and when you do click on #pokerpopculture for more.

For the Book

When I last checked in I mentioned a new book in the works, one focusing on poker and popular culture that will be bringing together a lot of the poker-related writing I’ve done over the last decade-plus both here on the blog and via other outlets.

As I’ve mentioned, the book will be called Poker & Pop Culture: Telling the Story of America’s Favorite Card Game. While it discusses the history of the game it will primarily focus on cultural representations of poker -- i.e., “mainstream” depictions of the game that also tell the story of poker’s significance and attitudes toward the game.

As I continue to work on the book I’ve come to realize every time I think about posting something here on the blog, I’m better served not doing so and instead saving it “for the book.” Truth be told, it isn’t true that everything I might write about here belongs in the book, but I’m still at an early enough stage where I’m more inclined to include more than exclude when it comes to envisioning Poker & Pop Culture.

It’s great fun, let me tell you, thinking about what I want to include and still sitting here at a point where most of the different possible versions of the book still happily co-exist in my jingle-brain.

That said, I know that way of thinking about the book isn’t going to last much longer, as the book will, in the end, be of reasonable length. I remember interviewing James McManus back in 2009 shortly after he’d published Cowboys Full and him telling me how his original draft had been around 1,000 pages. I’m quickly realizing how if I included everything I could end up with something similarly unwieldy, and so am already in the process of trimming back as I expand.

I guess I’m also saving “for the book” my finite supply of energy for writing about poker, which I’m also continuing to do elsewhere as part of my regular workload. I additionally keep teaching my poker-related American Studies courses every semester at UNC-Charlotte, which also takes away from the time I might have spent on here scribbling over here.

I’ll keep checking in here, though, when I can, and promise once the manuscript has been submitted to do so more often, particularly as we get nearer to publication.

Book Announcement: Poker & Pop Culture: Telling the Story of America’s Favorite Card Game Coming 2019

I have some fun news to share, and for some reason April 1 felt like a good day to share it. This one is a long time coming, something I’ve hinted at here on the blog a few times before.

The “poker & pop culture” book is happening. No foolin’! (And no shinola.)

The book will be published by D&B Poker. After many years of publishing strategy books, D&B Poker has widened its scope a bit to include other poker-related titles like Tricia Cardner and Jonathan Little’s books on psychology and poker, as well as autobiographies by Mike Sexton and Phil Hellmuth.

You’ve probably heard as well about Lance Bradley’s book due to appear this summer titled The Pursuit of Poker Success: Learn From 50 of the World’s Best Poker Players that features Bradley interviewing many of the game’s best known and most successful players. You can preorder Lance's book now either via D&B Poker or Amazon.

My book will be titled Poker & Pop Culture: Telling the Story of America’s Favorite Card Game. Ordered somewhat chronologically as a history of the game, the book primarily will focus on poker’s prominence in American popular culture or the “mainstream.” In other words, I’ll be examining the game as it has been discussed and portrayed over the last two centuries-plus not just at the tables, but in newspapers, magazines, letters, memoirs, paintings, fiction, drama, radio shows, music, film, television, and elsewhere.

The book will additionally highlight poker being frequently evoked in politics, business, economics, warfare and diplomacy, business, economics, sports, and other “non-poker” contexts, with all of those references furthering the argument for poker’s importance to U.S. history and culture.

Such references to poker popping up day-to-day American life also tend to foreground links between certain ideals and values considered “American” -- things like individual liberty, self-reliance, the frontier spirit, egalitarianism, the “pursuit of happiness,” the ideologies of capitalism, and so on -- and so that obviously will be part of the story, too.

The idea of doing some sort of poker book probably began for me way back during the early days of the blog (begun almost 12 years ago), at some point not long after I picked up the habit of writing about poker on a regular basis both here and then soon after for a variety of different sites and publications.

For a few years that was mostly just an idle thought encouraged by the fast-growing number of Hard-Boiled Poker posts. However, once I developed and began teaching my “Poker and American Film and Culture” class in 2011, the idea began to take on a more concrete shape as I envisioned creating a book that might serve as a kind of textbook for the course.

Then in 2014 things got even more specific when with the help of an agent I began shopping book proposals and developing blurbs, detailed outlines and annotated tables of contents, sample chapters, and the like.

That process evolved into a year-and-a-half long mini-adventure that was interesting for me though less so for others, I imagine, so I’ll gloss over the details. Instead I’ll just skip ahead to the happy ending of D&B Poker entering the picture. I’ll be spending most of this year writing and rewriting as I get the manuscript together, with the 2019 World Series of Poker being the current target for the book to hit the stands.

I’ve written a book-length disseration and two novels before (Same Difference and Obsessica), and so I have had some experience planning and completing long-term writing projects. As in poker, patience is a big part of seeing such things through and having something to show for it in the end.

But this will be something different, a new and different kind of writing challenge. And I expect it ultimately to be a lot of fun for your humble scribbler and (hopefully) for some of you, too.

I’ll keep you updated on the project over here as well as on Twitter. Meanwhile big thanks to everyone who has read posts here and other articles of mine, and whose support and feedback encouraged me to keep writing. I know already the list of people I’m going to want to mention in the Foreword will be a long one.

Image: A Friend in Need (1903) by Cassius M. Coolidge, public domain.

Poker and Bluffing in Alas, Babylon

We’ve had a pretty good month here on the farm. Elsewhere, too, as earlier this month I made another trip over to Prague for the latest PokerStars tournament series.

As you might have heard, after a one-year trial with the different branding they’re bringing back the old “EPT,” “LAPT,” and “APPT” designations in 2018. Next month I’ll be back in the Bahamas as well where they’re going back to calling it the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, or “PCA,” which should be another fun trip.

Meanwhile the holidays were good and I’ve had a chance to do a little reading for pleasure.

I’ve had about three different novel ideas fighting for space in my jingle-brain these last few months, all of which could be referred to as “near future sci-fi.” As a result I’ve been reading (and rereading) some older SF, including some post-apocalyptic fiction imagining various civilization-concluding events and the aftermath. One of my ideas would involve something analogus to that type of story, although I’m finding myself a little overwhelmed by the idea of constructing something on that large scale.

One book I’ve enjoyed here lately is the famous post-apocalyptic novel Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank from 1959, one of those overt “cautionary tales” of the Cold War that tries to depict the consequences of nuclear war.

Frank was primarily a journalist, I believe, who wrote for a number of newspapers while also doing some consulting for some governmental bureaus. In terms of fiction he wrote some plays and a few novels, including another Cold War thriller called Forbidden Area (1956). He also authored a nonfiction manual called How To Survive the H Bomb And Why (1962).

Frank is quite gifted (I think) when it comes to creating believable characters and situations, and if you like stories in this vein Alas, Babylon is an easy book to recommend.

There’s a well-managed episode early in the book in which Frank incorporates poker into the story as a way both to introduce a minor character and rapidly provide some context for a brief conflict. The scene involves the book’s protagonist Randy Bragg and a banker named Edgar Quisenberry.

Randy’s brother Mark, a colonel in the Air Force, has given Randy advance warning that the Cold War may be about to turn hot. Mark arranges to have his family stay with Randy down in Florida, away from the base in Nebraska which would be one of many likely targets of a Soviet strike. Mark also gives Randy a check for $5,000, thus necessitating the visit to the bank.

We’re told the banker Quisenberry bears some sort of grudge against the Bragg family, a tidbit that adds suspense to Randy’s visit as we wonder whether or not Quisenberry might find reason to refuse to cash the check. Then comes the explanation for the grudge -- the brothers’ father, a politician referred to as Judge Bragg, once humiliated Quisenberry following a hand of pot-limit five-card draw.

Frank describes the hand well, one involving Quisenberry folding three aces after a pot-sized raise by Judge Bragg following the draw. Desirous to know if he’d been bluffed, Quisenberry grabbed the judge’s mucked cards and turned them over to find he’d had three sevens.

“Don’t ever touch my cards again, you son of a bitch,” the judge says very quietly in response to his opponent’s etiquette-breaching behavior. “If you do, I’ll break a chair over your head.”

Not only did Quisenberry lose the hand, but he lost face, too, with Judge Bragg adding some salt to the wound with an end-of-the-night parting shot in which he called Quisenberry “a tub of rancid lard” and “a bore and a boor... [who] forgets to ante.”

Years later, the banker tries to exact some revenge by making Randy twist a bit before cashing his $5,000 check. But Randy manages to make Quisenberry eager to cash the check after saying that “Mark asked me to make a bet for him,” thereby leading the banker into mistakenly thinking Randy is about to share a horse racing tip with him.

Once Randy has the money, he reveals the bet isn’t on horses, but on something else. “Mark is simply betting that checks won’t be worth anything, very shortly, but cash will,” Randy explains obliquely before leaving.

Unwilling to believe in any impending threat to the country’s financial structure, “Edgar reached a conclusion. He had been tricked and bluffed again. The Braggs were scoundrels, all of them.”

There’s something very nimble about the inclusion of the scene and the use of poker. By that early point in the novel, chess had already been mentioned as a kind of an analogue for nuclear brinksmanship. But by then it’s already clear as well that the “game” being played between the superpowers involves a lot bluffing, too.

Indeed, at that point in history, many others were making the same point about Cold War being like a poker game in various ways -- see “Chess vs. Poker in the Cold War: Planning Ahead vs. Reacting to the Last Hand” for more discussion along those lines.

Reading a little more deeply, the way Quisenberry loses the hand and is subsequently shamed could be related to Cold War diplomacy, too. After all, a big part of such interactions concerned finding ways for an opponent to “lose” a pot without losing face -- the Cuban Missile Crisis a couple of years later would be a most dramatic example of that.

As I say, I’m not sure about whether I want to try to stage a large-scale post-apocalyptic story or not. Of course, Frank’s example with Alas, Babylon shows how it’s very possible to tell such a tale while narrowing one’s scope to focus on just a few relatable characters -- kind of like how a single hand of poker can become emblematic of an entire session (or player, even).

Meanwhile, if you got an Amazon gift card for Christmas and are looking for something to use it on, consider my last novel, Obsessica, available both in paperback and as an e-book.

Novel News -- Obsessica eBook is out!

Am all settled at the Rio where the first couple of Day 1 flights of the World Series of Poker Main Event have already played out. Already had some fun interviews and other items of interest -- will report soon.

Just a quick note to share that the eBook version of Obsessica is now available! It’s good for the Kindle and other devices. Those who buy a print version of the novel should also get access to the Kindle version for free, or so I understand it.

I was writing here not too long ago about how I still can’t quite think of “novels” as being something other than those physical objects with hard or soft covers and words printed on pages that we hold and look at for a few hours or days or weeks.

I know to say such things is to sound irrational (or just plain stubborn). It’s a silly thing to insist upon, something belonging in the category of useless complaints about how the present ain’t the past.

As I’ve mentioned before, Obsessica is a book set in the past -- an adult narrator looks back on something that happened when he was a kid in 1980 -- and so kind of exemplifies that same desire to go back and experience that time and all of the “old” things that marked it.

There’s even some talk about books in there, despite the fact that the narrator makes a point to say early on that he isn’t much of a reader (or writer, for that matter). The House of the Baskervilles and the Guinness Book of World Records turn out to be two important books, and also are meant to serve as extra-textual “secondary” sources for the novel, in a way, that point to certain themes.

Like I say, though, I’m fully aware that nostalgia for books is a kind of folly. And of the irony of my indulging in it while writing on a blog, and spending just about every other waking moment writing for online-only outlets.

Anyhow, you e-reader types -- go check out my novel. I’ve heard it’s kind of a page-turner. Or screen-scroller.

Pages and Screens

Busy times here on the farm. Getting hotter, with the daily afternoon storms not doing a whole lot to cool things down.

My trip westward to the World Series of Poker is fast approaching, as I leave on Friday. I’m looking forward to getting back to Las Vegas -- it has been four whole years since my last trip there. Doesn’t seem nearly so long, though, probably because I previously spent so much time in the Nevada desert so many summers in a row.

Indeed, it’s become out of the ordinary for me to take poker trips within the U.S., as most of my tourney journeys over recent years have been to Central and South America or Europe. That trip to New Jersey last fall for the first PokerStars Championship Festival was the first U.S. trip for me since late 2014 when I went to Florida.

Meanwhile I did want to let you know an eBook version of Obsessica is close to being available -- just a few more small things to take care of before it is ready to go. Was kind of a similar deal with Same Difference (my first novel), for which the ebook didn’t appear until well after the hard copy was first published.

I still can’t quite embrace the idea of reading books on the Kindle or some other device.

Obsessica is a book featuring a 12-year-old protagonist -- it isn’t quite “YA” fiction, I’d say, although I imagine younger readers might enjoy it. The story got me thinking about books I enjoyed as a teen, and after going down that road a while I decided I wanted to reread a couple of them -- Dune by Frank Herbert and The Stand by Stephen King -- both books I first read when I was around 13-14 or so.

I no longer had my copies of those two, and so went online to order new ones. I didn’t want Kindle versions, though, nor did I even want updated editions. I wanted the exact same paperbacks I’d read before, and so after hunting a little I was able to order exactly those.

Now there’s some sort of minor psychological tic in there somewhere that might be mildly interesting to explore, something related to the compulsion to repeat and/or a desire to go back and experience again something from one’s childhood.

But in the present context I’m more intrigued by the mental block I have regarding electronic versions of books, one that prevents me from feeling as though I’ve “really” read a novel if I read it on my Kindle or as a .pdf or listened to an audiobook version of it. For me the physical book is the thing, which is why (I suppose) I continue to think of the eBook version of my own novels as somehow secondary, even if I know many (most?) readers think differently.

Blogs are different, of course. Not books. Even the ones that go on and on for thousands of posts and hundreds of thousands of words.

Curious about Obsessica? (Fair warning -- there’s no poker in it.) Find the hard copy here, and stay tuned for that eBook (coming soon).

Image: “Kindle Touch” (adapted), Luke Jones. CC BY 2.0.

Down from the Bookshelf

On Monday I mentioned in passing my ongoing “Poker & Pop Culture” series over on PokerNews, which continues on a weekly basis. This week I completed another section of columns and so wanted just to share those here.

Starting a few weeks ago I began looking at a number of poker books published from the 1870s through the 1920s, most of which fall under the “strategy” category. These include the first full-length books focused solely on poker -- i.e., that aren’t just devoting a section or chapter to the game, but deal with poker only.

The appearance of such books is itself proof of poker’s growing popularity post-Civil War and on up through the early 1900s. The books also provide a lot of evidence regarding poker’s place in the culture as well, including the way the game wasn’t so readily accepted by many and sometimes outwardly viewed as dangerous and something to be avoided -- even by the books’ authors in a couple of cases (no shinola).

In fact, when it comes to these books about strategy (most of which focus on five-card draw), I personally find these contextual references and allusions much more interesting than the actual strategy discussions. Actually in some cases the strategic advice is quite good and even prefigures a lot of later poker strategy, but wonky discussions of odds of probabilities aren’t nearly as compelling as the digressive tidbits and anecdotes revealing various cultural responses to poker.

Here are books covered in the five articles:

Robert C. Schenck, Draw. Rules for Playing Poker (1872)

Henry T. Winterblossom, The Game of Draw-Poker, Mathematically Illustrated (1875)

John Blackbridge, The Complete Poker-Player (1875)

Jack Abbott, A Treatise on Jack Pot Poker (1881)

Talk of Uncle George to his nephew about draw poker (1883)

William James Florence, The Handbook of Poker (1892)

Garrett Brown, How to Win at Poker (1899)

David A. Curtis, The Science of Draw Poker (1901)

R.F. Foster, Practical Poker (1904)

Algernon Crofton, Poker. Its Laws and Principles (1915)

H.T. Webster et al., Webster’s Poker Book (1925)

And here are the columns in which discussions of these books appear:

The Congressman Who Accidentally Wrote a Poker Book (Schenck)

Professor Henry T. Winterblossom Does the Math (Winterblossom)

Strategy Books Telling How to Play, But Warning Not To (Blackbridge, “George,” Florence)

Laughing and Learning with “Webster’s Poker Book” (Webster)

Everything New Is Old Again (Abbott, Brown, Curtis, Foster, Crofton)

The series will be moving away from these old musty books for a while, talking about other topics like poker during wartime, poker in the movies, poker in popular music, poker in the White House and more.

Image: “Old Books 1,” Charles Hackley. CC BY 2.0.

A Captive Audience

Did something kind of unusual on the plane ride back from Barcelona yesterday.

It was about a nine-hour flight, perhaps a little more, starting in the morning and ending around dinner time. Sleeping wasn’t an option, really, although I don’t ever do that well trying to sleep on planes. If it’s a redeye I’ll usually can at least rest my eyes for an hour or two, but in truth I never really zonk out, even if I happen to have a row on which to stretch.

I started out watching one movie -- David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence -- which I hadn’t seen before. I’m up on practically all early and mid-period Cronenberg, and also being a noir fan I ended up enjoying this one, even if it turned out to be a little awkward watching certain scenes there in an aisle seat where those behind me could watch as well, if they wished.

Against Cronenberg’s earlier stuff, of course, it played as a little more restrained. Meanwhile when compared to the noir tradition the story, situation, and characters followed, it read as a modern, more graphic update. Certain elements of the latter act (in particular William Hurt’s character) seemed over the top, but by then that fit well enough in the somewhat stylized world being presented.

Finishing that as well as the in-flight meal, I scrolled around and dialed up another movie to watch -- The French Connection (which I have seen, long ago) -- but within 10-15 minutes I couldn’t keep focused on it and switched it off, opting for some music instead. Then after sitting there a bit I pulled out my laptop.

During a conversation with Jack (my buddy and blogging partner) early in the two-week poker festival I’d brought up this draft of a novel I have. Same Difference had been essentially written well prior to my getting into poker (and starting this blog in 2006), and I only published it in 2009. Meanwhile this new novel was written subsequently, the first draft of which was completed around three years ago. I revised it a couple of times -- the file is marked “3rd draft” -- but hadn’t opened it back up since earlier this year.

I opened it there on the flight and began reading. Got through the first several chapters and kept going, then eventually was approaching the midpoint. Finally at some point I realized I was ready to read the whole sucker, and doing some math realized I’d be able to finish it before we landed which I did. Was perhaps seven hours of reading, I think -- the book’s novel-length but on the shorter side (around 70,000 words).

I don’t think I’d ever read it through in one sitting like that, and it was satisfying to do so. Like the first novel it’s essentially a murder mystery, although not a detective novel and draws much more on my own experiences than did Same Difference which is set in New York City in the mid-1970s. This one is also set in the past, with the story starting in 1979 and ending in 1980, but takes place in a setting essentially pattered after my hometown with a boy protagonist/narrator of my same age then.

I tinkered just a little as I went, but not much as the draft had been pored over many times already. I remembered certain sections I’d cut, glad they were gone in this version. A couple of plot points have been altered from the initial version, too, though a lot of it is still there.

The experience made me eager to begin the process of publishing it, something I’d like to before the year ends. In fact, I have another creative project of sorts I’m going to “publish” (so to speak) later this week, in fact, that falls under the same heading of me wanting to share something I’ve done rather than keep it to myself. For a couple of reasons, I’ve been feeling a lot of this “life-is-too-short-to-wait” pressure over the last few weeks, which is partly why I want to move ahead with these things.

Traveling will inspire that feeling sometimes. While in Barcelona I had a conversation with Brad (also my buddy and also my blogging partner) about watching movies on planes. On the surface, it seems less than ideal to watch these things on relatively small screes on the backs of passengers’ seats. But as Brad pointed out, the audience is uniquely captive, free from the endless distractions that mark our lives when we aren’t 30,000-plus feet in the air.

Coupled with being away from loved ones (if you’re traveling alone), that can make viewers especially receptive emotionally (we agreed), causing us to be more readily affected by certain films -- something both he and I have experienced before.

I can’t say A History of Violence moved me too deeply, although it had its moments. Meanwhile it might have been that being on the plane, all alone and in a relatively unique state of mind, affected me as I read through my novel again.

Doesn’t matter, I guess. Same difference, as they say.

Gonna get moving on this thing. More to come.

Image: “Plane” (adapted), Alper Çuğun. CC BY 2.0.

The Persian Game of “As-Nas”

With the Middle Eastern game of as-nas we move outside of Europe as well as into that realm of card games about which there has been a lot of contention regarding their actual status as “precursors” to poker.

I’m not going to delve too deeply into the debate here other than to note that references to as-nas don’t really turn up until the late 19th century -- that is, after poker had already established itself in North America in the early 1800s -- which obviously challenges the idea that poker borrowed from it.

Some as-nas decks date from around 1800 (just a little before poker), and a couple of writers of books about card games boldly declared it to be an early version of poker. But later on it was observed that “as” -- referring to the ace -- isn’t really a Persian word at all but a borrowing of the French word for ace, kind of strengthening the suggestion that as-nas decended from the European “vying” games we’ve been discussing.

Like I say, though, let me just set all that aside and explain quickly how to play as-nas. We call it a “Persian” card game because it wasn’t until the 1930s that the West started referring to the country of its origin as Iran (even if those living there referred to it as such well before), and the game was played well before that.

The game uses a 20-card deck for up to four players or a 25-card deck if five are playing. Players are each dealt five cards (clockwise), then a betting round follows with the rules for betting very much resembling that of poker, including allowing for a blind bet (like a “straddle”) before the cards are dealt. After the betting comes the showdown (for players still in the hand), and the highest-ranking hand wins. (That is, there’s no draw or second betting round.)

The cards used in as-nas are analogous to the A-K-Q-J-10 in poker, although they’re designated a little differently. The “as” (ace) often features a lion; the “shah” (king) has a king-like figure on a throne or horse; the “bibi” (lady) depicts a mother and child; the “serbaz” (soldier) is a soldier-figure; and the “couli” (an unnumbered card considered the lowest) is a dancing figure.

There are four suits (spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs), although suits don’t figure in the hand rankings. If five players are playing, five more cards of the same rankings -- in a fifth suit (I’m not sure what) -- are employed.

I’m seeing some differences in how hand rankings are described, although most seem to say flushes and straights don’t count, and the only hands that matter are (highest-to-lowest) four of a kind, a full house, three of a kind, two pair, one pair, and high-card, with “kickers” counting to help break ties. Obviously players can bluff, with a bluff being called a “tûp.”

This is more or less “Old Poker,” an early version of poker with a 20-card deck that also had only a single round of betting and no draw, although examples of the latter game started incorporating the larger deck as well as flushes and straights. The parallels make it easy enough to see why some want to hold up as-nas as the most direct precursor to poker, as certainly its resemblances are more extensive than is the case with any of the other European games.

But as has also been argued, that may not be such a coincidence given that the Persian game may well have come a little after poker and not before.

Image: An as-nas deck (as, shah, bibi, serbaz, couli) from the Online Collection of the Brooklyn Museum, no restrictions.

The French Game of “Poque”

Of all the European card games that preceded poker, the French game of poque is probably the closest relative. The game initially surfaces during the 16th century, and for a few reasons is usually held up as the immediate precursor to poker.

For one, poque was actually brought to America by French settlers, including in areas of the Louisiana Territory where poker would first emerge in the early 1800s. Like the German game of poch, the name also resembles the name for poker, and many have speculated an Englished pronunciation of the word incorrectly emphasizing the second syllable provided a basis for the name.

Poque itself has a few precursors, among them glic (dating from the 15th century), brélan (first turning up around the 17th century), and bouillotte (from the 18th century). While glic is a lot more like the German game of poch and other similar games -- that was the three-phase game with the round board and nine cups -- both brélan and bouillotte are simpler, mainly just versions of the second “vying” phase of those other games.

Variations of brélan and bouillotte exist, including being played with differently-sized decks (increased sometimes to accommodate more players). For example, a game of bouillotte might have been played by four players with a 20-card deck, using just the aces, kings, queens, nines, and eights, and if there were a fifth player the jacks would be included, too, to make a 24-card deck. (Or if just three were playing, queens would be tossed and they’d use just 16 cards.) Chips (or some equivalent) were used as well for betting purposes.

Before the game began players drew cards to decide where to sit. I’ve seen some references to the game being played clockwise and others counter-clockwise -- I think the latter more likely.

Prior to the deal players would ante, then the player to the right of the dealer would have the option to raise the stakes by putting in an additional bet called a “carre” -- kind of a like a straddle, as no one has any cards yet. If that player does make a bet, the next player can fold, call, or raise and so on, meaning players can drop out of hands even before cards are dealt, if they wish.

Next comes the deal -- three cards to each player, plus one more card set face up in the middle. This last card, called the “retourné” essentially functions like a “community card” in that each player is making a four-card hand that includes the face-up card. Another round of betting follows that again somewhat resembles the betting in poker (there are some differences, but I’m glossing over them here). Once the betting is completed, players left in the hand show their cards.

When it comes to hand rankings in bouillotte, there are basically just three hand types:

brélan carré (highest) = four of a kind (including the retourné, of course)

brélan = three of a kind, all in the player’s hand (i.e., not using the retourné)

brélan favori = three of a kind, two in the player’s hand plus the retourné

After that, whoever has the most points in their hand wins, with aces worth 11 points, court cards 10, and nines and eights their numerical value. In the case of ties, suits come into play, with the suit of the retourné functioning like a trump suit and the player with the highest card in that suit winning.

That’s the game that would eventually become poque, as I understand it, although poque also existed as that three-phase game, too, apparently. Eventually only the middle “vying” game would be played, though, and bouillotte started getting called poque thanks to players using the verb “poque” to describe their betting action (“Je poque” = “I bet”).

In any case, this is the game that certainly most resembles the earliest “Old Poker” games that involved smaller deck, a single deal and round of betting, and no draw (yet).

Image: “Peasants Playing Cards” (1700s), Norbert van Bloemen, public domain

The English game of “Brag”

Brag dates from 16th century England and is another one of these “vying” games that often are described as forerunners to poker. In fact the name of the game -- “brag” -- can literally mean to “vie” (or to compete) in some contexts. It also can mean “bluff,” and bluffing is indeed part of the game.

The game is still fairly popular today, although it has undergone a lot of changes. Originally a three-card game (sometimes fittingly called “three-card brag”), there are versions with four, five, six, seven, nine, and even 13 cards. Brag was big enough for Edmond Hoyle to write about it in the mid-18th century, although by then he was describing a game that was a bit different from the earlier version I’m summarizing here.

Three-card brag is played with a 52-card deck, with aces high. Before the deal there can be an ante (if desired). Three cards are then dealt to each player, with the action going clockwise. I’m seeing references to the deck being shuffled before the first hand, but then not shuffled thereafter with cards just collected and put on the bottom, thus making it possible to keep track of what cards are more likely to be dealt on subsequent hands.

A betting round follows the deal, and betting in brag can be a little complicated to explain. It starts out like poker, with the first player able to fold or bet. Usually there’s either a fixed amount to bet or a minimum and maximum (like “spread limit”). Once someone bets, the next player can fold, bet the same amount, or raise to a higher amount (again, the maximum raise amount has been agreed to beforehand).

All of this sounds like poker so far. But say one player bets and two others call -- things don’t end there. The action goes back to the initial bettor who now has to bet again -- at least as much as the original bet -- or fold. And others have to call (or raise, if they like) to stay in the hand.

This process continues until finally just two players remain, at which point the betting rules change a little. Player A has to bet again (or fold and lose), again at least as much as the previous bet (or can bet more). Player B can fold and lose, bet the same amount (or call) and force the action back on Player A (who has to bet again), or raise by betting exactly twice the bet. That third action -- which actually ends the betting -- is confusingly called “seeing,” but there’s a good reason for it.

If Player B decides to “see” by making that bet that is twice what Player A bet, Player A doesn’t have to call that bet, but does have to show his or her hand first. If Player B has a better hand, that player shows it and wins the pot. If Player B has a worse hand, or one that is equal to Player A’s, Player B loses and doesn’t have to show.

So basically betting continues until either everyone has folded except one player (who wins without a showdown), or until there are two players left and one of them bets double the other’s bet to “see” the other’s hand and close the betting. Got it?

So what makes the better hand? The rankings are as follows:

Prial (meaning “pair royal”), or three of a kind

Running flush, or three consecutive cards of the same suit (a three-card straight flush)

Run, or three consecutive cards not of the same suit (a straight)

Flush, or three suited cards

Pair, two cards of same rank (kickers count)

High card

The betting is the most complicated part of the game to learn, although even that isn’t too hard to get the hang of, I’d say. The rest of it is fairly simple and you can see how the hand rankings resemble what will come in poker. Note how players can bluff if they like, although that becomes harder to do when there are just two players left (I’d imagine), as folding becomes less likely.

Note, by the way, how a “run” (or straight) beats a flush.

There’s a variation in which players can choose to play “blind” and not look at their cards -- bluffing obviously is the name of the game, there. The four- and five-card versions let players pick the best three cards to play, thus increasing the chances of making better hands. Meanwhile the ones with more cards involve players playing multiple three-card hands.

Brag certainly resembles the earliest form of poker, sometimes called “Old Poker,” which involved just a single deal and one round of betting (and no draw). I think of all the precursor games we’ve looked at so far, brag would be the easiest one to play in a modern-day tournament (following on that idea mentioned last week).

Image: Detail from painting of Elizabeth Card Players, illustrated in “What Life Was Like in the Realm of Elizabeth: England AD 1533-1603,” Willem van Herp, public domain.

The Italian Game of “Primiera”

Gonna move on today to try to provide at least a summary description of another card game often listed among poker’s “precursors,” this time looking at the Italian game of primiera that made its first appearance in the early 16th century or about two hundred years before poker’s debut.

There are a ton of alternate names for primiera -- prime, primo visto, primus, primavista -- as well as other very similar games like scopa and other regional variants. In fact some argue its birthplace is actually Spain (where it’s called primera) and not Italy. And speaking of Shakespeare (about whom I was writing yesterday), the game or something similar to it pops up on more than one occasion in the plays (where it’s called primero).

Different versions of the game are still played today in several European countries, although none of these modern variants are exactly like the original game. In fact, it’s difficult to pin down exactly how the game was first played as there exist a number of descriptions of 16th-century primiera but no unambiguous rules for it. Several folks have tried to “reconstruct” the game from various sources, and this summary is based mostly on one of those attempts.

Primiera is another “vying” game where players build hands and compare them, with betting and bluffing also part of game play. It’s played with a 40-card deck, tossing out the eights, nines, and tens. The remaining cards are assigned point values as follows:

seven = 21 points

six = 18 points

ace = 16 points

five = 15 points

four = 14 points

three = 13 points

two = 12 points

jack, queen, king = 10 points each

Play begins with each player being dealt two cards face down, followed by a betting round that kind of resembles how betting works in poker (i.e., you can “pass” or check, bet, call, raise, or fold just like in poker). But there’s more to it than that.

Besides betting, players are also getting to declare on this round which of five different hand types is going to be the goal of that particular hand. It sounds a little like playing five games in one, and here, halfway through the deal of what will ultimately be a four-card hand, the first bettor gets to choose (initially, anyway) which of the five is going to be played.

Here are the five hand types, with each valued higher than the last:

numerus -- a hand with two or three cards of the same suit (and you add up the point values of the 2-3 cards)

primero -- a hand with one card from each of the four suits, like a Badugi (again, you add up point values of all four cards)

supremus -- a hand with the six, seven, and ace of a single suit (which add up to 55)

fluxus -- a hand with four of the same suit, like a flush (again, adding up the points)

chorus -- four of a kind (again, adding up the points)

When that first player bets, then, after having been dealt just two of the four cards, the player puts some chips or money out, declares a hand type, and also bids a certain point total. For example, the first player bets some amount and says “Numerus 40,” meaning the “game” is numerus and making it necessary for that player to make at least 40 points by the showdown to win.

As noted, subsequent players can fold or call or raise, but if they want to stay in the hand they either have to bid a higher point total in the same hand type/game, or declare a “higher” hand type/game. Say the first guy bets and says “Numerus 40.” The next player can call (or raise), but has to say “Numerus 41” (at least) or declare, say, “Primero 45” or whatever.

It’s kind of complicated to explain -- you’re basically having two different kinds of “betting” going on at once here, what with the actual betting and the declaring/bidding. Muddling things further, players can “pass” and discard/draw one or two cards, and they can fold and get back half of whatever they’ve already bet. Also, a bet goes uncalled around the table, the last player left to act must call the bet and stay in the hand, no matter what kind of hand he or she has.

For whoever is left in the hand comes a second deal -- the last two cards -- and another betting round, again picking up where the declarations of hand types/games was left off as well as the bidding. If the hand type is numerus or supremus, players have to draw/discard one or two cards. You can bluff in a way, too, by bidding a lower point value than you actually have, or by declaring a hand type that is lower than what you actually have (e.g., you declare supremus when you have a fluxus).

Finally when all of the betting and bidding is done players show their hands. Whoever has the highest hand type wins, and if they have the same type they go to the point totals to determine who comes out on top. You can “foul” your hand (as in Chinese poker), for example, if you don’t have at least as many points as has been last bid. Or if you’re playing numerus (say) and when you draw/discard you end up with something better, like a fluxus.

You can follow that link above for a more thorough explanation -- or rather, reconstruction -- of how 16th-century primiera was played. You see some of the elements of poker here, including a few of the same hand rankings and the procedures of betting and bluffing. Though again, as was the case with both mus and poch, it’s clear that primiera isn’t quite poker, even if it shares some of the same elements.

Image: “Card Players” (1508-1510), Lucas van Leyden, public domain.