You Have to Play Good to Run Bad and You Have to Run Bad to Get Good

About three years ago in this space I recommended a not-so-well-known “poker novel” by Rick Bennet titled King of a Small World. First published in 1995, the book smartly integrates poker into its plot and several themes, using the game to shed some light on the human condition and relationships while also providing a lot of genuine insight into poker, too.

I picked the book back up again recently while thinking about perhaps adding it to my “Poker in American Film and Culture” syllabus. I continue to teach the course each semester and every time I do I tend to swap various readings in and out of the list of assignments.

I’ve never included Bennet’s novel, in part because it was out of print back when I started teaching the class. But it’s available on Kindle now and used copies are easy enough to track down, so I am considering assigning it, perhaps in the spring.

You can read that earlier post for a brief overview of the book and a full review. However, I did want to share one passage from it that struck me during this revisiting of the book, one that I didn’t discuss in the earlier post. (Indeed, I’m discovering there are a number of thought-provoking passages that I didn’t talk about in that post from three years ago.)

The main character and narrator, Joey Moore, is a poker player and frequently draws analogies between the game and various conflicts and other events in his life, using lessons he's learned at the table to help him understand and explain the world he inhabits. These comparisons are deftly drawn by Bennet, not overwhelming the story at all and like I say giving the reader much food for thought both about poker and other matters of importance.

During the first third of the novel Joey is involved in a cash game and interweaves a digression covering a few different ideas, including one exploring how “poker’s an emotional challenge” thanks in large part to the fact that all are susceptible to runs of bad luck.

Joey has a distinction to draw, though, regarding how bad luck differently signifies for good and bad players.

“Here’s a truth,” he explains. “You have to play good to run bad (because a bad player will lose his money eventually anyway, so bad luck just costs him time at the table, not actual money in his pocket) and you have to run bad to get good (because as long as you’re having good luck, you won’t bother developing the skill to win with average luck).”

From there he explains how his poker education has primarily come “during extended bad runs.” He also points out that “I never had really good luck when I was learning, so I didn’t get seduced into bad habits.”

I think most of us who’ve played poker for even a little while have come to understand the first part of Joey’s truth, that in order to “run bad” one has to be a good player, as it requires a certain measure of skill to put oneself in a position to suffer the misfortune of not earning one’s supposedly deserved rewards at the table. For example, it’s an oft-repeated maxim that you can only suffer a “bad beat” (really) after having played a hand well.

Less obvious (I think) is the second part of Joey’s truth that says “you have to run bad to get good.” Most of us understand that we probably learn more when we lose, especially when those losses come as a result of our mistakes and we’ve found a way to identify those mistakes and thus take a first step toward avoiding them in the future. But that’s not really what Joey’s saying -- he’s pointing out we have to “run bad” (be unlucky) in order to “get good” (or be inspired to work on our games).

I’m probably oversimplifying the idea, and in fact the more I think about it, the more I believe there’s something more to learn from it. In any event, it sure makes for a nifty, paradoxical-sounding poker proverb.

Like I say, King of a Small World is full of such moments, and I’m enjoying rereading them and thinking about perhaps sharing them with a group of students to discover their thoughts about Joey’s various “truths.”

Poker Book Review: Rick Bennet’s King of a Small World

Have another poker-themed title to share with you today -- and to recommend -- this time a work of fiction, Rick Bennet’s King of a Small World: A Poker Novel, first published in 1995. Bennet’s first novel is a great read that I imagine would prove especially satisfying to poker players, although there’s enough plot and character here to engage even those without a special interest in the game.

King of a Small World presents a smart, gritty, coming-of-age story that centers on a wiser-than-his-years young gun named Joey Moore, a successful player in his mid-twenties. Joey mostly sticks to the underground games and (so-called) “charity” casinos in his native Maryland -- where he does, at times, perhaps reign as a kind of “king” -- although additionally will take his game to Atlantic City, Las Vegas, and elsewhere in search of further challenges.

The game of poker fuels both the plot of the book and contributes heavily to its various themes, with Bennet drawing various connections between poker and Joey’s complicated life full of conflicts and relationships. We quickly discover how poker has put him in touch with a wide assortment of friends, foes, and few who could go either way. And we also eventually learn how poker and gambling have aggressively shaped the value systems of both Joey and others, as demonstrated in their interactions -- sometimes cautious, other times dangerously reckless.

Early on Joey is offered a chance to be the poker boss at a newly-opening charity casino being run by some of his African-American poker buddies. (“Need your white ass,” he’s told, to “help balance our appeal.”) Joey hesitates at first. After all, as someone making his living playing cards, he’s already “free and happy” operating outside the mostly grim, work-a-day world populated by “normal people.” “What a bunch of losers people are,” he says at one point. “Working like dogs so they can have things.”

But finally “the prospect of a great-paying, easy-as-can-be, two-day-a-week job” becomes a kind of “freeroll” in his mind, and he takes the job. Bennet does well filling out details of the technically-legal-but-highly-sketchy world of the charity casino, where the rapid influx of money soon engenders a number of conflicts among those running the show.

Additional complications in Joey’s world include the pregnancy of an ex-girlfriend, Laura, plus relationships with a couple of other women, including one with the daughter of a poker-playing acquaintance (who, in fact, also had a brief relationship with Laura and could also possibly be the father of Laura’s child).

The plot is a more than a little twisty, also involving a missing father who abandoned Joey as a child, an ex-con living with his mother, various (and possibly nefarious) connections involving the casino owners, and more than a dozen characters with names like Mikey the Cop, K.C., Essay, Nug, Larry Red, Freddy, Boulder, and Kenny constantly coming and going. Bennet does a good job having his narrator Joey guide us through the story, however, keeping everything straight for us while also maintaining some suspense along the way.

As mentioned there are a number of instances in which Joey draws comparisons between poker and the many other games people play away from the tables, most of which strike me as quite appropriate and well applied. That is to say, I think Bennet does manage (for the most part) to avoid the many obvious and/or clichéd observations that tend to make these “poker is like life” moments seem at best not-so-special, at worst banal. (For more on that complaint, see here.)

As it happens, some of my favorite passages in the book involve Joey offering such poker-themed commentaries about human behavior, the always-shifting meaning of our existence, and the like. Indeed, many strike me as quite original, too, a praise I can’t really make about a lot of the poker fiction I’ve read.

I’ll share but one such passage to give you an idea, coming from later in the story when Joey makes a trip to Vegas (at WSOP time) and shares his impression of the urgent and unceasing human drama he sees being played out around him in the casinos.

“This is how gambling works -- it fills the senses,” Joey explains. “Close your eyes and listen. In a casino, you’ll hear the sounds of jingling, clinking, clanging, clicking. Open your eyes and you’ll see the myriad colors of lighting and carpeting and walls and uniforms, shining and bright. Taste? Free drinks and meals to any decent-sized bettor. Free drinks and cheap meals to everyone. Touch, too, is thought of. Plush carpeting, brass rails, leather chairs, polished wood. And maybe in the air, with the smoke, is sweat.”

Fine description, although if the commentary had ended there I wouldn’t necessarily say it contains anything especially unique. There’s more, though.

“But it is the sixth sense that casinos most seek to arouse,” Joey continues. “The sense of life itself. Of drama. Of story. Of passion. Of love and fear. Of power and sex. Of a moment frozen, of existence beyond the mundane, of escape from all other problems because right now your attention is focused on the money you have on the line. If time is money and life is time, then money is life. And you’re gambling for it.”

If all this sounds a bit heavy, don’t worry. The book does a good job balancing the deeper digressions with lighter fare, offering a pleasing mix of dialogue and description throughout. There’s also an impressive array of character types here, with believable men and women of various races, both old and young, filling out the cast. And the plot -- which I’ve purposely avoided summarizing in too much detail so as to preserve its surprises -- definitely keeps you turning the pages.

Like I say, I certainly recommend King of a Small World, especially for those with an interest in poker and/or gambling. Although the book appears to be out of print currently, copies are easy enough to come by via Amazon and elsewhere.