Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
With a huge knowledge of the game to draw on; at times, in its weaving together of anecdote and observation, it produces the sensation you might get from contemplating a work of art. McManus is a first-rate writer: controlled, sensitive, precise and compelling. --Nicholas Lezard, Guardian
An attempt, triumphantly realised, at a definitive history. The narrative fizzes along through 500-plus pages, packed with arresting anecdotes... Don t bet on anyone bettering this classic account. --'Independent on Sunday'
Undoubtedly the most definitive account of poker and card playing yet committed to paper… Its exhaustive research and clear historical analysis will thrill scholars of the game for years to come… Delights and informs in equal measure. --'Card Player'
An attempt, triumphantly realised, at a definitive history. The narrative fizzes along through 500-plus pages, packed with arresting anecdotes... Don t bet on anyone bettering this classic account. --'Independent on Sunday'
Undoubtedly the most definitive account of poker and card playing yet committed to paper… Its exhaustive research and clear historical analysis will thrill scholars of the game for years to come… Delights and informs in equal measure. --'Card Player'
Product Description
Cowboys Full traces the story of poker from its roots in China, until Americans took what was a French parlour game and turned it into a national craze by the time of the American Civil War. Poker has been inextricably linked with American history ever since. It has been played by numerous presidents (Richard Nixon financed his first campaign office through his poker winnings) and has been used as a political tool to explain policy, for networking and to negotiate treaties. Poker echoes how we conduct wars and do business: cheating and bluffing, leveraging uncertainty, managing risk and reward. In the past poker was thought to be a cheater s game but it has since become a mostly honest contest of cunning, mathematics and luck. It is the world s, and cyberspace s, most popular card game and has had an immense impact on popular culture (McManus explores its portrayal in novels, movies and plays). Combining colourful history with the author s own personal experience of the professional tour Cowboys Full introduces the reader to all the major forms of poker, the game s most notorious players and demonstrates how poker has informed military, diplomatic and business life for centuries.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Acclaimed novelist, poet, academic, and poker player James McManus is back with what is undoubtedly the most definitive account of poker and card playing yet committed to paper.
Cowboys Full - The Story of Poker is indeed the story of poker. It will be cherished by aficionados' and laymen alike and its exhaustive research and clear historical analysis will thrill scholars of the game for years to come.
The author of the much-loved Positively Fifth Street, a groundbreaking book about his own journey to fifth place at the World Series of Poker main event in 2000, has painstaking pulled together all the disparate threads of the game, from the development of playing cards through the codification of modern poker to the present day Internet boom in an eminently readable study on how poker has helped shape the world.
Indeed, early in the book McManus states his "...goal is to show how the story of poker helps to explain who we are."
Not unpredictably this accomplished writer, who has penned articles for the likes of The New York Times, The Economist, and The New Yorker, does so with an knowing eye to the colour, characters, and, of course, cowboys of the game.
Seamlessly blending fastidious historical research with analytical observation and a sophisticated sense of humour McManus manages to effortlessly contextualise poker through history with reference to religion, militarism, diplomacy, law, business, education, mathematics, economics, and technology.
If that somehow makes it sound like it might not be a page-turner, think again.
The cast of characters alone reads like a history of the last millennium writ small over the felt and includes Eisenhower, Nixon, Truman, Roosevelt, Johnson, Grant, Hoover, Clinton, Obama, Homer, Dante, Chaucer, Goethe, Moliere, Shakespeare, Mary Queen of Scots, Henry VIII, Joan of Arc, Cassanova, Einstein, Crockett, Holliday, Hickock, Churchill, Goebbels, Hitler, Binion, Ahmadinejad, Garbo, Garrett, and Gobachev.
And all of that before we get to the players who are the media darlings of today.
Taking as its starting point the notion first posited by the New York Times in 1875 that, "The national game is not base-ball but poker" the book begins its journey through the story of poker back with the invention of playing cards.
Anthropoligist Stuart Culin traced their development back to Korean divinatory arrows which were eventually miniaturised in the six century to strips of oiled silk - the first playing cards.
The invention of paper and portable money, and the growth of the silk route hastened their internationalisation and popularity.
A second boom occurred after dark ages in Europe in the 1300s as people began to live longer, knew more, and had leisure time to play.
In Rouen, France by the late 1400s suits had generally been settled upon in a way we recognise today: Hearts representing the church, diamonds the merchant class, spades the state, and clubs signifying farmers.
In 1564 Milanese physician and mathematician Griolamo Cardano ' Dr. Jerome Cardplayer as McManus playfully translates ' invented a way to combine probabilities, laying the groundwork not only for modern algebra, probability theory, and financial analysis but for the basic poker odds we all know and take for granted today.
The card game Primiera was simplified by the French into Poque (pronounced Pok-uh) and is now regarded as the most direct antecedent of the modern game.
By the early 1800s the French had taken control of New Orleans, Louisiana and in this cultural melting pot of English, Spanish, French, and new American the modern game of poker was born and spread like wildfire on the steamboat routes out of the Creole capital.
McManus astutely describes the Mississippi steamboats as the Internet poker rooms of their day.
From there things pick up a head of steam (literally) like a prototype information superhighway ' the wild west years where lawlessness and chicanery threatened to destroy the game through the wars of the late 19th and early 20th century which saw poker language and concepts permeate mainstream language.
Dancing like Spider in Goodfellas through the road gambling years to the dusty neon oasis of Las Vegas, Benny Binion's visionary development of the World Series of Poker, and the "perfect storm" of the year poker went "boom" in 2003 the book fetches up at the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, the online poker cheating scandals, and ultimately the mainstream globalisation of the game.
Cowboys Full ' The Story of Poker delights and informs in equal measure and it will surely be a long time before we see such a comprehensive book on card playing and players.
Cowboys Full - The Story of Poker is indeed the story of poker. It will be cherished by aficionados' and laymen alike and its exhaustive research and clear historical analysis will thrill scholars of the game for years to come.
The author of the much-loved Positively Fifth Street, a groundbreaking book about his own journey to fifth place at the World Series of Poker main event in 2000, has painstaking pulled together all the disparate threads of the game, from the development of playing cards through the codification of modern poker to the present day Internet boom in an eminently readable study on how poker has helped shape the world.
Indeed, early in the book McManus states his "...goal is to show how the story of poker helps to explain who we are."
Not unpredictably this accomplished writer, who has penned articles for the likes of The New York Times, The Economist, and The New Yorker, does so with an knowing eye to the colour, characters, and, of course, cowboys of the game.
Seamlessly blending fastidious historical research with analytical observation and a sophisticated sense of humour McManus manages to effortlessly contextualise poker through history with reference to religion, militarism, diplomacy, law, business, education, mathematics, economics, and technology.
If that somehow makes it sound like it might not be a page-turner, think again.
The cast of characters alone reads like a history of the last millennium writ small over the felt and includes Eisenhower, Nixon, Truman, Roosevelt, Johnson, Grant, Hoover, Clinton, Obama, Homer, Dante, Chaucer, Goethe, Moliere, Shakespeare, Mary Queen of Scots, Henry VIII, Joan of Arc, Cassanova, Einstein, Crockett, Holliday, Hickock, Churchill, Goebbels, Hitler, Binion, Ahmadinejad, Garbo, Garrett, and Gobachev.
And all of that before we get to the players who are the media darlings of today.
Taking as its starting point the notion first posited by the New York Times in 1875 that, "The national game is not base-ball but poker" the book begins its journey through the story of poker back with the invention of playing cards.
Anthropoligist Stuart Culin traced their development back to Korean divinatory arrows which were eventually miniaturised in the six century to strips of oiled silk - the first playing cards.
The invention of paper and portable money, and the growth of the silk route hastened their internationalisation and popularity.
A second boom occurred after dark ages in Europe in the 1300s as people began to live longer, knew more, and had leisure time to play.
In Rouen, France by the late 1400s suits had generally been settled upon in a way we recognise today: Hearts representing the church, diamonds the merchant class, spades the state, and clubs signifying farmers.
In 1564 Milanese physician and mathematician Griolamo Cardano ' Dr. Jerome Cardplayer as McManus playfully translates ' invented a way to combine probabilities, laying the groundwork not only for modern algebra, probability theory, and financial analysis but for the basic poker odds we all know and take for granted today.
The card game Primiera was simplified by the French into Poque (pronounced Pok-uh) and is now regarded as the most direct antecedent of the modern game.
By the early 1800s the French had taken control of New Orleans, Louisiana and in this cultural melting pot of English, Spanish, French, and new American the modern game of poker was born and spread like wildfire on the steamboat routes out of the Creole capital.
McManus astutely describes the Mississippi steamboats as the Internet poker rooms of their day.
From there things pick up a head of steam (literally) like a prototype information superhighway ' the wild west years where lawlessness and chicanery threatened to destroy the game through the wars of the late 19th and early 20th century which saw poker language and concepts permeate mainstream language.
Dancing like Spider in Goodfellas through the road gambling years to the dusty neon oasis of Las Vegas, Benny Binion's visionary development of the World Series of Poker, and the "perfect storm" of the year poker went "boom" in 2003 the book fetches up at the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, the online poker cheating scandals, and ultimately the mainstream globalisation of the game.
Cowboys Full ' The Story of Poker delights and informs in equal measure and it will surely be a long time before we see such a comprehensive book on card playing and players.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
41 reviews
43 of 46 people found the following review helpful
From Card Player...
1 Nov 2009
Format:Hardcover
I reviewed Jim's book for Card Player magazine, and it appears in the November 4, 2009, issue, as follows:
Poker & The American Experience
A Review of Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker by James McManus
Tim Peters
For some players, poker is just a game. But for many players, it's tempting to see the game as a microcosm of life itself, as having a significance that transcends the cardroom. James McManus, the author of the justly celebrated Positively Fifth Street (his 2003 account of his run to the final table of the 2000 WSOP Main Event), is one of those people, and his new book, Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker, explains why "sometimes...the game is much more than just a game."
Much of the book has been published in Card Player over the past few years under the heading "History of Poker." Now that it's in book form, Cowboys Full will surely be viewed as the most exhaustive and definite account of the history of poker yet published.
And it is a very much a history, chronicling the ancient roots of poker to its birth and flowering in New Orleans to the global phenomenon of today. But what makes Cowboys Full so interesting is how McManus articulates the role of poker in society (primarily American society). He writes about how the game spread across the country, how it evolved, and the lessons that people have drawn from it. As the subtitle "The Story of Poker" suggests, McManus rightly understands that poker is part of a larger narrative. "My goal," he writes, "is to show how the story of poker helps to explains who we are. The game has gone hand in hand with pivotal aspects of our national experience for a couple of centuries now."
McManus asserts July 4, 1803, can be seen as the "symbolic birth date" for the game: the date of the Louisiana Purchase, which helped open the American West. He writes that poker was the perfect game for this era in American history, a game "whose rules favored a frontiersman's initiative and cunning, an entrepreneur's creative sense of risk, and a democratic openness to every class of player." Poker really is the quintessential American game.
Poker's infancy was marked by scandal, particularly during the heyday of the Mississippi River steamboats ( "the Internet card rooms of 1814"). "By the 1830s, at least six hundred sharps were working the riverboats, with one estimate putting their number as high as fifteen hundred," he writes. Poker was known as "the cheating game" with good reason, and McManus devotes a whole chapter to the "styles and technologies of cheating" back in the day.
Despite the rampant cheating, at least in big-money games, poker spread far and wide in the young country. The steamboats introduced poker to players in the North and the West; the Civil War introduced the game to players in battlefields across the South. McManus has thoroughly scoured the existing literature of poker to recount all kinds of stories, familiar and less so, of the game, including stalwarts like the shooting of Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood, South Dakota, holding Aces and Eights. But because McManus is a cultural historian, he searches for the meaning behind the event: "It was Wild Bill Hickok who forged the strong links in the popular imagination between gunfighting, poker, and manliness--all this despite being known as a losing player who was shot from behind by a cowardly punk at the table."
That's a good example of his strategy in the book: recount the facts, at least to the extent they are known, then search for the meaning and significance behind the facts.
With the origins and spread of poker behind him, McManus turns to a less linear style for the rest of the book, with chapters on important people in the history of the game (such as Herbert O. Yardley, American cryptologist and the author of The Education of a Poker Player) and events where poker played a role (such as the terrific account of poker and its relation to the Cold War).
And there are chapters on key aspects of poker history. The birth of Texas Hold'em, for example, the rise of the WSOP, and the detonation of the contemporary poker boom, which McManus dates to March 30, 2003, when the Travel Channel broadcast the Five Diamond World Poker Classic from the Bellagio. The book is particularly good on the ensuing boom (poker as a global phenomenon) and the current legal mess of the UIGEA.
McManus is an excellent stylist and storyteller, so the book is unfailingly entertaining. Structurally, he struggles a bit with chapters that belong in the book but don't have a neat slot to fit into (like the chapter on Gardena, California, and its important place in poker history). But some of these difficult-to-pigeonhole bits are excellent, like the chapter "Fooled by Randomness."
Most of the books reviewed in Card Player are designed to help you improve your play. But some are intended to help you appreciate the game you're playing--its history, its traditions, and its cultural impact. We are living in what must surely be the golden age of poker, with games spread around the globe in unprecedented numbers, with a year-long tournament circuit with staggering prize pools, and, for a few people, the chance to turn poker playing into a career. Read Cowboys Full to understand how this golden age came about--and to grasp that poker does have a meaning beyond the felt.
Poker & The American Experience
A Review of Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker by James McManus
Tim Peters
For some players, poker is just a game. But for many players, it's tempting to see the game as a microcosm of life itself, as having a significance that transcends the cardroom. James McManus, the author of the justly celebrated Positively Fifth Street (his 2003 account of his run to the final table of the 2000 WSOP Main Event), is one of those people, and his new book, Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker, explains why "sometimes...the game is much more than just a game."
Much of the book has been published in Card Player over the past few years under the heading "History of Poker." Now that it's in book form, Cowboys Full will surely be viewed as the most exhaustive and definite account of the history of poker yet published.
And it is a very much a history, chronicling the ancient roots of poker to its birth and flowering in New Orleans to the global phenomenon of today. But what makes Cowboys Full so interesting is how McManus articulates the role of poker in society (primarily American society). He writes about how the game spread across the country, how it evolved, and the lessons that people have drawn from it. As the subtitle "The Story of Poker" suggests, McManus rightly understands that poker is part of a larger narrative. "My goal," he writes, "is to show how the story of poker helps to explains who we are. The game has gone hand in hand with pivotal aspects of our national experience for a couple of centuries now."
McManus asserts July 4, 1803, can be seen as the "symbolic birth date" for the game: the date of the Louisiana Purchase, which helped open the American West. He writes that poker was the perfect game for this era in American history, a game "whose rules favored a frontiersman's initiative and cunning, an entrepreneur's creative sense of risk, and a democratic openness to every class of player." Poker really is the quintessential American game.
Poker's infancy was marked by scandal, particularly during the heyday of the Mississippi River steamboats ( "the Internet card rooms of 1814"). "By the 1830s, at least six hundred sharps were working the riverboats, with one estimate putting their number as high as fifteen hundred," he writes. Poker was known as "the cheating game" with good reason, and McManus devotes a whole chapter to the "styles and technologies of cheating" back in the day.
Despite the rampant cheating, at least in big-money games, poker spread far and wide in the young country. The steamboats introduced poker to players in the North and the West; the Civil War introduced the game to players in battlefields across the South. McManus has thoroughly scoured the existing literature of poker to recount all kinds of stories, familiar and less so, of the game, including stalwarts like the shooting of Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood, South Dakota, holding Aces and Eights. But because McManus is a cultural historian, he searches for the meaning behind the event: "It was Wild Bill Hickok who forged the strong links in the popular imagination between gunfighting, poker, and manliness--all this despite being known as a losing player who was shot from behind by a cowardly punk at the table."
That's a good example of his strategy in the book: recount the facts, at least to the extent they are known, then search for the meaning and significance behind the facts.
With the origins and spread of poker behind him, McManus turns to a less linear style for the rest of the book, with chapters on important people in the history of the game (such as Herbert O. Yardley, American cryptologist and the author of The Education of a Poker Player) and events where poker played a role (such as the terrific account of poker and its relation to the Cold War).
And there are chapters on key aspects of poker history. The birth of Texas Hold'em, for example, the rise of the WSOP, and the detonation of the contemporary poker boom, which McManus dates to March 30, 2003, when the Travel Channel broadcast the Five Diamond World Poker Classic from the Bellagio. The book is particularly good on the ensuing boom (poker as a global phenomenon) and the current legal mess of the UIGEA.
McManus is an excellent stylist and storyteller, so the book is unfailingly entertaining. Structurally, he struggles a bit with chapters that belong in the book but don't have a neat slot to fit into (like the chapter on Gardena, California, and its important place in poker history). But some of these difficult-to-pigeonhole bits are excellent, like the chapter "Fooled by Randomness."
Most of the books reviewed in Card Player are designed to help you improve your play. But some are intended to help you appreciate the game you're playing--its history, its traditions, and its cultural impact. We are living in what must surely be the golden age of poker, with games spread around the globe in unprecedented numbers, with a year-long tournament circuit with staggering prize pools, and, for a few people, the chance to turn poker playing into a career. Read Cowboys Full to understand how this golden age came about--and to grasp that poker does have a meaning beyond the felt.
21 of 23 people found the following review helpful
The Best Poker Book I have EVER read!
27 Oct 2009
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Cowboys Full is the best book about poker I've ever read, and I've read just about all of them. The history of cards, of poker (draw, stud, high-low, hold'em, Omaha, H.O.R.S.E., even badugi!), Doc Holliday, Wild Bill Hickok, all the presidents and generals who played, the WSOP from its days at Binion's Horseshoe to 8,000 players at the Rio and on ESPN, the Andy Beal game, the science and technology of the game as it's now being played live and on the Internet. READ THIS BOOK!
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
I learned so much.
2 Nov 2009
Format:Hardcover
If you love poker and want deeper understanding of the game historically, psychologically, etc. get this book.
McManus is highly skilled at serving up tons of information in an enjoyable and easy to read manner. I can't tell you how much I learned from reading it. Most of all, it made me realize how pertinent and valuable poker-related thinking skills are to decisions away from the felt on both micro and macro levels.
McManus is highly skilled at serving up tons of information in an enjoyable and easy to read manner. I can't tell you how much I learned from reading it. Most of all, it made me realize how pertinent and valuable poker-related thinking skills are to decisions away from the felt on both micro and macro levels.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
