Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker

Why does gambling and poker in particular produce such marvelous literature? In my opinion Positively Fifth Street is even better than Alvarez's, The biggest game in town - generally regarded as poker's best book. This is because McManus is right in the middle of the story. This really is an only-in-Vegas story: sex, drugs, gambling, there's even rock-and-roll thrown in; and its all true.

I suspect the two previous US reviewers who gave this book a high rating are mates of the author. One called this 'one heck' of a read, well, the truth is, JM is one heck of a lousy writer, ( and he teaches creative writing!) He took a flimsy story of his try8ing to play pro poker with the big guys, at best enough material for an article, and padded it out so it is book length. To do that, he intercut his story with big chapters on history of poker, his own very boring backstory and domestic minutiae and half the book is devoted to the tawdry sordid lives of the people who own the horseshoe casino in Vegas. Not only is the interrupted flow annoying, ( reason people read this book is to find out about the gamek, not what JM's wife think about strippers, nor why the casino owner got murdered which is widely covered news) whats more disappointing is that the action he tries to describe falls way short of the standard of poker classics, like Michael Craig's ' the professpr, the banker, and A; Alvarez's the big game . These are elegantly written and hooks the reader with beautiful telling details right to the end. JM simply can't nail his characters and bring them or the games to life. I forced myself to read to the end but boy was that a struggle. And in the end, I can't recall anything worthwhile about any of it other than the torture of his turgid prose

Very good book, fascinating to see how a journalist brought in to cover the event can end up coming so close to winning!

Positively fifth street goes beyond merely studying poker and instead uses the world series of poker to delve into many different areas of modern day vegas, giving an insight into the author's struggles between his good and bad side, the everyday challenges of man and even his particular views on christianity. He shows his most important hands of the tornament in an unafriad style, revealing every detail that helped him to gain a seat at the final table. Further it follows the trial of Rick Tabish and Sandy Murphy detailing in a subjective way the facts and theories of the case, though quite sensationalist at points the book remains interesting and even if you disagree with his views you can at least enjoy the ride.

James McManus (fiction author, sports journalist and sometime poker player) went to Vegas to cover the trial of the murder of Ted Binion (whose father started the World Series of Poker (WSOP)) and to cover the rise of women at the WSOP. He ends up taking part of the advance money, winning a play-in satellite tourney, and getting a seat at the 2000 WSOP.He made it to the final table and fifth place.He intertwines his own story (an amatuer amongst some of pokers greatest names) with stories of the trial (where Ted's girlfriend and best friend are accused of murdering him), Jim's own personal history, the history of poker and the WSOP and the parallels he sees between them all.The insights into the game, the hands, the mannerisms, and particularly what Jim is thinking at the time (fold? call? raise? who's that beautiful dealer named Red?) dividing the voices in his head (see? not just me!) into Good Jim and Bad Jim, make the writing of the actual WSOP satellite and tournament the best part of the book. But the other stories are woven in intricately and smoothly (with only a few abstract jumps), mixing in Dante and Dostoyevsky to prove his point.Since the book has been written, the number of players entered into the big Texas Hold-em WSOP tourney has climbed in from the $1.5 million Chris "Jesus" Ferguson won (and 512 entrants) in 2000 to 2006's $12million Jamie Gold won amongst the 8,773 entrants (and around 12,000 are expected this year).Read it before the big one this July 6, and it will help you imagine the action.

I started intrigued, with the Binion murder link, went a bit off it in the middle, but it was worth pursuing in the end, all tied together nicely.