{"product_id":"9780981947624","title":"Poker Tales","description":"Texas Hold 'Em is one on the most popular card games being played in the world today. But author William Heise thought it odd that there was not a lot of literary fiction being written on poker. As he writes in his introduction: \u003cp\u003e\"Golf and baseball have given us hoards of books in the 20th century on the life lessons to be learned from their respective games.... \u003cbr\u003eBut when it came to poker, I found that most recent literature on the subject was confined to the rough-and-tumble world of poker written by those who had experienced the up-and-down lifestyle for themselves.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNoting that poker relies on bluffing as much or more than on the cards themselves, Heise has written a series of short stories which trade on this unique aspect of the game. In his frame narrative, a kid (known only as 'the Kid') breezes into Las Vegas the day after his 21st birthday and sits down at a table with an old-timer (known only as 'the Old-Timer'). \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Old-Timer proceeds to tell the Kid a series of short stories on seemingly unrelated matters: \u003cbr\u003e* Tales of actors and directors \u003cbr\u003e* Tales of riverboat gamblers and chess masters\u003cbr\u003e* Tales of mobsters and Texas cheats \u003cbr\u003e* Even a tale of the Devil himself \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEach poker tale is worth reading on its own, but the question that arises in the frame narrative becomes whether the Old-Timer is simply the kindly old man that the Kid takes him to be, or whether he has a more devious purpose in mind when he invites the Kid to sit down and play this simple game with him.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Jackson Graham LLC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47035443773680,"sku":"9780981947624","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780981947624_p0.jpg?v=1763885394","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780981947624","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}