There's No Poker in Open Bar

Plus: Book Club Tonight!

Because of all the poker content in my debut novel Final Table, I get asked a lot if the game plays a role in my second novel Open Bar (coming August 12). Some who ask are looking for another poker storyline, but others are clearly not. From the beginning, the poker aspects of Final Table have led to different reactions from various readers, as can be seen in the Amazon and Goodreads reviews.

Some reviewers who are poker players seemed to like the poker parts:

“Poker players will find in the book scenes at the WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas and a winner takes all High Roller tournament in a fictional country. I found the poker scenes real and love them.”

“You don't have to be a poker player to enjoy this book, but if you are, you will recognize a lot of the players from your local game or tournament.”

For others it was an introduction to poker:

“I even learned a bit about poker!”

“I don't know much about poker, and so I was a bit concerned that I would be lost in the poker parts, but they were so well developed and described that I was fully at ease.”

Some readers weren’t enthusiastic about the poker but fortunately liked the book anyway:

“There is a lot of poker terminology in this novel that I totally didn't understand. It didn't lessen the political intrigue and the fast pace of the novel.”

“You don’t need to know anything about poker to follow the story and I think I learned a thing or two about the game.”

One person panned the book because there was not enough poker:

“As a poker book, it is really quite bad. As a thriller, it is OK. It is absolutely an easy and fun read. It takes no effort to read and enjoy this book for what it is. I was hoping for a real book that looked at poker and the life of a poker player from a novelist's perspective. I was disappointed.”

And at least one reader had a negative opinion about the book because it focused too much on politics instead of poker, and he maybe consumed too many gummies before posting a review:

So how did I end up writing a novel featuring high-stakes poker? Until my 30th birthday, I was actually pretty anti-poker. I had never been a casino gambler and I generally found betting on games of chance or sports to be a waste of time and money. Maggie Raster shared this attitude in Final Table:

She had nothing against people who gambled, but it just never really appealed to her, never gave her that exciting rush that others received.

Then, like many others, I got swept up in Chris Moneymaker’s fabled 2003 World Series of Poker (WSOP) run on ESPN, when he beat the world’s top pros and turned an $86 online entry into a $2.5 million championship. For the first time, I saw that poker was actually a highly entertaining contest of skill, not just another casino game that was all or mostly dependent on luck like roulette, blackjack, and craps. If not for Chris Moneymaker, there would probably be no Final Table, and I was elated when he blurbed my novel years later:

ESPN’s coverage of the Moneymaker championship inspired me to start playing poker - a lot. Fortunately I had some great friends who had played for years and showed me the way. I wrote about them in the Final Table acknowledgements:

I played poker tournaments in Las Vegas, Atlantic City (especially Borgata), Foxwoods, Mohegan Sun, and other places. I entered one WSOP preliminary event, and even won a low-dollar online tournament which earned me a flight to Macau and entry into a tournament where I got to play with former WSOP champions Joe Hachem and Scottie Nguyen.

And through it all, as an aspiring writer, I saw more and more that poker encapsulated so much of the strategy, decision-making, and obstacles of life. Taking calculated risks, understanding the expected value of your own hand, being realistic about one’s own strengths and weaknesses, reading other people, figuring out when other people are correctly reading you, bluffing, deciphering bluffs, not allowing mistakes and short-term bad luck derail one’s focus, and so much more. We see the same considerations all the time in politics, interpersonal relationships, and business.

I tried to capture all this in Final Table, and I hoped the poker community, among others, would be interested in reading it. I’d read Card Player magazine for years and very much appreciated their article about the book. I also had greatly enjoyed Nolan Dalla’s fascinating biography of poker legend Stu Unger, and Nolan’s review of Final Table meant so much to me because he really expressed what I was trying to show in my novel. My favorite part of his review was:

And so, the stage is set for a most riveting “Final Table.” But as with all wars, this battle is always won before the first shot is fired, or in poker parlance, the first card gets dealt. The journey to this final shuffle of fates makes the story. The payoff isn’t the final table, it’s the journey getting there….What we observe through these imperfect characters is the essence of our own souls and the discovery of what makes us all tick.

After the publication of Final Table, I realized a dream I’d had since I watched Moneymaker’s championship by actually playing in the World Series of Poker Main Event. I figured, what better way to publicize this novel than to become the poker world champion? Unfortunately I got knocked out at the end of Day 1 after playing for about 12 hours. But even without reaching the success of Chris Moneymaker, Kyler Dawson, or Priya Varma, it was an incredible experience that I’ll always treasure, and not just because I got to see Vince Vaughn in a gladiator costume.

Nevertheless, as exciting and gratifying as all this was, Final Table unfortunately never gained significant traction within the poker community as I had wished. I’m not sure why, but my working theory is that, although there are an increasing number of female poker players, it’s still a very male-dominated game. And as I might have mentioned once or twice before, I’ve come to learn that sadly guys don’t read novels.

But my efforts to promote Final Table in the poker community did lead me to connect with a man named Rich Korbin, who was working with Card Player at the time. Rich was one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met - he’d been around the poker scene for a long time and had so many fascinating stories based on his personal interactions with numerous legends of the game and his work with PokerStars during the height of the poker boom. He was incredibly personable, kind, and witty, and I could listen to his tales forever. Talking with him when we met in Las Vegas was a thrill.

He offered to read the ARC of Final Table and then was instrumental in its promotion in Card Player and elsewhere. I still have his voicemail on my phone from before we first met, when he shared that he really enjoyed the novel and then helped me correct one of the book’s poker hands:

I have one little issue. Go to page 37. To make a long story short, [Kyler’s] got ace-king suited and he makes a raise before the flop and the flop comes 10-7-3 rainbow. There’s only one club and he’s suited with the ace-king of clubs. He makes a continuation bet and gets called and on the turn the jack of clubs comes, and now the board is jack-10-7-3 with two clubs. You mention that he’s got the nut flush draw, and you also said that if [the river] is an ace or king, that would probably be good too. You overlooked any queen would give him a Broadway.

I immediately fixed that, and I looked forward to hopefully being friends with Rich for many years to come. When he passed away unexpectedly just before I flew out to Las Vegas for the WSOP Main Event, I was heartbroken. I met him late in his life, but I learned from others who knew him for years what a wonderful, loved person he was for so many, as can be seen in this video tribute. I very much wish I had been able to spend more time with him and I will always feel extremely grateful for his guidance, support, and generosity.

As for me, will I ever write another poker novel? The short answer is: I can’t. I wrote everything I know about poker in Final Table. There’s nothing left. But while I have no further insights to provide about Final Tables, I do have a thing or two to say about Open Bars…

First Book Club Meeting Tonight!

Our inaugural Book Club (Zoom) meeting is TONIGHT (Tuesday, April 22) at 7:30pm ET. Registration is open here. We’ll discuss Counting Backwards by USA Today bestselling author Jacqueline Friedland, and she’ll be Zooming in to the meeting to discuss her latest book and answer your questions. Counting Backwards is a moving, fast-paced, inspiring, and very timely novel that’s available anywhere books are sold, such as here and here.

Even if you haven’t read or finished this novel, it would be great to have you join us tonight in the first meeting of this new reader/writer community. And feel free to invite others!

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