Shut Up and Deal

"Shut Up And Deal is a sort of autobiographical novel by Jesse May, who most people know as a poker commentator. He’s so breathy and excitable and funny as a commentator, he doesn’t necessarily sound like he’d be a brilliant, controlled novelist but he really is. He used to be a professional poker player before there was any such thing. His character is an alter ego called Mickey Dane. Jesse’s wife is called Mickey and she’s Danish, so it’s sweet. It’s very Runyonesque, colloquial and in the present tense. It really brings alive that last phase in poker before the internet came along and caused a revolution – it’s all strange people gambling and bickering in funny little clubs, wearing weird clothes, having odd conversations. There’s a great section where they all get snowed in at some poker club on the East Coast and are stuck there for days. It sounds great; whenever I read it (and I’ve read this book three or four times) I wish I’d been there. Well, my book, For Richer, For Poorer , about my 20 years playing poker, covers that period when poker changed. Because it used to be this kind of underground game that nobody really played; it was in saloon scenes in films, and there were people who made a living out of it, but not very many. Then two things happened. In Britain at the end of the 1990s Channel 4 put on Late Night Poker and it was cool and cultish and people thought: “Oooh, what a trendy thing to do.” And then internet poker came along and this fusion of fashion and technology created a huge explosion. “I won half a million pounds but it wasn’t about the money. That night I was basically the only girl, I was local and I was no threat to anyone and they were genuinely delighted.” When it first started on Channel 4 the players were professional poker players but they didn’t admit that. They said they were businessmen or in import-export because it wasn’t respectable. Now there are millions of 22-year-old men making a living as poker players and proud of it. It used to sound seedy and wasn’t really a term that meant anything. People played cards and either they had a job or they didn’t. Now most people, like me, have sponsorship and wear logos. It’s like what’s happened in tennis or football. Once you were a fireman or a teacher or a butcher and you also played football. The only thing that has really changed is the money, so that these days you don’t need to have another job as well. Being a professional poker player is admirable now rather than silly. Another big thing that happened was the World Championship in 2003. There had always been a World Championship but it cost $10,000 to enter so it was limited to a few very rich people. In 2003 Chris Moneymaker – that really was his name – played on PokerStars.com, the biggest poker website in the world, for $40 and won a place in the World Series. At the end of the World Series he won the Championship and turned $40 into $5 million. In 2000 there were 300 players in the World Series, in 2003, when Moneymaker won, there were 800 and in 2004 there were 3,000. Suddenly everybody was playing on PokerStars. And I mean everybody. Years ago if I told someone I played poker they’d say: “Oooh, poker. Is it dangerous? ” Now I tell people and they say: “Yes, I was playing this morning with three old ladies from Chicago.”"