Poker and the Presidency

Anthony Holden, author of the classic poker memoir Big Deal, celebrates having a poker player in the White House again:

This moved Time magazine to reveal two months later that John McCain is, by contrast, a manic craps player. I was in Las Vegas at the time, for the 2008 World Series of Poker; reached by London’s Sunday Telegraph for comment, I ventured: "We poker players don't call poker gambling. It’s a game of skill. Craps is an absurd game of luck...only madmen play craps."

Hey, craps can be fun. But it's a good piece; read the whole thing. (I also learned through it that James McManus has a book out next year, The Story of Poker, that's currently being serialized in Card Player magazine. Good news.)