Fading hearts on the river: a life in high-stakes poker PDF
Preview Fading hearts on the river: a life in high-stakes poker
U.S. $24.00 y the spring of 2014, in his most “I was knocked out by the recent year of playing against “Wonderful . . . not just for gamblers . . . for anyone who likes narrative power, the tenderness, the biggest sharks in tournament to think about ‘how to make luck happen.’” and the brilliance—a home run. poker, Isaac Haxton had won four million —BOOKLIST Unputdownable. A hit.” dollars. Not only that, for eight years run- —MARY KARR ning he had won more than a quarter of “[Brooks Haxton] delivers a thoughtful and gripping memoir of life a million dollars every year. But in 2006 with his son . . . his gift for the poetic and lyrical shines.” when he told his parents, after three years —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY in computer science at Brown University, that he wanted to play poker full time, the “Fading Hearts on the River is as smart and as well outcome was far from certain. AUTHOR AND SON AT HOME IN 1989 written on life-and-death issues as it is on the probabilities Following his son on the plunge into in poker and love. A terrific book.” this career, Brooks Haxton, a recreational —STEPHEN DUNN, gambler and longtime poet and teacher, Pultizer Prize–winning poet and lifelong poker player BROOKS HAXTON has published twelve takes readers on a rollicking tour of game books, including poems, translations from theory, financial strategy, and the myster- several languages, and nonfiction. His ies of parenthood. Fading Hearts on the work has appeared in Atlantic Monthly, River is one family’s story of playing the odds—the odds for a career in poetry or in The New York Times Book Review, The poker, the odds for the survival of a new- New Yorker, and The Paris Review. In born son in intensive care, the luck of the 2013 the Fellowship of Southern Writers draw in Texas hold ’em, and the gamble of presented him with the Hanes Award, rec- “I’ve been on a Brooks Haxton kick lately. He’s one of the most gifted and placing your heart in the care of another. ognizing a distinguished body of work by a natural poets in America . . . wonderful, especially in the way [he] reaches out to While Isaac climbs the ranks of in- poet in mid-career. He lives with his wife the reader and talks about the things that really matter . . . so vivid and direct.” ternational poker, winning more in one and children in Syracuse where he teaches —GEORGE SAUNDERS hand than his father has earned from all at Syracuse University. “Extraordinary . . . strikingly original, rich, comic, and beautiful in the use of language.” his books combined, he visits ports of —WALKER PERCY call in the Bahamas, Las Vegas, and Malta. Millions of dollars come and go. Fading “Such juice, splendor, gall and melancholy, sweeping over the centuries to, simply enough, engulf and drown us in beauty.” Hearts on the River celebrates the stag- gering luck of a gifted mind at play and the —JIM HARRISON M Y S O N ’ S L I F E I N P O K E R COUNTERPOINT ultimate luck of love. www.counterpointpress.com Distributed by Publishers Group West ISBN: 978-1-61902-325-3 52400 Jacket Design: Matt Dorfman Author Photo: George Tatge 9 781619 023253 FADING HEARTS ON THE RIVER A L H -S P ife in igH tAkeS oker H SON ow my cHeAtS DEATH, m , & m winS iLLionS ArrieS SWEETHEART HiS coLLege Copyright © 2014 Brooks Haxton All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Haxton, Bruce. Fading hearts on the river: a life in high-stakes poker / Bruce Haxton. pages cm ISBN 978-1-61902-325-3 (hardback) 1. Poker. I. Title. GV1251.H28 2014 795.412--dc23 2013044915 ISBN 978-1-61902-325-3 Cover design by Matt Dorfman Interior Design by Megan Jones Design COUNTERPOINT 1919 Fifth Street Berkeley, CA 94710 www.counterpointpress.com Printed in the United States of America Distributed by Publishers Group West 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For my family, heart-winners each and all Lucky and unlucky mean the same thing, like flammable and inflammable. —WILLIAM MATTHEWS To fade hearts on the river, in Texas hold ’em, is to avoid a heart on the final card, so that the other player does not complete a flush in hearts to win the hand.
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