| Des Wilsons History of American Poker Every generation of poker players has its own set of heroes and some of these go on to become living legends.
No one can deny that part of the urge to play poker is to identify oneself with the aura surrounding Wild Bill Hickok. In his latest book Ghosts at the Table Des Wilson explores the mythology and history of these poker heroes.
The subtitle of the book is exceedingly long and it describes the four different eras in the evolution of poker. The first section, “Riverboat Gamblers” takes the readers back into the 19th century to the Old West gaming halls and the Mississippi riverboats where American poker began. The heroes of that age are Hickok, Holliday, Wyatt Earp, and George Devol among others. “Texas Rounders” is the second section.
Wilson takes the readers to 20th century Texas to try and unearth the origin of Texas Hold’em Poker, the version of poker that is ruling the roost today. There the readers meet eternal characters like Johnny Moss, "Amarillo Slim" Preston, T.J. Cloutier and Crandall Addington. In “Roadside Hucksters” the scene shifts to the early days of Las Vegas and from there the readers witness the growth of the poker’s heartland.
The two gentlemen who made it all possible, the Godfathers of modern poker according to Wilson, are Benny Binion and Doyle Brunson. They form the centerpiece of this section. Also covered in this section is another mainstay of the poker industry, the World Series of Poker or WSOP. The final section is “The Living Legends Who Made Poker What It Is Today”. This section carries on with the evolution of WSOP but the focus is on two mediums that have become an integral part of playing poker. One is the exponentially growing US poker sites and the other is poker on television.
As admitted by Wilson, Ghosts at the Table is “not an exhaustive history of poker”. But as the name suggests, Wilson delves into the lives of the heroes who have entered the folklore of poker and have become eternal in the collective consciousness of the poker community. Wilson states that “poker is short on record and statistics” referring particularly to the first two eras of poker. Hence his objective has been to fill in the gaps. It is to his credit that he has refrained from merely relying on print information only. Wilson has become the investigator who travels to the scene of the crime, interviews witnesses and reconstructs what may have happened.
The first poker legend that comes to any mind is the “dead man’s hand” and it is but appropriate that Wilson’s book begins from there. Wilson actually traveled to Deadwood in South Dakota and interviewed locals to try and learn why Jack McCall shot Wild Bill Hickok on the 2nd of August 1876; and to solve the greater mystery of what the fifth card was. The dead man’s hand is the hand held by Hickok when he was shot and it is believed that he held the two black aces and the two black eights. There is controversy as to what the fifth card was.
Den Wilson’s earlier book, Swimming with the Devilfish, traced the history of poker in Britain. |
