Usually when people buy poker books, it is by a poker pro who is trying to squeeze as much cash out of their career as they can. While the blatent profiteering often benefits both the writer who gets the cash, and the reader who gets some knowledge, most of those poker books tend to sound the same. Every now and then it is nice to take a break from the same ol’ same ol, and learn something about poker that doesn’t involve pot odds and math. This is where the new book by James McManus comes into play. “Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker” takes the reader on a journey through poker history, and helps them appreciate how we have arrived at where we are.
For a lot of people, their experience with poker history was an old western or when somebody was bright enough to open the first online poker room. James McManus makes it very clear that there was poker long before the innovation of Texas Hold’em and the internet. He goes into detail as he chronicles the series of games that would qualify as “proto-poker” long before the word poker was ever uttered. He tracks the centuries of movement of the game, from its Chinese origins in the east to the United States in the west, where the game became what we recognize as poker.
History is something that interests most of us. Reading about how the game started as something like dominos and became Texas Hold’em, is fascinating reading. Cowboys Full doesn’t just chronicle the movement and origins of the game, but the book also addresses its cultural impact.
With the holiday season coming up, this book would make a perfect stocking stuffer for everyone from the greenest amateur to the most seasoned poker pro.
