Poker Book Becoming Poker Movie

A writer and poker player is assigned the job of reporting on the 2000 World Series of Poker and instead decides to play it. During the competition he is distracted by a murder mystery involving the creators of the WSOP, yet manages to play so well he makes the final table. Sounds like a great story, and it is, the story of the Jim McManus book Positively Fifth Street, which is on track to becoming a movie by the same name. Writer and director John Ridley is taking on the big screen adaptation of the novel in the Fall, where it will follow behind other poker movies such as Lucky You and Smokin' Aces - an action comedy with Jason Bateman, Ray Liotta, and one of the biggest poker playing actors around, Ben Affleck.