Poker, Power Go Hand In Hand, Author Says
Author James McManus - Poker's lessons have informed some of America's most powerful leaders, says James McManus, author of
Author James McManus believes poker explains a lot about who we are as a culture. America is where the game was popularized, and in his new book, Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker, McManus lists dozens of powerful Americans who have spent long nights hunched over a card table betting — and bluffing — their way to riches or ruin.
"The ways we've done battle and business have reflected and are reflected by poker logic," McManus tells Guy Raz. "The entrepreneurial spirit of a fledgling democracy made it fairly natural that poker would become the game. Its language is money."
Poker — rougher and more democratic than the baccarat and and blackjack played in European casinos — became a sensation in America during the Civil War. McManus writes in Cowboys Full that Ulysses S. Grant was known to play, but he says that some key Confederate leaders — also known poker players — put the game's tactics to better use on the battlefield.
"[Generals Robert E.] Lee and Nathan Bedford Forrest were more talented bluffers," McManus says. "[They were] better at misrepresenting the strength of their position [and] their troop strength. And by those means, they nearly defeated the North."
It's no shock that powerful men in intense situations might turn to poker as a form of release or as a method of sharpening their intellect. In McManus' view, "Poker logic is about leveraging uncertainty and managing risk as effectively as possible, using psychology, logic, and mathematics in order to make effective bets — either at the table or in the marketplace."
President Obama has a reputation as a cautious player who leaves the table a winner, and he's not alone in White House history. Chester Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Richard Nixon: poker players all, according to McManus. Eisenhower and Nixon had reputations as effective high-stakes players; Nixon even financed his first successful congressional campaign with poker winnings.
In Cowboys Full, McManus quotes Nixon's college literature professor, Albert Upton, as saying, "A man who couldn't hold a hand in a first-class poker game isn't fit to be president of the United States."
Or the richest man in the world. Of Bill Gates' college years, McManus says, "He felt he learned more playing poker with his dorm-mates than he did in some of the most fascinating classes he took at Harvard."
Apparently, the lessons served him well.
"[Gates] developed a poker strategizing acumen that he found extremely applicable to forming a business and developing a business plan. And then just as important, he won a sufficient sum to help him bankroll the early stages of Microsoft," McManus says.
Early on, poker was associated with rough characters and rampant cheating that led to violence — picture overturned tables and shootouts in Wild West saloons. But as the stakes got higher and the game became institutionalized, poker made a gradual transition from a enterprise of scoundrels to a polite gentleman's pastime.
"Casinos, who were hosting the games, had enormous incentive to keep the game square and bring in more customers," says McManus. "Just as in the 21st century the online sites have a huge incentive not to slaughter their platinum goose."
If the idea that a poker table could function as a classroom in the subjects of money, power and war rubs some Americans the wrong way, McManus reads the game's lessons as a necessary ingredient in the development of the American ideology: "What's made America great is the combination of Puritan work ethic and the entrepreneurial cowboy's desire to get rich quick by setting out for the territories and taking big risks."
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GUY RAZ, host:
Welcome back to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Guy Raz.
Despite what the Yankees achieved this past week, the World Series is not over. But I'm talking about a different group of nine men and a different sort of diamond. The World Series of Poker kicked off its final table this afternoon. And sitting at that table, nine players whittled down from a field of almost 6,500.
In a few minutes, we'll meet the man who went into the day as the chip leader, Darvin Moon. He's a logger who cut his poker teeth in small stakes games in the mountains of Western Maryland.
First though, a little background on the game itself. Writer James McManus believes that poker explains a lot about who we are as a culture. His new book is a history of the game with all its unsavory and distinguished practitioners. It's called "Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker." And James McManus is in the studios of member station KUOW in Seattle.
Welcome to the program.
Mr. JAMES McMANUS (Author, "Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker"): Thanks for having me on, Guy.
RAZ: You write that the game is interwoven into the American DNA. What do you mean by that?
Mr. McMANUS: The entrepreneurial spirit of a fledgling democracy made it fairly natural that poker would become the game. Its language is money, its means of keeping score, and it's open to all classes of society.
RAZ: But early on, the game was associated with cheats and this sort of Wild West shootouts, right?
Mr. McMANUS: What we would call poker skill today, that was - had very little to do with who took the long money home in high stakes game in the 19th century. The artistry of poker had more to do with being able to deal seconds, or passing the cards over a mirrored ring on the inside of your hands, or as we saw in the movie "The Sting," when Robert Shaw has a cold deck prepared for Paul Newman.
RAZ: Right.
Mr. McMANUS: And Paul Newman's cronies managed to get into the game a double cold deck, so that Robert Shaw thinks he's going to win with four nines, he actually loses all his money, when Paul Newman famously says, four Jacks, you owe me 15 grand, pal.
RAZ: And a great film.
You spoke with us actually last year on this program about President Barack Obama and his love of poker. And he's just sort of the latest in a long line of commanders-in-chief...
Mr. McMANUS: Mm-hmm.
RAZ: ...who've been drawn to the game.
Mr. McMANUS: President Obama falls very clearly into - there's a number of stripes of presidential poker players. Most of them are like Obama: FDR, Truman, Teddy Roosevelt. They played as a way to relax with their cronies, to widen their political circle.
The two players who were the most effective high stakes players in their lifetimes were Eisenhower and Nixon.
RAZ: Hmm.
Mr. McMANUS: Eisenhower successfully courts Mamie Dowd, a wealthy Denver socialite, with poker winnings. Nixon wins $8,000 in the mid '40s, enough to finance his first successful congressional campaign.
RAZ: Now, you actually teach a class on poker, on its history and strategy at the School of the Art...
Mr. McMANUS: And the literature, as well.
RAZ: And literature - at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. And you point out that that poker strategy is now widely taught at business schools.
Mr. McMANUS: Mm-hmm. David Sklansky, one of the premier philosophers and primer writers, his books are assigned to traders at Susquehanna Partners and a number of other financial services industries.
Poker logic is about leveraging uncertainty and managing risk as effectively as possible, using psychology, logic and mathematics in order to make effective bets about what's going to happen either at the table or in the marketplace.
RAZ: You conclude in your book that poker has actually made this country a stronger one, not a more sinful one. What do you think the Puritans would have made of that?
Mr. McMANUS: The Puritan instinct is alive today and it tends to not appreciate poker skill, winning money by cunning and aggression. However, what's made America great is the combination of Puritan work ethic and the entrepreneurial cowboy's desire to get rich quick by taking big risks. It's the combination of those two things. As parents' genes combine in their children, that has made America what it is today.
RAZ: James McManus is the author of "Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker." He joined us from KUOW in Seattle.
James McManus, thanks so much.
Mr. MCMANUS: My pleasure, Guy. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.
