Herbert O. Yardley - The Education of a Poker Player
Oldcastle Books Pbk £5.95
According to the blurb on the front cover, this is the book that reminded Ian Fleming of Raymond Chandler. I can't think why. Maybe Fleming just wanted to say something nice about the book. So do I. I gobbled it up from beginning to end, but it never for one minute made me think of Raymond Chandler.
In his introduction, Al Alvarez mentions that Terence Reece, who played bridge for England, has said that in terms of skill there is nothing to choose between bridge and poker. Now, a lot of people who play bridge don't know that. They think that poker is about gambling.
But Yardley's book is not about gambling. It's about observation and attitude and skill. About knowing the odds and exploiting the main chance. And the title is perfect. The Education of a Poker Player is about education.
Into 160 pages Yardley packs a complete treatise on the classic Poker game, giving an assessment of the odds, and a step by step guide to playing the percentages. Woven around these instructions are the main periods of his biography, from his school-days and apprenticeship in Indianapolis, to the periods in Hong Kong and Chunking where he was working for Chiang Kai-shek. But even this does not adequately describe Yardley's achievement, because scattered throughout his pages are the aphorisms and insights of his friends and teachers which taken together form at one and the same time a humorous and deeply pessimistic and personalised philosophy. Yardley takes the American dream and puts it through a wringer. What comes out the other end is reminiscent of the stars and stripes after Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis.
Oh, and another thing. It really makes you want to play poker. As soon as I'd finished the book I went out to find a game. I lost. But you know what? I didn't mind, because tonight I'm going to clean up.
(John Baker).
