Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker

Jim McManus

Jim McManus made the final table at the World Series of Poker.

That alone should make any poker player want to pick this book up and read it immediately. It gets better when you realize that McManus went in as the rankest of rank amateurs, the guy whose previous poker career revolved around the $3-$6 Hold 'em game at the local VFW. Yes, folks, Jim McManus is living proof that anyone CAN do it. And, as This American Life host Ira Glass says on the back cover, the poker writing to be found here really is some of the best sports writing you are likely to ever see; McManus' descriptions are easily the equal of Laura Hillenbrand's race descriptions in Seabiscuit (and this is high praise indeed). Its when McManus gets off the subject of poker that things tend to go downhill.

Unfortunately, this happens often. McManus was in Vegas for the purpose of covering the Murphy/Tabish trial (Murphy and Tabish were accused of murdering Ted Binion, wayward son of the owner of the casino where the World Series of Poker is held*), and much of the book details McManus' attempts to get at the meat of the psyches of Binion, Murphy, and Tabish, in order to write the article. Despite the tenuous connections McManus makes between murder and poker towards the end of the book, these are two separate pieces, and should have been treated as such.

Worth reading for the cards. Skim the rest.

* For the sticklers in the audience: yes, “is” is the correct tense. Binion's reopened on April 1, 2004.