Part one
Six hundred years of cards, and how they ended up as this.
Most books about a casino game start at the table. This one starts with the
first playing cards in Tang dynasty China and follows them west - through Mamluk Egypt into
Europe, into primero and post-and-pair, into the three-card game the English called brag,
and across the Atlantic into the game New Orleans turned into poker.
Then, in 1994, a British player named Derek Webb sat
down to design a casino game on purpose: fast enough to hold a floor, simple enough to learn
standing up, and built around one small rule that makes the whole thing work. Knowing why
that rule is there is most of the way to knowing how to beat the mistakes everybody else
makes.
Part one
Where the game came from
Seven chapters, from the first paper decks to a game designed on purpose in 1994 - and why a straight beats a flush here, which is arithmetic rather than a house rule.
Part two
How it is played around America
Five things change between rooms and every one of them costs money. Nevada, Atlantic City, the California card rooms, Oklahoma, the Gulf Coast - and the minute at the door that is worth more than anything you do after sitting down.
Part three
Beyond the American pit
Britain, where it started and where it was turned down. Europe, Asia and Australia. Online from the offshore decades to the regulated ones, live dealer, and the stadium terminal that deals three times as fast for the same money.
Part four
How the game works
The one decision, solved exactly. Every sign priced from the distribution, the ante bonus nobody reads properly, both side bets, and the exposed-card game worked out in full - the largest single number in the book.
Part five
Looking for the weak points
Where the mathematics bends and where it does not. What a partial glimpse is really worth, why the queen is the qualifier, what does not work and why - and exactly where the line sits between clever and criminal. It ends with a ledger of what the book has not finished.
Part six
The shape of the money
Why two bets that cost the same feel nothing alike. Variance, risk of ruin, what to bring, how to divide it once you are there, and the correlation between two spots that nobody has right.
Part seven
What it really costs
The bill, in dollars an hour rather than percentages. Fees, tipping, tax and being rated - the costs that never appear in a house-edge figure, and the one table that decides what an evening actually takes from you.
Part eight
At the table
Being rated and what a comp actually is. How dealers and players really talk and what every call is protecting. Handling your cards, what to do when something goes wrong, and where to practise for free.
