Note: This is the second
in a series of posts in which I discuss the “inspirations” behind my YA novels.
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Casino
poker makes for fascinating people-watching. You are sitting at a table with
nine or ten strangers, sometimes for hours, while trying to take each other’s
money. Poker is different from most other forms of casino gambling in that you
are playing against the other players, not directly against the house. (The
house earns money by taking a few dollars out of every pot.) I made some
friends during my poker years, and learned some things about what drives
people, and learned a lot about my own limitations.
One
thing I learned was to recognize the signs of gambling addiction. You don’t
have to look far. Take a stroll through the rows upon rows of slots and watch
the glaze-eyed gamblers pumping money into the machines. See the haggard souls lining
up at the ATM. Observe the red-faced, shouting men at the craps table, talking
to the dice as if the little plastic cubes were sentient beings.
Gambling
addicts can be found at the poker tables as well, chasing unplayable hands,
raising on a hunch, throwing money at luck, fate, justice, and the wind. Most
addicts are losers. But in poker, a game in which skill and discipline can
produce consistently profitable results, there are gambling addicts who win
more than they lose. This is analogous to being addicted to heroin and being
paid for it. The more heroin you use, the more money you receive.
This
was the core concept upon which I based the YA novel No Limit.* Denn Doyle is a teenager who finds out he is an amazing
poker player. He starts raking in the cash, and becomes consumed by the game.
He wins all the money, but is it worth the price of becoming obsessed and
addicted? Heck if I know—that’s why I wrote a book about it.
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*No Limit was originally published under the title Stone
Cold. The title was changed at the publisher’s
request. Long story—I may address it in another post sometime.
2 comments:
Be sure to tell us how Owen Smith happened to do the cover art for Stone Cold. (I've always enjoyed his New Yorker covers.)
I don't know how Owen Smith got that assignment. It was back in 1997. It was a pleasant surprise!
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