Date: 2023-12-06 Pages: 224 I used to go to an overnight camp where we'd sing songs, one of which was Kenny Rogers' *The Gambler*. Even then, the subterranean grime of gambling, pool halls, and whisky intrigued — maybe even attracted — me, even if the closest I would get was $1/$2 house games with other private-school classmates, ones where we all inexorably shoved at the end of the game; even if I was ten years old at a *sleepaway* camp where sailing and horseback riding were offered. I never thought there was anything useful to glean from this world. I'm not as inclined to believe that now. Cut away polish and glamour; the world is just people in rooms talking — there's no clear difference when Tony G tilts Phil Hellmuth for a few hundred thousand on a film set and when a pool shark performs the art as old as history: not pool, but the human game, just in different form.