James McManus

WHAT James McManus’s new book, Cowboys Full (FSG, $30), tracks the history of poker.
WHEN In stores Oct 27

If Wikipedia reflects the way the average person thinks of any given topic, then James McManus is first and foremost a poker player. In his entry, poker player is listed before writer and teacher, and it’s tough to argue. Though he’s the author of nine books, it’s his poker playing—detailed in the best-selling Positively Fifth Street, in which he uses an advance from his editor to enter the World Series of Poker and finishes in fifth place—that has become legendary.

But as a writer, he’s no slouch, and his new Cowboys Full is sure to become the dominant history of America’s card game. In it, he dissects American politics as a table game and tracks the history of poker from prehistoric times straight through the early-aughts boom and into the world of online poker. We talked with the School of the Art Institute prof on the phone from his home in suburban Kenilworth.

Time Out Chicago: Your book is supposed to be a history of poker, but it almost reads as a history of the world as poker metaphor.
James McManus: I like to think of it as American history through the prism of poker, or vice versa. Once you hit 1800, poker history more or less corresponds to American history.

TOC: What do you think poker has to say about American history?
James McManus: There are so many things that a democratic, entrepreneurial society does that spring naturally from poker. How unsurprising it is that poker would become our national card game, given the way that everybody has more or less equal opportunity, that you’re more or less living by your wits, and creative aggression counts a lot.

TOC: You write about Obama’s poker history—do you see that reflected in him as a politician?
James McManus: He’s not a gut player. He’s not a reckless, risk player. His style as a player is unsurprisingly similar to his style as a politician.

TOC: But you’ve never sat down and played with him.
James McManus: No, my wife was a fund-raiser in Illinois, so we’ve known him since he was running for the Senate. I have not played with him. Dammit. I hope to. His job on the economy, though, would be made much harder if it got out that he was gambling in the White House.

TOC: You might have to wait until he’s out of office.
James McManus: Yeah, but then he’s out of the White House. I want the game to be in the White House, where all those other people were playing.

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