Players: Con Men, Hustlers, Gamblers, and Scam Artists

by Stephen Hyde (Editor), Geno Zanetti (Editor)

"Once I hear the clatter of chips I almost go into convulsions," said Dostoyevsky, while Anatole France wrote, "The gambler is driven by the fascination of danger at the bottom of all great passions."

The characters the reader meets in Players—chess grand masters, poolroom hustlers, or street-hardened practitioners of the short con—are all alike propelled by the ecstasy of risk. "The stake is money," France wrote, "in other words, immediate, infinite possibilities." In fact, as the reader hooks up with David Mamet in the poker room and meets Damon Runyon’s Bookie Bob, Saul Bellow’s immortal Yellow Kid, and learns from Herbert Asbury about the antics of Izzy and Moe, and from David Maurer about the discreet charm of the confidence man, and Walter Tevis on Fast Eddie Felson and Minnesota Fats, high lives and low will merge and the world of gambler and con-artist will blur.

Selected writings by Jorge Luis Borges, Hunter S. Thompson, Nick Tosches, and many others are featured.

Genres: Crime, Fiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published December 30, 2002

Reviews

[Gene Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Highly recommended for those not deeply read on the topics of the con, pool hustlers, gamblers, and other low characters. There's some really good stuff in here, but too much of it came from things I have already read, so I skipped more than one section as a result. Still, at least couple of sections in here are inspiring me to seek out the original sources. The 3 stars are my reaction. 4 stars for the neophyte.

[Bobby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Con Men, Hustlers, Gamblers, Scam Artists...They're all here, and they all want your money. And they'll stop at nothing to get it. It's a beautiful thing.

This anthology explores the many facets of The Grift, in all it's wonderful variations. Pool halls, poker games, lotteries, long cons and short cons. And an army of writers with enough muscle to strong arm the cash right out of your hand.

Masters like Dostoyevsky and Borges rub shoulders with modern mavericks like Nick Tosches and Harlan Ellison. David Mamet eulogizes the neighborhood pool hall, while Rufus Jarman gives a history of The Spanish Prisoner, a grift almost as old as the days of Spanish Exploration. Frank Abagnale makes fraud seem so easy that you almost can't fault him for making a career out of impersonating lawyers and airline pilots all the while drawing a fortune in funds through check counterfeiting. As for the legendary Yellow Kid, this real life grandmaster of larceny comes across as so good natured and amiable that you would most likely hand him your last dollar willingly. And he'd probably take it too, if it wasn't so easy. The history of dice. The history of poker. The historic pool rivalry between Fast Eddie Felson and Minnesota Fats. Hunter S.Thompson, Rudyard Kipling, Roald Dahl, and living storehouse of grift history Ricky Jay. They're all here.

Part true-crime, part mystery, part adventure and in it's own way, even part romance. A top notch collection that you can't go wrong with.

[flannery · Rating 5 out of 5]

A cheesily packaged but surprisingly well curated collection of stories and shorts. Hardly any clunkers! And who knew I'd like this passage from some obscure self-help book as much as I do:

"The strategy, 'Fake it till you make it' is a way of lying consciously. This means that we know we are faking it; we know we are wearing a mask, and we give ourselves permission to do so without self-judgment, without justification, without making any excuses. 'Fake it till you make it' means we are acting; we are 'doing' a thing without literally 'being' it. For example, the Tribal Shaman might put on a buffalo mask and buffalo skin and intentionally act like a buffalo, until they really do feel like a buffalo. On a more mundane level, when we act polite, we are acting out the 'form' of love without necessarily feeling genuine love. However, if this is done with total recognition (no condemnation or justification), we are performing a powerful shamanic practice; and soon we begin to feel genuine love. That which was fake becomes real."

DAMN! And I'm not sure I even agree with that! A great combination of authors known and unknown and a lot of different themes within one trope.

[Adam Garbinski · Rating 5 out of 5]

this anthology was a gift to my roommate from his then girlfriend. i think i snagged it and read it first.

it's pretty amazing, features authors such as Borges, Baudelaire, Dostoevsky, Luc Sante, Runyon, Brecht, Saul Bellow, Nick Pileggi, Hunter Thompson, David Mamet, Nick Tosches and Martin Amis.

It's a hard book to describe, since it's a collection of pieces loosely based on gambling and con men. It is way better than I thought it would be. Couldn't put it down... ha... reading cliche.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great anthology of shorts and excerpts from longer works dealing with all aspects of con men and gamblers. You get everybody from Borges to Jim Thompson to David Mamet, My big discovery here was Nick Tosches, whom I'd heard of but never read . The excerpt from his book Cut Numbers made me run out and get it, and I'm looking forward to digging into it.

[Saanvi Kothari · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading about history’s known and unknown grifters. This book had pieces by some of my favorite writers too including Hunter S. Thompson and Saul Bellow. A great find that I recommend to any devious mind.

[Jeff Russo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good and fun, certainly worth a read if you're into this stuff. One or two pieces may have run a bit long, e.g. the Pushkin piece, but some pieces are longer and worth it. This is the kind of anthology where I'll probably pick up two or three books to read based on seeing excerpts here.