“Poker isn’t about winning money,” top-ranked professional player Annie Duke (right) explained to a group of literati that included (top row, from left) Hard Case Crime publisher Charles Ardai, Myla Goldberg, and Colson Whitehead, offering a high-spirited seminar on how to handle your pocket cards during a hold ’em game. “Money is just the scorekeeper. The goal is to make the best decisions.”
Later, her brother and fellow pro player Howard Lederer would offer advice on betting during the flop, turn, and river deals—the two stars on hand to support their sister, poet Katy Lederer, and the literary magazine she helps edit, Fence, in a benefit tourney at Chelsea Market. With a solid crew of professional dealers like Monica (bottom row, left) on hand to supervise the action, the tables moved fast, and though I got off to a great start, winning the first two hands on the flop, it wasn’t too long before I got cocky, made some reckless decisions, and busted out. But then Time book critic Lev Grossman persuaded Ardai and I to join him in a side game with a $20 buy-in, and it was here that the advice from the pros started to sink in…and an hour later, I found myself going head-to-head with poet Joshua Beckman, finally eliminating him by making an 8-high straight on the river (although, as we’d established during the set-up, most of the money went to the magazine—still, I was up $20!) Meanwhile, back at the real action, Folio Literary Management co-founder Scott Hoffman (bottom, right) had made his way to the final table, where he ultimately came in fourth. Then Whitehead, the last of the literati, got taken down, clearing the way for a trader from the investment firm where Lederer work her straight job to whittle away at his opponent’s stack until it was gone.