12 facts to retell at the table

  1. The dealer button is called the "buck" because a knife with a buckhorn handle used to be passed around to show who was dealing. That is where "passing the buck" comes from. The earliest reference is a New Mexico newspaper from July 1865. Documented
  2. The first documented poker deck had only twenty cards, ten through ace. There were no straights or flushes, and four aces could never lose. Documented
  3. The first World Series of Poker in 1970 was not a tournament but a cash game that lasted for days. Since nobody had decided how to crown a champion, the players voted. Documented
  4. Among the first seven members of the Poker Hall of Fame in 1979 were Wild Bill Hickok and rulebook author Edmond Hoyle, who had died in 1769. Documented
  5. In 2018 Rich Alati spent twenty days alone in a completely dark bathroom for a bet. Both sides had deposited $100,000 with a lawyer. Thirty-six hours later he was back in a poker tournament. Documented
  6. Jack Ury played the World Series of Poker Main Event at 97 years and three months. Documented
  7. The joker was not invented for poker but for euchre, in the 1860s. Its early name, "Best Bower", goes back to the German word "Bauer". Documented
  8. "Tilt" comes from the pinball machine: from 1933 a tilt mechanism ended the game when somebody shoved the machine too hard. Lore
  9. Casinos drill holes in retired cards so they cannot find their way back to a live table. In New Jersey the hole must be at least a quarter inch in diameter. Documented
  10. The burn card keeps anyone from knowing a marked top card, and it protects the cards underneath from curious eyes. Documented
  11. The story that the river is named after cheats thrown into the Mississippi is a marvelous one. There is not a single piece of evidence for it. Disputed
  12. "Dogs Playing Poker" is not one painting but a series of sixteen cigar advertising paintings commissioned in 1903. Nine of them show dogs at a card table. Documented

Documented, lore, disputed: every chapter in the book tells you how solid the story is, and every chapter comes with a source.