Casino games and traditional card games have rich and idiosyncratic histories, complex subcultures and player practices, and facilitate the flow of billions of dollars each year through casinos and card rooms, and between professional players and amateurs. They have nevertheless been overlooked by game scholars due to the negative ethical weight of “gambling” – with such games pathologized and labelled as deviance or mental illness, few look beyond to unpick the games, their players, and their communities. The Casino, Card and Betting Game Reader offers 25 chapters studying the communities playing these games, the distinctive cultures and practices that have emerged around them, their activities and beliefs and interpersonal relationships, and how these games influence – both positively and negatively – the lives and careers of millions of game players around the world. It is the first of a new series of edited collections, Play Beyond the Computer, dedicated to exploring the play of games beyond computers and games consoles.

Audrey Grant does it again with an amazing new book, Popular Conventions, the third book in the series, covers everything from playing at a party table to a tournament table. Popular Conventions teaches you the core conventions that will strengthen your game for sure. It introduces you to the Stayman convetions, Jacoby transfer bids, the strong artificial two club opening, Blackwood and Gerber. This book gives you a chance to get ahead and win!

Teaches how to play Texas Hold 'Em Poker for beginners. This title contains terms, definitions, etiquette and rules and shows how poker hands are ranked. It helps you to understand your chances, appreciate the percentages, and master the odds so that your hand improves.

To bid or not to bid - the perennial dilemma in competitive auctions. The easy answer to the question lies in the correct use of the Law of Total Tricks. The LAW has been part of bridge literature since the 1950s, but it was in this book that Larry Cohen brought it to the attention of the majority of bridge players. Still the most lucid explanation of the LAW ever published, this is a book that every bridge player needs to own, to read, to re-read, and to study in order to improve his results.