Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker

McManus details his battles not only against his opponents but also against "Bad Jim," the portion of his own personality that needs to get in on a poker game in spite of both common and fiscal sense. Besides telling his own story, he relates the considerably more unpleasant tale of Ted Binion, whose grisly death was blamed on Binion's former stripper-girlfriend and her ex-linebacker beau. In the hands of a lesser author, the pursuit of these separate through lines of poker and the seedy personal lives of wealthy casino heirs may have lead readers to wish the author had picked just one subject. But under McManus's careful watch, they're really pretty similar: steeped in adrenaline, mystery, deception, and skating on thrillingly thin ice. Each story underscores the other, a neat little "narrative as metaphor" device, while also painting a vivid picture of Vegas casino life. Poker, as anyone who has lost at it will tell you, is an intricate game and it's nice to see a top-notch author and player relate its finer points in an entertaining style that will appeal even to non-players. The author's hilariously self-aware and at times self-loathing style make Positively Fifth Street a fun read. But beyond that, his account of nearly winning the biggest poker tournament in the world and subsequently watching as the verdicts are announced for Binion's accused murderers makes for a great story. Even if it wasn't the one he was sent there to write. --John Moe

Product Description
In the spring of 2000, Harper's Magazine sent James McManus to Las Vegas to cover the World Series of Poker, in particular the progress of women in the $23 million event, and the murder of Ted Binion, the tournament's prodigal host, purportedly done in by a stripper and her boyfriend. But when McManus arrives, the lure of the tables compels him to risk his entire Harper's advance in a long-shot attempt to play in the tournament himself. This is his deliciously suspenseful account of the tournament-the players, the hand-to-hand combat, his own unlikely progress in it-and the delightfully seedy carnival atmosphere that surrounds it. Positively Fifth Street is a high-stakes adventure and a terrifying but often hilarious account of one man's effort to understand what Edward O. Wilson has called 'Pleistocene exigencies'-the eros and logistics of our competitive instincts.

Jim wants to enter the tournament with his writing advance, but he doesn't have enough money. He has two college aged children and two young children at home and nothing but bills. With all of the tension of the story Jim is sent to cover, his own personal tensions slowly become the center of the book, especially after he enters the tournament and goes up against famous players, including the author of Jim's favorite tournament book, TJ Cloutier.

I found the writing very immediate like a conversation that happens immediately after the event. I also found the tension internal and external was enough to sustain the multiple storylines. McManus seems to end each section of commentary at a natural conclusion and this makes the transitions easy to follow. I enjoyed Alvarez' great history ONLY GAME IN TOWN and found Anthony Holden's BIG DEAL quite interesting, but neither was as fun to read for me as POSITIVELY FIFTH STREET.

This is the kind of book that you can enjoy regardless of your poker knowledge. It may even convince you to take up the game.


The ultimate insider's guide   April 7, 2003
A. Bellin (NYC)
27 out of 29 found this review helpful

Fifth Street replaces "The Biggest Game in Town," as the ultimate insider's guide to the World Series of Poker. There is no better chronicle of the multi-million dollar event in or out of print today. McManus has accomplished something that no other poker player/writer could - he went to Vegas to write about the biggest poker game in the world - and he almost won it. For that reason alone, his book has to be considered the most authentic volume on the subject. It's also a pretty captivating piece of journalism.

Andy Bellin
Author of Poker Nation


The Best Poker Book I have EVER read!   April 9, 2003
POKER4FUN (Glenview, IL. USA)
18 out of 19 found this review helpful

Positively Fifth Street is the best book about poker I've ever read, and I've read just about all of them. The history of card art, of poker, of Binion's World Series, of the science and technology of the game as it's being played now. And if you ever doubted that an average or above-average home player could "catch up" to the pros using primers and computer
programs, this book will definitely change your mind. The strip club and courtroom scenes are pretty good, too. READ THIS BOOK!

The author is now such a strong player that he routinely dares to tempt fate and play the great no-limit maestro K-REX heads up.


Being the hero of your own book--masterfully told   November 25, 2003
Dennis Littrell (SoCal)
18 out of 20 found this review helpful

I spent two days lost in this book. Quite a performance by Jim McManus, and I don't mean only the writing. For a fancy wordsmith, he is one heck of a poker player. To come to Las Vegas and play in your first tournament and make it to the final table of the World Series of Poker is one very fine achievement.

Jim McManus, 49-year-old novelist, poet, teacher, and sometime journalist on assignment in Las Vegas for Harper's Magazine takes part of his $4,000 retainer and buys into a satellite tournament hoping to win a pass to play in the big one, the $10,000 buy-in no limit hold'em event that annually decides the world championship of poker. Not coincidentally he is also covering the trial of Sandy Murphy, a saucy, skanky Vegas lap dancer and her linebacker beau Rick Tabish who are accused of the murder of Ted Binion, brother of Becky Behnen, host of the tournament, and one of the sons of Benny Binion, the long time owner of the sponsoring Horseshoe casino.

What results is a suberb example of a genre that I call "participatory journalism," the sort of thing the made George Plimpton, Gay Talese, Hunter S. Thompson and some other very fine writers famous. What happens in participatory journalism is the journalist himself joins in the action and becomes part of the story. Because of McManus's cleverness with the pasteboards (actually they're made of plastic of course), his discipline, and because he did indeed get lucky a time or two on Positively Fifth Street, his experience became more than just part of the story. As he covers the trial and the World Series of poker from the inside, he focuses intimately--sometimes perhaps too intimately--on himself and what it was like, first person singular, to play the kind of high stakes poker that most of us can only dream about. And to win. Not all the marbles but enough of them to pay off the mortgage and, as he says, maybe pay for a semester of college for a daughter in 2016.

Reading this book--*living* this book, I might say, because it is such a vivid and engaging romp through some things and a part of the world that I know very well--was an adrenaline pumping and humbling experience for me, poker player and writer myself. I was dazzled at times by the sheer energy of his prose, at the worldly-wise (and wise-acre) metaphors, references and striking allusions that jump off the page as adroitly expressed and appropriately placed as notes in a symphony--a modern symphony with discordance and harmony splashed out with wild and sardonic energy. Or maybe I should say, Jim McManus writes like a poet with an ear for the vernacular and an eye for the kill.

He begins with an informed imagination on just how handcuffed Ted Binion was "burked" to death with girlfriend Sandy Murphy naked on his chest and big boy Rick Tabish forcing a turkey baster full of heroin and Xanax down his throat while holding the millionaire's nose shut. Not a pretty way to die. Now enter the journalist, perhaps a bit like Jackson Browne's "The Pretender," no longer young and strong, in fact a little strung out on pills and booze and cigs, but a forty-nine year-old still in charge of himself, with a second family and some bills to pay, some temptations to resist, some oats to sow, a man torn between the irresponsible machinations of "Bad Jim" and the socially and domestically appropriate behaviors of "Good Jim," a guy who calls his young wife at least once a day while managing to interview nearly naked lap dancers at their place of work on his lap without losing his...composure.

But what McManus does best is weave an exciting account of how he played cards, what his opponents were like, how he behaved and covered the stories, and how made the right calls and the right lay downs and especially how he sat on his hands when he needed to and nursed his stack so that was able to arrive, against some very stiff odds and against some very good players, at the final table. He highlights several of the pivotal pots during his nearly miraculous run by telling us what cards he held, what cards his opponents held, what flopped, what the turn card was, and especially what hit the felt on fifth street. He gets it all right and crystal clear and he reveals his bad reads and questionable plays as well as his good ones. He shows the camaraderie and the competition among the players and does it all in such a vivid manner that we feel we are there with him. Along the way he quotes from Dante and Edward O. Wilson, Dostoevski and Jared Diamond, etc. on human nature past and present.

He does get a little self-indulgent at times (although personally I think he has license) and some readers might want to skip the digressions into his youth and flash past some of the mini book reviews and philosophic arias and just stay with the story. It's one of the best I've ever read and captures a culture, and a time and a place, as only a master of the craft could.


Not just for poker fans!   August 23, 2003
UncleTrick (Las Vegas, NV.)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful

This book is absolutely fantastic. I read it because I am a fan of poker and a long time follower of the World Series of Poker. Others have written about their own poker adventures, but Mr. McManus takes us beyond just poker. He writes of Benny Binion and the murder of his son, Ted. He shares with us intimate stories about his family and his own past. He delves into the history of poker and some of its more famous players. This book is far beyond just a "poker adventure" book. The stories are very informative, insightful, entertaining and at times touchingly personal. You do not have to be a fan of poker to enjoy this book. If you have ever thought of what it would be like to follow one of your dreams, then you will enjoy this book.