The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

by Colson Whitehead,
The Portland Oregonian, June 17, 2014

When the editor of Grantland magazine offered to pay his $10,000 entry fee for a seat at the World Series of Poker in exchange for an essay on his experiences, novelist Colson Whitehead, who has played penny ante poker since college, went all in. He read self-help texts by poker greats David Slansky, Doyle Brunson, and Dan Harrington, hired Helen Ellis, a WSOP veteran, as his coach, practiced in Atlantic City, and then made his way to Las Vegas.