when hip literary types write about poker...

[Marlow]

we get this sort of thing.
mcsweenys (http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/9AndySutherland.html)

some are pretty funny. some miss badly. thought it would be good to share.

[StevieG]

You also get anthologies like "A Friendly Game of Poker: 52 Takes on the Neighborhood Game," edited by Jake Austen, Chicago review Press 2003, complete with a foreward by Ira Glass of "This American Life."

Here's something I wrote about it back in 2003:

“Beating Paul” by Tom Spurgeon, another of the essays that I did greatly enjoy, is practically an allegory for the collection itself. Spurgeon describes a home game in Seattle made up of people “in publishing” that was largely lifeless until Paul, a gregarious, aggressive player joined the group, dazzling and inspiring the others to pick up their game. When Paul leaves the remaining players can’t keep up their intensity and the game collapses.

“A Friendly Game of Poker” left me wishing there were more essays by and about people like Paul, and less from and about people “in publishing”.

full review on the archive server (http://archiveserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=books&Number=457902)