Poker Strategies
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
Practice Matters
Arnold Rothstein was the most notorious big-time gambler in the
Arnold Rothstein was the most notorious big-time gambler in the country. His high-stakes Texas Hold'em Poker games with Nick "The Greek" Dandolos were legendary. Rothstein had won $500,000 on the first Dempsey-Tunney fight in 1926; in 1921 he had won $850,000 on a colt named Sidereal at Aqueduct. To millions he was the man who fixed the 1919 World Series. To most political observers he was the political boss of New York City. To the men who wrote the headlines for the tabloids, he was "King of Gamblers." To Damon Runyon, celebrated newspaper columnist, he was "The Brain," and F. Scott Fitzgerald based Wolfsheim, his gambler in The Great Gatsby, on Rothstein.
To impress the reader with the enormity of Rothstein's gambling
To impress the reader with the enormity of Rothstein's gambling winnings during the Roaring Twenties, let me state that at the time a two-room suite at a top New York City hotel was priced at $14 a day, and a steak dinner with all the trimmings would set you back $1.50. The $500,000 that Rothstein won on the first Dempsey-Tunney fight would amount to about $5,000,000 in today's dollar market, and Rothstein's $850,000 win on Sidereal would be equal to $8,500,000.