Moneymaker

Chapter One

Easy Money

At the gambling table, there are no fathers and sons.
-- Chinese proverb

First card game I ever played was bridge. Took to it pretty quick, to hear my grandmother tell the story. Said I had a real knack for it, and I guess I did, although, to tell the truth, I had a good feeling for any kind of card game. Whatever I was playing, I saw the cards better than most, read my opponents better than most, and knew what was coming better than most. I'll say this: me and cards, we got along.

Bridge was my grandmother's game, and she passed it on to me and my younger brother, Jeff, as soon as we could count and fan out our own cards. We were six or seven years old and struggling to hold and play our hands, but otherwise doing a good job of it with her seventy-year-old friends. Every weekend we'd drive to my grandparents' house on the other side of Knoxville, and before long my grandmother or my grandfather would bring out a deck ... read full excerpt from Moneymaker ebook