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Kate Willoughby

USA Today Bestselling Author

  • USA Today Bestselling Author

01.27.2001 All In Extras

All In Extras

Poker on The Brain

In trying to understand the mechanics of Texas Hold ‘Em and the world of the professional poker player, I read a couple of fantastic books. One was Poker Nation, A High Stakes Low-Life Adventure into the Heart of a Gambling Country, by Andy Bellin. This was a treasure trove of information. I learned some of what it means to lead the life of a professional card player. Of particular interest to me was the Appendix C, The Poker Lexicon. This was a glossary of poker terms that I found fascinating. For instance, you’re “coffeehousing” if your augmenting your poker play with a lot of dramatics or talking. A “splash” is when a player throws his chips into the pot before anyone can confirm that it’s the right amount of money, a big no-no.

Here’s a guide to poker terms if you’d like to find out more.

I also read Read ‘Em and Weep, A Poker Bedside Companion. Because this was a collection of short stories, essays, poems, and excerpts, it wasn’t as great a research tool, but it was entertaining. I especially liked the historical ones.

The Art of Poker
While writing All In, I, of course, blogged. One Friday, the day of the week I post artwork, I posted the paintings of Teo Alfonso. By chance I had seen that he painted poker related images and so I decided to post some of his stuff. Well, how surprised was I when he emailed me to tell me how pleased he was that I liked his work? Then the man generously offered to GIVE me a painting. How cool is that? Uber cool.

Ol’ Blue Eyes
When I realized I wanted to have a scene in front of the fountains at the Bellagio hotel, I tried to recall what the show looked like. Floundering, I described multi-colored fountains but couldn’t remember what types of songs I’d heard there. The theme from Titanic didn’t feel at all right. Thank goodness for YouTube! I found dozens of videos of the fountain show and to my intense delight even found the Perfect Song. Here’s a link to experience it yourself: Fly Me To the Moon.

Bum Titles
It’s almost always tough to come up with a title. Here are some of the ones I considered: In the Cards, All or Nothing, Mariah’s Wish, Wishing for Tucker, and the very, very bad A Wish and a Player. Okay, they can’t all be gems!

Plugged Into Poker
As always, I did some research online. Here are some of the sites I found helpful.

Daniel Negreanu ‘s Blog at Full Contact Poker – I loved reading about this man’s daily life as a pro. I never actually included that much detail about Tucker’s job, but I hope that some of the research I did made him come off as someone who made his living playing cards.

The World Poker Tour – This site was invaluable. When I saw it listed hotels and schedules, that’s what gave me the idea that Mariah should have followed Tucker’s career after they parted ways. I also found bios of various players and how they got started, which helped me create Tucker’s background. And the TV show was amazing. I watched it for three hours straight and was surprsingly mesmerized. I was also astonished at how much I had learned about Texas Hold ‘Em. I actually followed what was going on as they played. Talk about reversals of fortune! It was exciting television. Really!

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Kate Willoughby

USA Today Bestselling Author Kate Willoughby happily writes her contemporary hockey romances in Southern California. She is married and has two sons and a Chihuahua. When she’s not writing, she’s watching hockey. When it’s not hockey season, she whines a lot.

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