Rating: 
Summary: Correction on origin of "hold'em poker"
Review: I enjoyed the book but contrary to what the author states in the prologue, Texas hold'em wasn't invented in the 80's. I played it 40 years ago in a small Texas town and we sure didn't invent it then.
Rating: 
Summary: No plot,no point to the vignettes,little character developmt
Review: I kept reading to the very end, expecting that there had to be something here. There is not. The vignettes are not really stories, because nothing particularly happens, ever. I only gave the book two stars, instead of one, because there is a little character development. If you liked Yardley,'s "Education of a Poker Player," you will hate this book. They are both collections of autobiographical anecdotes, but "Shut Up and Deal" is told through a drugged-out, self-centered, life-is-meaningless haze.
Rating:
Summary: Good book if you know poker
Review: I picked this book up because I was getting interested in poker. The first time I read it, I didn't know what was going on. If you have never played Texas Hold'em, it is hard to follow. Then after playing in casinos and learning the game, I reread the book, and thought quite a lot of it. The author has a distinct voice. It is also a book about much more than poker(imagine a wired stream of conciousness Holden Caulfield playing highstakes poker), but you really need to have a grasp of poker to get it. I will probably read it again, and by then I will may think it deserves the fifth star.
Rating: 
Summary: Affected wannabe 'tough guy' ruins some good stuff
Review: I really wanted to like this book. There's some nice material in here and handled differently it could've earned, at least, four stars. But May's voice is really annoying and, truth be told, kind of silly. After a while it spoils the whole enterprise.Reading "Shut up and Deal' frequently makes the reader feel like he's watching some teenager in a high school production of 'Guys and Dolls'. Or maybe an all prep-school version of 'Goodfellas'! At first it's really funny in a way it's clearly not meant to be, but after a while you just start to get embarrassed for the author. For the men who grew up in poverty in New York, Chicago, Kansas City and the rural South in the 30s, 40s and 50s life was hard. They had little, if any, education. They came from provincial, all too frquently violent backgrounds. Organized crime controlled the bars, illegal back-rooms, poolhalls and casinos they gambled in. More than a few fought in honest-to-God combat overseas. They weren't fooling around and they weren't trying to be Damon Runyon characters. For a middle-class kid of their grandchildren's generation to ape that hard-edged, nihlistic, tough-guy pose is preposterous. It's all too clear that playwright David Mamet and filmmaker Martin Scorsese have had a bigger influence on May than anyone he ever met in real life when he was growing up. After a while I couldn't help rolling my eyes. Sometimes I even found myself laughing out loud at ludicrous stretches of dialouge that were meant to be oh so serious and disturbing. Here's hoping May grows up and comes to terms with who he is. If he drops the act he could one day write a fine book. Till then check out anything by Michael Konik. He's a poker player of May's generation and social class who isn't trying to pretend he's Harvey Keitel. I'd take any of his books over this affected bit of posturing.
Rating:
Summary: May's book offers few new insights; but it's a helluva read
Review: I recommend this book for anyone who wants a fun, fast paced read. May's book may offer little new insight into the gambling life, but it's a helluva ride. The writing is breathless, lucid and often very funny. The only real flaw is the narrative, which can be too episodic in parts. It's easy to get lost here - but that only serves to underscore the episodic nature of the gambling life. Where the book really shines is in its depiction of the denizens that inhabit the lower-to-middle teir of the gambling world. May's characters are memorable and well drawn without becoming cartoonish. If Mario Puzo's "Fools Die" is the "Godfather" of gambling novels than May's book is the "Donnie Brasco" (Hey, it's good - but it's no "Goodfellas"!)
Rating: 
Summary: Realistic & Gritty
Review: I thought the book was terrific. It read like an autobigraphy of someone who has been there and tried to play professional poker. The book gives a gritty and realistic feel to the challenges of being an everyday poker player.
Rating:
Summary: great book
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Rating:
Summary: Not really a novel.
Review: It says "A Novel" on the cover but this is book contains no plot or any attempt to create a common narrative thread. It is just a series of poker stories. Don't expect anything more.
Rating:
Summary: Great perspective of life 'inside' the Poker world
Review: Jesse May has really captured the true essence of life inside the detached and all-consuming world of Poker 24/7. Though officially a work of fiction, I can say with fair certainty that the story is probably based on observed or lived truth. Having myself seen the vacuous life of Poker, I can attest that this is the first book that I've seen that presents Poker in a light other than what has been documented on the Travel and Discovery channels. Jesse incarnates an intellectual Poker Hero through which readers witness the unrelenting preoccuptation that all professionals and wanna-be pros alike face in the course of their often short, crash & burn-prone careers: bankroll volatility, fear, confidence, scams, image, discipline, on-lookers, self-consciousness and addiction of all varieties. Arguably, Poker is a fold, hit & run game. 'Shut and Deal' illustrates with chilling accuracy what happens in between the folding, the hitting the big pots, the running, and sometimes, even the running back! A great read from beginning to end, with terrific insight into the pathology of Poker, and her devout and eccentric participants. Warning: Casual poker enthusiasts beware!
Rating:
Summary: Reads like a 212 page run on sentence
Review: Ok, that's not quite fair, May does use punctuation. And his frenetic style does lend a sort of credibility to the hellish all-night poker games that he describes. But the overall effect of the writing style is that the narrater is in a manic state and is rushing to spew out everything that he knows and does not know about the grueling and lonely life of a professional poker player and oh by the way it is really hard to make any money playing poker day in day out, except for that one time in Vegas, which is reminiscent of the time in Atlantic City when everything was lost. I rate Shut Up and Deal three stars with some reservations and qualifications. If you really enjoy poker and find yourself itching to read about some pretty compelling action--this book could conceivably be five stars. I think May presents the action and the players in a highly descriptive and entertaining fashion. It is a fair substitute for the real thing if there isn't a regular game in your neighborhood. However, if you like a little plot in your reading (the book is really sort of a stream of consciousness type of thing) then it would rate maybe two stars. The author states that it is a work of fiction, but nothing ever really happens besides some winning, lots of losing, some anguish over the losing and very little joy in the winning.
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