Card shark - A poker junkie recalls her quirky family's gambling tips

Book review of "Hats and Eyeglasses: A Family Love Affair With Gambling" By Martha Frankel

Martha Frankel was just 4 when her father, Marty, whispered three pieces of sage advice in her ear during a poker game:

"If you don't have anything, get out. If you're second best, get out. But if you've got the goods, make them pay."

"I didn't have a clue what this meant," Frankel admits in her candid, funny memoir, "Hats and Eyeglasses: A Family Love Affair With Gambling."

If the seeds of adult predilections and dependencies are sown in childhood, then here's the proof. Frankel eventually discovers a talent for poker, a passion that descends into addiction. She paints a blissful, if quirky, childhood, complete with a boisterous, loving clan of family friends who gamble and gossip together.

By the time Frankel is 10, she's hanging out at the racetrack with her father. Turns out she's a natural at picking horses. When Marty Frankel dies, 15-year-old Martha is devastated. She becomes a surly, rebellious teen and puts gambling behind her. The poker gene doesn't really kick in until her mid-40s. By then, Frankel is a successful journalist, specializing in celebrity interviews. She's also working on a screenplay that has a female poker shark.

Frankel learns how to read the players at the table with ease. She starts frequenting her friend Sal's Wednesday night poker games and getting advice from another unexpected source, her mother, who warns her on the phone never to be a "whatsittome."

"It's the idiot who never knows how much the bet is when it's their turn," says her mom. "Don't screw up the flow of the game."

Frankel doesn't screw it up; she gets really good. And before long, she's making excuses to play whenever she can. And that script? Well, it never happens. She turns down plum magazine assignments, neglects her garden and her friends.

"But I am in a poker frenzy, and each week I do a little better," Frankel writes. "Does it strike me as odd that I'm turning down 4- and 5-thousand-dollar assignments so I can possibly win 85 bucks on Wednesday?"

In 1999, Frankel discovers the emerging world of online poker. She starts losing -- a lot. Frankel gets help; she's now back on her feet and restoring her battered bank account. And she's still playing poker on Wednesday nights.

News Added: 23 February, 2008

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