[rbnn]

I happened to read a really good short story recently called T-Bird, by John Bond. It's about a professional poker player in Florida who becomes involved in an interesting scheme. The depiction of the underground cardroom is realistic, and the characters are interesting. The story is kind of an anti-"Lucky You": it has good characters, realistic poker, and a cool plot.

Turns out Bond has also written a few books on poker and has played poker professionally himself. That is probably why the Hold'em is so realistic.

Anyway, I recommend the story to people who like mystery stories or poker stories.

Beat: unfortunately, the only place I know of to get this story easily is in the anthology The Best American Mystery Stories 2007 (Carl Hiaasen, ed.). Most of the other stories in this anthology are pretty bad.