POKER, POLITICS & PRESIDENTS

New Book Reveals How Cards & Other Games Impacted The Presidency

Anew book, “Poker, Politics & Presidents,” by author Ralph W. Crosby, reveals the significant influence cardplaying and other games had on U.S. presidents from George Washington to Joe Biden and, therefore, impacted all Americans. It illustrates how almost all presidents played games and used these and additional pastimes to escape the overbearing stresses of the presidency. The book also shows how cognitive games, such as poker and chess, went far beyond stress relief, creating a link between those games and politics.

Crosby also discusses how numerous presidents used the camaraderie of poker games to their political advantage, some creating contacts that helped their rise to the presidency. It also details the author’s discovery that the highest-rated presidents were card players, which helped in their strategic thinking, risktaking, bluffing and ability to read their opponents, including their political adversaries and the country’s enemies.

Four of the nation’s Founding Fathers and former presidents

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe were strategic gamblers, not only gambling with their lives in the revolt against Great Britain as well as their fortunes, but in playing cards and racing horses where the most intellectual and distinguished people chose to spend their time.

Pursuit of gambling was a norm for the majority of U.S. presidents, as documented in the book. The book provides an unusual look at our presidents through the poker and other high-stake card games they enjoyed, and how those pastimes influenced their lives and ultimately, shaped their political legacies.

Little-known personal anecdotes and presidential life experiences enliven the stories, including the following:

• George Washington keeping track of his many gambling wins and losses in his diary.

• Thomas Jefferson playing cards while writing the Declaration of Independence.

• Theodore Roosevelt becoming accepted by New York saloon backroom pals by playing poker with them, thus jumpstarting his political career.

• Franklin Roosevelt cheating at his weekly White House poker game.

• Harry Truman playing cards while awaiting the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

• Dwight Eisenhower buying his first officer’s military uniform and his future wife Mamie’s wedding ring with his West

Point poker winnings.

• Richard Nixon financing his first congressional campaign with his World War II Navy poker winnings.

• Barack Obama amassing political support through poker games with fellow legislators.

“Poker, Politics & Presidents” is available on Amazon and through local book stores. $

Ralph W. Crosby has spent a multifaceted career as a journalist, author and marketer. Currently, he is chairman of Crosby Marketing Communications, a national advertising/PR firm he founded in 1973. The company is one of the nation’s most successful independent PR firms, with 120 employees and offices in Annapolis, Md., and the Washington, D.C., area. A graduate of the University of Maryland College of Journalism, Crosby began his professional life as a newspaperman in Baltimore, later becoming a White House correspondent and magazine writer during the Eisenhower-Kennedy-Johnson presidential years, culminating his journalistic career in 1972 as an editor with the Kiplinger organization. He has published three previous books and numerous articles in national magazines, lectured at the University of Maryland and taught writing courses at Anne Arundel Community College. In his off times, he would play cards at The Press Club with other journalists and hear stories about presidents who also played card games and other recreational activities. Ralph was fascinated with these stories and started writing them down thinking that, someday, they would make a great book. Now, in his 90’s, he’s excited to share the result, "Poker, Politics & Presidents." This is his fourth book.