About James McManus

Name	James McManus
Current Residence	Chicago Ill.
Born	Jan. 22, 1951
Birth Place	New York City N.Y., US

James McManus made it to the 2000 World Series of Poker on the fumes of a $4,000 advance from Harper's magazine, leaving behind a second wife, diaper bills, college tuition payments and a bothersome mortgage.

He wound his way from a satellite tournament to the Main Event by downing cholesterol medication and anti-depressants, then turning to T.J. Cloutier's tournament poker book for guidance.

Finally, he played his way through the field to the final table on the promise of a cash payout, a good story and the love of his family, kept at hand during the final table in a small photo album.

His adventure, coupled with the murder of Las Vegas royal Teddy Binion, would become Positively Fifth Street, a best-selling first-person poker narrative on its way to becoming a movie.

The author's distinct writing style was shaped by a colorful Irish-Catholic upbringing in the Bronx and the suburbs of Chicago. McManus was born March 22, 1951, in Manhattan, N.Y. - as he puts it, "three trimesters to the evening after the nuptials" of his parents Mary and Kevin McManus.

His birth, McManus reports in the many personal anecdotes dotting the pages of Positively Fifth Street, spared his dad a tour of Korea. In turn, the elder McManus moved the family from St. Brendan's Parish in the Bronx to Lisle, Ill., just outside of Chicago.

A typical Irish-Catholic brood filled the house in Illinois, including McManus, his sisters, Ellen and Sheila, and brother, Kevin. Though most of the year was spent attending Catholic elementary school in Illinois, as a boy he relished the summer when his time was split between his grandparents in New York state.

First he would visit his father's mother in New York, where he would eat his way through the holiday thanks to his grandmother's belief in a rich and creamy subsistence. Then he would head upstate to his maternal grandparents' summer home in Mahopac for a diet of summer tomfoolery and poker.

McManus was 9 when he learned Five-Card draw by playing with the grown ups. The adults bent the rules for the boy, letting him bluff his way out of a stack and allowing him to return to the game for the chance to win some chips back.

When summer ended, however, McManus was back in Illinois, practicing his Latin for Sunday mass and doing his best impression of a pious altar server destined for the big show - the seminary. Needless to say, he got a little sidetracked.

In his teens, in between playing baseball, tennis and working on his golf game, McManus started caddying at the Hinsdale Country Club. It wasn't his handicap that drastically improved those summers, though. In the club's caddy shack McManus was schooled playing Seven-Card Stud by two pros. The crew would play with $1 limits using real bills and the money slipped through McManus's fingers as he busted repeatedly.

On occasion he did win and that was enough to pull the young gambler back to the felt.

"Nothing school, church or family had to offer could compete with the rush of taking down a twenty-dollar pot, or with the gutshot devastation of losing two days' wages on the turn of a card," he writes in Positively Fifth Street.

In high school McManus matured to booze- and pot-infused home games and strip poker. Plans of attending the seminary were now in the past for other pleasures. "Girls, booze, drugs, cars and cards - for my generation at least, poker was integral, for better or worse, to becoming a man of the world," he writes. "Mostly worse."

Despite the temptations, McManus enrolled at Loyola University after graduating from high school in 1969. In May 1970, the students went on strike, which McManus said radicalized him. He quit school for a year and a half and slipped into what his family referred to as the lost years - time spent protesting Nixon and smoking pot in New York and California.

The buzz wore off, though, and a year and a half later McManus registered for classes at the University of Illinois at Chicago. There he dabbled in philosophy and literature and discovered his calling in life by reading about the man he would one day call his hero: James Joyce. He would also meet his first wife, whom he married in 1973.

The following year, McManus received his undergraduate degree, which he followed up with graduate work, completing a masters in 1979. In between, he fathered two children - a son, James, who died in 2001 following a drug overdose at a mental health center and a daughter, Bridget.

In 1981, McManus started teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he remains today as a professor in Liberal Arts and Writing. Circumstances have changed, however, since his start at the school. He divorced his first wife in 1988, remarried his second - Jennifer, who is featured prominently in Positively Fifth Street - had two more children, Beatrice and Grace, and published a string of fiction, non-fiction and poetry books.

He also final-tabled at the biggest game in town: the Main Event of the World Series of Poker.

McManus's trip to Las Vegas the summer of 2000 began under the guise of journalism. The plan was to freelance an article for Harper's about female professional poker players and cover the unfolding trial of the accused murderers of WSOP founder Benny Binon's son, Ted Binion.

His instructions from Harper's editor Lewis Lapham were simple: "Have fun and write a good story." The boss then cut McManus a check for $4,000 - half as an advance on the story and half for expenses - and the writer headed for the Strip.

McManus had no intention of tucking away the cash for casino meals; instead he used it to buy into four satellite tournaments to the Main Event. He registered for his first tournament and - following years of home games, computer-simulated practice and rereading tips from Cloutier's book – he won.

The victory landed him in the Main Event, where he outlasted the best of the best to make it to the final table. There he would play against Cloutier, the very man whose writing had baby-stepped McManus through the championship tournament.

McManus's story, however, would not have a seamless ending: He busted out in fifth place at the final table and, though Binion's alleged murderers were initially found guilty, they were later acquitted of the charges.

Still, McManus's performance at the World Series that year and the subsequent publication of his book made his name as both a poker player and writer. He has gone on to research a book on the history of the game, worked as a poker columnist for the New York Times and introduced a poker literature class at his college.

His tournament appearances have also become more frequent. McManus has cashed in several tournaments since 2000, mostly in Las Vegas and the L.A. area. He even managed to final table in his second World Series event – this time in Pot-Limit Hold'em in 2006.

But these days most of McManus's action takes place at home games in his native Chicago. Aside from poker and writing, McManus is an ardent baseball fan who cheers for both the Chicago White Sox and the New York Yankees.

Trivia

• Author of the best-selling poker book Positively Fifth Street
• Finished fifth in the 2000 World Series Main Event while on writing assignment for Harper's
• Has published multiple books and teaches writing at a college in Chicago