The Cincinnati Kid, first published in 1963 (and made into a feature film starring Steve McQueen in 1965), is a gritty novel of smoky back-rooms and centered on a young card-shark ("The Kid") who eventually finds himself in a stud-poker game against the undisputed master ("The Man"). From the first edition dust-jacket: "By the time he was twenty-one, he was a full rambling-gambling man, a three river man. . . . From Jolly's Omaha...