Offered here is a very hard to find First Edition of this classic poker manual. As the dust jacket states:

“Here is the first poker book ever written for the player who enjoys a friendly 5-10=25C-limit game of dealer’s choice on Friday nights. Other poker books concentrate on the classic table stakes five card stud and draw games that tight-lipped pros favor. But most Friday night poker players like the action that is offered by all the exciting (even nutty) variations, from seven card high-low through substitution (or ‘pass the garbage’) and three card monte to baseball and the like – at stakes that won’t break up friendships or marriages.”

 

 

Title page reads:

 

Friday Night Poker – or Penny Poker for Millions by Irv Roddy – Drawings by Carl Rose – Published by Simon and Schuster, New York 1961 – First Printing. Note… the last page notes that Irv Roddy is a pseudonym of a U.S. statistician and economist.

 

Some of the chapter headings include: The Elusive Lady; Be a Chicken Plucker; Stud Poker – Other Shapes and Forms; Murder; Twin Beds and Roll ‘Em Over; Pass the Garbage and Its Kin; Freddie Rides Again; Hors d ’Oeuvres; and The Many Faces of Poker to name a few. There are 4 appendices: Quiz; A Problem in Figuring the Odds; Sequence of Hands; and Glossary.

 

There are several half page black and white illustrations throughout by Carl Rose (1903 – 1971) the notable American cartoonist whose work appeared in The New Yorker, Popular Science, The Saturday Evening Post etc.

 

This 222 page, 9 by 6 and half inch hardcover is in fairly good condition. The pages are clear and the binding is solid. The illustrated red and white cloth cover has just a hint of wear along the edges. The dust jacket is complete with its original price. It has some wear and chipping and small closed edge tears along the edges mainly along the top and bottom of the front panel. There are rave reviews on  the back cover by Ernie Kovacs,  Tommy Armour who calls it “the most factual of poker instruction books” and humorist Walt Kelly who notes: "Somebody said he’d rather be born lucky than rich – you’ll be luckier to be born with Friday Night Poker in your bassinet”.