Is there any greater thrill than staring down your opponent across the poker table, waiting for the card that will make or break your hand? Acclaimed YA novelist Pete Hautman would know—he’s been a poker fanatic for thirty years. And with poker now an international TV phenomenon, the time seems right for an anthology about this most exciting game.

From a contest that pits a hapless teen against his girlfriend’s redneck family, to a midnight game with the Devil, to an Internet poker scheme gone horribly wrong, the stories here brilliantly reveal how poker can both irrevocably affect and eerily imitate teenage life.