The Player King

“Swiftly moving and utterly engrossing.” —Shelf Awareness Parents’ Choice Recommended From Newbery Award–winning author Avi comes the gripping and amazingly true tale of a boy plucked from the gutter to become the King of England. England, 1486. King Henry VII has recently snatched the English Crown and now sits on the throne, while young Prince Edward, who has a truer claim, has apparently disappeared. Meanwhile, a penniless kitchen boy named Lambert Simnel is slaving away at a tavern in Oxford—until a mysterious friar, Brother Simonds, buys Lambert from the tavern keeper and whisks him away in the dead of night. But this is nothing compared to the secret that the friar reveals: You, Lambert, are actually Prince Edward, the true King of England! With the aid of the deceitful Earl of Lincoln, Brother Simonds sets out to teach the boy how to become the rightful English king. Lambert has everything to gain and nothing to lose, or so he thinks. Yet in this dangerous battle for the throne, Lambert is not prepared for what’s to come—or for what it really means to play at being a king.

A frightening suspense novel about nine-year-old Trisha, who becomes lost in the woods as night falls.

This book will teach a systematic approach to winning tournaments that we will be able to apply to any format, independent of context. While our focus will be on winning tournaments, much of what we talk about can be applied in a broader sense and the scope of what is written extends to many disciplines. We will take from areas such as philosophy, economics, psychology, business, and many of my own personal experiences as a player. The first section of the book will introduce the framework that we will build on throughout the book. Patrick Chapin's "Theory of Everything" is commonly used as the framework for card theory. We are going to start off by taking a look at it, but then we are going to get into some of the problems with using it as a guiding framework. After discussing the problems it has, we are going to attempt to build a better guiding framework. The second section of the book will focus on self. Much of this section will focus on what it means to be rational. We will begin by ensuring that we have the proper tools to make good decisions at our disposal. Next we will explore the various biases that cloud our judgments. Then we will discuss ways we can guard ourselves against these biases and come up with some ways of thinking about things that can better guide our decisions. The final part of this section will deal with properly motivating ourselves to do what it takes to see success. The third section will focus on developing our circle. Our circle is our team. These are the people who will help us see success and who we will help see success. We are going to talk about the tools our circle will use and how to get the most out of those tools, as well as discuss the kind of people we want in our circle. In the fourth section we're going to get down to the ins and outs of technical play. We are going to be talking about the different kinds of resources within a game and about how our role varies within a game. Then we are going to discuss different approaches we can take with our plays to ensure that we are getting the most out of them. The final part of this section will talk about the right approach to have to tournaments to make sure we are on top of our game when the big day comes. The fifth section is going to focus on the mental aspects of the game. We are going to start off by talking about how to gauge our opponents' skill level so that we can adjust our plays and make them more effective. Then we are going to talk about how to get a read on our opponent's card and how to effectively get information out of them. After that we're going to talk about different ways of persuading our opponent into making the moves we want them to make. In the sixth section we will discuss effective deckbuilding. We will start off by discussing the deckbuilding philosophy and the first principles of deckbuilding. We will then discuss the various role cards can play in a game and talk about some shortcuts for evaluating them. Then we're going to talk about how probability affects our deckbuilding. After that we're going to build on the first principles of deckbuilding by introducing some deckbuilding rules to build consistent and powerful decks. We are also going to discuss deckbuilding curves that we can use to guide our choices. Finally we are going to discuss how to effectively side deck. In the final section we will discuss metagames. We will talk about how to identify shifts in the metagame and then move on to discussing some tournament strategies we can take to overcome the metagame. In the final chapter, we will come to understand how we can influence the format and plan for incremental development, so that we will be able to succeed throughout a format.

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • An inspiring and intimate self-portrait of the champion of equality that encompasses her brilliant tennis career, unwavering activism, and an ongoing commitment to fairness and social justice. “A story about the personal strength, immense growth, and undeniable greatness of one woman who fearlessly stood up to a culture trying to break her down.”—Serena Williams In this spirited account, Billie Jean King details her life's journey to find her true self. She recounts her groundbreaking tennis career—six years as the top-ranked woman in the world, twenty Wimbledon championships, thirty-nine grand-slam titles, and her watershed defeat of Bobby Riggs in the famous "Battle of the Sexes." She poignantly recalls the cultural backdrop of those years and the profound impact on her worldview from the women's movement, the assassinations and anti-war protests of the 1960s, the civil rights movement, and, eventually, the LGBTQ+ rights movement. She describes the myriad challenges she's hurdled—entrenched sexism, an eating disorder, near financial peril after being outed—on her path to publicly and unequivocally acknowledging her sexual identity at the age of fifty-one. She talks about how her life today remains one of indefatigable service. She offers insights and advice on leadership, business, activism, sports, politics, marriage equality, parenting, sexuality, and love. And she shows how living honestly and openly has had a transformative effect on her relationships and happiness. Hers is the story of a pathbreaking feminist, a world-class athlete, and an indomitable spirit whose impact has transcended even her spectacular achievements in sports.

The Players: the best poker professionals in the world The Challenger: a wealthy banker from Dallas The Game: the richest poker stakes of all time... In 2001, a rich stranger from Texas descended upon the high-stakes poker room in the opulent Bellagio casino in Las Vegas. A self-made billionaire by the name of Andy Beal, the stranger challenged some of the world's greatest poker players-including Doyle Brunson, Chip Reese, Howard Lederer, and Jennifer Harman-to heads-up matches in the richest poker game ever played This is that story... Beginning the scintillating contest that would shock the world of poker, Andy and each opponent had $1 million, betting $10,000 and $20,000 per round. As the games intensified over the coming months and Andy developed into a great player, he realized how he could take his adversaries out of their comfort zone-he raised the stakes to put everything they had on the line. By the time the battle of wits ended, there was more than $20 million on the table. For the first time ever, here is the detailed, true account of the Big Game that has already achieved legendary status in poker lore. Putting you railside to observe the pulse-pounding action, where you can almost hear the distinct sound of clay chips on felt, Michael Craig takes you inside the iron-nerved mind and pathological psyche of the professional gambler. Filled with vivid characters, sensational tales, and riveting human drama, The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King is a unique, suspenseful journey into the world of people who live on the razor's edge of fortune-where incredible wealth, or utter ruin, turns on the flip of a card.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Now a major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg. “Enchanting . . . Willy Wonka meets The Matrix.”—USA Today • “As one adventure leads expertly to the next, time simply evaporates.”—Entertainment Weekly A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready? In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days. When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune—and control of the OASIS itself. Then Wade cracks the first clue. Suddenly he’s beset by rivals who’ll kill to take this prize. The race is on—and the only way to survive is to win. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly • San Francisco Chronicle • Village Voice • Chicago Sun-Times • iO9 • The AV Club “Delightful . . . the grown-up’s Harry Potter.”—HuffPost “An addictive read . . . part intergalactic scavenger hunt, part romance, and all heart.”—CNN “A most excellent ride . . . Cline stuffs his novel with a cornucopia of pop culture, as if to wink to the reader.”—Boston Globe “Ridiculously fun and large-hearted . . . Cline is that rare writer who can translate his own dorky enthusiasms into prose that’s both hilarious and compassionate.”—NPR “[A] fantastic page-turner . . . starts out like a simple bit of fun and winds up feeling like a rich and plausible picture of future friendships in a world not too distant from our own.”—iO9

This is a book written by well known hockey coach, Dave King. The book is about how the game has evolved over the years and provides written descriptions of tactics used in the game today. It's written in a style that should allow parents, coaches, athletes and fans to gain a greater understanding of the game. Endorsed by two time Gold Medal winning Olympic hockey coach and Stanley Cup winner Mike Babcock, Barry Trotz, Stanley Cup winning coach and Dave Tippett, currently one of the NHL's most successful coaches, they describe the book as having colorful anecdotes, years of wisdom and an incredible grasp of present day coaching. Mike Babcock says, "Dave's experience's provided him with an unbelievable education that he went on to share with many coaches and players improving the way the game was coached and played". Dave Tippett says, "Dave is one of the smartest, most experienced coaches to ever coach the game. I have not met a smarter hockey coach or a better mentor for coaches worldwide".

A National Book Award Finalist, a New York Times bestseller and one of the most highly-acclaimed books of the year, A Hologram for the King is a sprawling novel about the decline of American industry from one of the most important, socially-aware novelists of our time. In a rising Saudi Arabian city, far from weary, recession-scarred America, a struggling businessman named Alan Clay pursues a last-ditch attempt to stave off foreclosure, pay his daughter's college tuition, and finally do something great. In A Hologram for the King, Dave Eggers takes us around the world to show how one man fights to hold himself and his splintering family together in the face of the global economy's gale-force winds. This taut, richly layered, and elegiac novel is a powerful evocation of our contemporary moment--and a moving story of how we got here.