Grantland so far

Grantland's 100-mph fastball?

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6754551/part-1

 

I can't wait for Boom to add up the "I"s in that article.

 

Hah- I viewed it first thing this morning but I did not have my coffee yet. I need my caffeine for my counting skills to kick in. So far I have counted 13 "I's in first 2 paragraphs. He is on a torrid pace. I promise I will have full accounting by lunchtime.

 

This is a first-person perspective of playing in a poker tournament, right?

 

That's what I assume, but I wasn't able to finish the thing because of all the flowery, non-poker description that was going on at the beginning.

 

There probably aren't any good stories at the WSOP.

The only option must be to write about your own experience.

 

Or they have been beaten to death.

This is a different persective.

 

Wow, that's seven I's in one graf. Very impressive.

 

I actually thought that piece was really good, one of Grantland's best so far. I suppose some you guys would be cynical of Hunter S. Thompson's "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved" or George Plimpton's "Medora Goes To The Game" if they were written for Grantland, on the basis of it being first-person. Well, sometimes, first person just works.

There are a good many articles on Grantland that rely too heavily on first person. There are a good many articles that stick it in for one fleeting moment where it seems out of place.

This was neither. This was a very talented, well-regarded author doing what was explicitly a first-person narrative. What's wrong with that? I like that they're thinking outside the box.

 

I have not been an active poker player in money games for some years, but am quite familiar with the culture, and I liked this piece a good deal.

Interested in seeing more.

 

I need to see the rest of the installments certainly, but my first thought was that it compares very favorably to DFW's 'Big Red Son.'