Steve Almond, "Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched"

A psychologist takes on a professional poker player as a patient.

(from Best American Short Stories 2010)

Is there such a thing as a poker fiction? I bet there is, and that this is a stellar example of the genre. I'm not sure why I like watching poker on TV — the money? the deception? the who-will-get-lucky-on-the-river moments? — but this story hit me in the same place, with the shrink and the a-hole patient seated across the table from each other. And the end was blunt and unexpected, like the hand that wipes you out at the poker table.

I guess I'm reading short stories again. I read this one at the Hotel des Alpes in Montreal. Yesterday I finished reading Margaret Atwood's Year of the Flood. I want one of these shirts but $25?!