Isaac Haxton Fades More Than The Cards

Father's memoir retells Ike's hard-fought start in life.

Isaac Haxton Fades More Than The Cards
The Hendon Mob

When you play poker at the highest of levels, risking more money in a single session than some people make in ten years (or more), the results of successes and failures is bound to effect your family. Isaac Haxton, one of poker’s more successful young pros, has been playing online poke for 10 years and has seen massive sums of money come and go, much to his parents thrill and despair.

Now, Issac’s father, Brooks Haxton, a writing teacher at Syracuse University, is releasing his own memoir about living his own risk adverse life along side that of his nosebleed playing son.

The NY Times excerpt of Haxton’s new book 'Fading Hearts on the River: A Life in High-Stakes Poker’ tells the story of the hard fought early days of Issac battling with hyperbilirubinemia.

Francie and I like to avoid risk as much as we can, and Isaac’s detachment from our sense of money makes us queasy. But 28 years ago, three days after he was born, we risked as much as we could imagine. The pediatrician sent Isaac directly from a routine checkup to the neonatal intensive care unit of Albert Einstein Medical College, in the Bronx. From work, I sped to the hospital in tears.

Read the story of how Isaac’s parents had to, unfortunately, play the cards they were dealt in a hand they could not afford to lose: Playing the Cards

Read More Ike: Issac Haxton vs. Isildur — Ike Posterizes Blom In Nosebleed Action

If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call the Virginia Council on Problem Gambling (VACPG) helpline at 1-888-532-3500
published 10 years, 7 months ago • by • permalink

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