Big Deal : Confessions of a Professional Poker Player

Rating:
Summary: What a page-turner!
Review: An excellent insight into the mind of a serious poker player. I bought this book on impulse at a second-hand store, and read it in two sittings because my wife forced me to stop to sleep. A riveting look at the world of professional poker and poker tournaments by an inside outsider: Anthony Holden is a very erudite and urbane journalist who also wrote hugely successful biographies of Mr Charles Windsor and Ms Diana Spencer. He is also a passionate poker player, and spent one year as a professional. Considering that he broke even, you can take what he says reasonably seriously!

Rating:
Summary: The biographer of royalty plays some cards
Review: Anthony Holden, the author of many biographies including Olivier and Prince Charles, decides to leave his day job behind for an entire year to become a professional poker player. In his journeys he travels to Vegas, Los Angeles, Louisiana, New York, Malta, Morocco, and the Carribbean to play the best in the world. He sits down with several former World Champions, and he busts a few along the way. Ultimately you learn what goes on inside the head of a man who lives to play the game. He begins and ends his journey at Binion's Horseshoe in Las Vegas at the World Series of Poker.

As a narritive, it is the finest book on poker I have yet to read.

Rating:
Summary: The biographer of royalty plays some cards
Review: Anthony Holden, the author of many biographies including Olivier and Prince Charles, decides to leave his day job behind for an entire year to become a professional poker player. In his journeys he travels to Vegas, Los Angeles, Louisiana, New York, Malta, Morocco, and the Carribbean to play the best in the world. He sits down with several former World Champions, and he busts a few along the way. Ultimately you learn what goes on inside the head of a man who lives to play the game. He begins and ends his journey at Binion's Horseshoe in Las Vegas at the World Series of Poker.

As a narritive, it is the finest book on poker I have yet to read.

Rating:
Summary: good, but not great
Review: As a serious poker player, I found this interesting, but not riveting.

Rating:
Summary: Oddly unsatisfactory
Review: In his (very helpful) bibliography, Holden acknowledges that few poker books can be recommended on stylistic or literary grounds. If he hoped that his effort would join Alvarez or Mamet's writings on the king of card games, I'm afraid he's disappointed.

Though it is a straight chronological account of his activities at the fringes of the high-stakes world over a one-year span, it uneasily mixes in personal biography, some half-formed self-awareness work, and an obsessive reckoning of his immediate financial position. It may concern him, but it never grabbed me.

We read books about gambling to vicariously experience the tightening tension and climax of a big hand. This requires skillful character sketching, and a certain amount of pacing. Holden rushes in and out of so many games, large and small, that we are never sure if this game is The Big One - nor, eventually, do we care. Since he doesn't write grippingly about the players of the inevitable showdown hands, and his personal narrative is not very interesting or clear, the revelation of what he was feeling at any given point during the year is pretty dull.

One thing is obvious: he was very very nervous a lot of the time, discovering his limitations at the gaming tables and worrying about his bank roll. I admire his frankness in this regard, but it isn't easy reading. The final effect is probably pretty accurate, though: he deliberately decided to live "out of his league" for a year, and learned a lot from the experience. A clearer narrative, a better editor, and a few years of perspective might have made a better book. How about a second edition, Tony, with more tales from the infamous Tuesday Night Game?

Three stars, just for existing, though - would that Tom Wolfe or Norman Mailer would tackle this most fascinating of worlds!

Rating:
Summary: Better than Biggest Game in Town!
Review: Not only the best poker book that I have ever read but one of my favorite books regardless of the topic. Mr. Holden is a professional biographer of the British Royal family that loves poker enough to devote a year of his life to experience what it is like to be a professional player. This is not an instrucional book but an enjoyable account of a year of poker written by an excellent author.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best books i've ever read!
Review: This book is about one mans dream of becoming a professional poker player and for a year he does it. This book is the stories of his journey to the world series poker championship. It is book for all poker fans. But please note it is not a technical guide to poker.

Rating:
Summary: Recommended
Review: While reading reviews of "Poker Nation", I noticed a large number of poker players who recommended "Big Deal" and "Biggest Game in Town" over "Poker Nation", so I read "Big Deal". It is a first-hand account which gives it a great deal of credibility. The story winds through the author's year with an even amount of detail of items pertinent to the game and to life in general. I particularly liked the tidbits of (life) wisdom strewn throughout the book -- something that modern books are displaying less and less of (no one wants to give advice to anyone else on how the good life can be lived). The book ends with a whimper, compared to many modern life-and-death ultradramas, but it is more true-to-life and we mere mortals.