Big Deal by Anthony Holden
Big Deal by
Anthony Holden
-Non-fiction covering professional poker in the
early 1990s
-Our rating: 92 (out of 100)
-Very well-written memoir of a writer-turned-pro
Overview
Originally published in 1990, Anthony
Holden's Big Deal has been rediscovered by the latest
resurgence of interest (to put it lightly) in the game of poker. The
book focuses on Holden, a respected British journalist and author of
several other non-gambling books, and his decision to spend a year
on the professional poker tournament circuit. Unlike his predecessor
A. Alvarez who may have only written the excellent The Biggest
Game in Town a decade earlier for the sake of writing about
poker, Holden uses the excuse of writing a book to convince his
publishing company to finance his adulthood dream. Big Deal
succeeds because of Holden's witty literary style similar to great
poker authors like Alvarez, Michael Konik, and Peter Alson. Besides
great analyses of poker action, Holden rounds the book out with
doses of psychology, history, and literature to make this a classic
poker read.
Comments
While those new to poker may disagree
with me, I love poker memoirs from the yesteryears of poker. I feel
almost silly calling 1990 the "yesteryears" of anything, but those
days truly couldn't be more different than the era of TV poker,
enormous tournament fields, and the Hollywood-scale platform that
the game has been placed on today. Poker was a still a niche culture
when Big Deal was written. The tournament fields were so
small that players knew most of the other participants by name. Now
household names, poker personalities like Doyle Brunson, Johnny
Chan, Stu Ungar, and Amarillo Slim were all accessible and would
usually be seen in one of the few big games or tournaments still
going on. That era of late '80s and early '90s poker may be gone,
but true poker fans still appreciate its distinctive bygone air.
Time-period aside, London, England
native Anthony Holden is a masterful author, not just a great
poker author. In fact, that is his chosen profession despite his
true desire to play poker for a living. As time passes and money
dwindles, his weekly Tuesday night poker game gives him enough
confidence to make a run as a professional. As it was tough to find
good cash games going at the time outside of tournament locations,
Holden decides to travel the tournament circuit before finishing up
at the 1990 WSOP Main Event.
Reading about Holden's travels and poker
escapades are thoroughly entertaining with stops in Las Vegas,
Morocco, Louisiana, and other top tournament destinations of the
day. While there is plenty of no-limit play-by-play, what makes this
book a great read is the tangents that Holden takes into the
psychology of poker, its history, and descriptions of his travel
stays. It's great to read some of his personal meetings with figures
that are so popular today: Johnny Chan, Jack Binion, and Amarillo
Slim. The poker world was so much smaller in those days and Holden
does a great job of taking you back in time.
Holden's writing style should please
anyone who enjoys a good book. In fact, I think that Big Deal
would probably appeal to non-poker players for the excitement and
interest of the story. For those who are poker players, you'll
appreciate his poker strategy and knowledge of the game. This
certainly is a non-fictional memoir as opposed to a strategy manual,
but if you like to read about anything poker as I do, this will be a
tough one to put down. If you're curious at all about the classic
figures and tournaments of the poker world before the current
explosion from a personal perspective, you couldn't do much better
than Big Deal.
Score
Out of 100, I give Anthony Holden's
Big Deal a
92. This is an overlooked classic of the way poker used to be told
in brilliant fashion.
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