Big Deal: One Year as a Professional Poker Player » (Reprint)

In 1988, best-selling biographer Anthony Holden spent one year living the life of a professional poker player. His mesmerizing account of that year went on to become a classic of the genre, an inspiration to innumerable poker players and poker memoirists who followed. Big Deal is his story of days and nights in Las Vegas, Malta, and Morocco, mingling with the greats, sharpening his game, perfecting his repartee, and learning a great deal about himself in the process. Poker, Holden would insist, is a paradigm of life at its most intense, a gladiatorial contest that brings out the best as well as the worst in people. The heroes and eccentrics of the poker world stalk the pages of this remarkable book, along with all the hairraising, nail-biting excitement of the game itself.

Salman Rushdie

Vivid,engrossing,superb… the best description of world–class poker weve been given.

Contents

Preface

1 Living Right

2 The Big One

3 Shut Up and Deal

4 Read 'Em and Weep

5 On Tilt

6 The Hall of Fame

7 Enter the Shrink

8 Amarillo Slim's Super Bowl

9 An Ear Full of Cider

10 Run Out of Town

11 Cruising for a Bruising

12 The End of the Road

APPENDIX 1 The Ranking of Hands

APPENDIX 2 Select Bibliography

APPENDIX 3 Glossary of Poker Terms

Acknowledgments