the big deal
 

just started reading this. seems VERY good so far. much like positively fifth street without the trial stuff.

Re: the big deal
 

I found the book interesting, but it was not what I was hoping for. It is billed as Holden's year as a pro player, but it was more the story of a dilettante than a pro. As far as "big game" narratives go, my ranking would be:

1/ McManus
2/ Alvarez
3/ Holden

Minor spoiler
 

I read this recently and what made me crazy is he never seems to notice this one simple point about his play. He doesn't make money in tournaments, but always makes money in ring games. Why does he think he needs to play these tourn to be a pro? Made me crazy the whole book!

Re: the big deal
 

[ QUOTE ]
I found the book interesting, but it was not what I was hoping for. It is billed as Holden's year as a pro player, but it was more the story of a dilettante than a pro. As far as "big game" narratives go, my ranking would be:

1/ McManus
2/ Alvarez
3/ Holden

[/ QUOTE ]

dilettante=ameteur?

holden mentions alvarezs book in his. i guess its worth checking out then.

Re: the big deal
 

Good book. I would love to see Holden's take on the game these days.

Re: the big deal
 

From excerpts and the subtitle, I assumed the book would be about a guy making a living playing poker (or at least trying to.) Instead, the book is more like a poker travel narrative. That's not a bad thing; it's just not what I was looking for when I bought it.

Alvarez (The Biggest Game in Town) is a great read. Very dated, but a neat look at the WSOP back in the early 80s.

Re: Minor spoiler
 

[ QUOTE ]
I read this recently and what made me crazy is he never seems to notice this one simple point about his play. He doesn't make money in tournaments, but always makes money in ring games. Why does he think he needs to play these tourn to be a pro? Made me crazy the whole book!

[/ QUOTE ]

lol. i just fineshed the book and you are exactly right. he moneyed in maybe 2-3 tournaments in a whole year. yet he CRUSHED the ring games for 1-3k every time he sat down. i didnt like the ending. why cant he write and be a pro. like you said you dont have to be a tourney chaser to be a pro.

did anyone else get the impression that he wasnt that great by the hands he talked about. if he was crushing the 20-40 like he was maybe people werent as good 15 years ago as they are now. or maybe he just had AWESOME game selection skills.

ill be picking up alvarez's book on the way home from work.

Re: Minor spoiler
 

Soured me to the whole book.

Alvarez is pretty good. The language and wording he uses is unlike any other poker book I have read. He just uses a much more formal tone.

Re: the big deal
 

He's a good friend of Alvarez's, and they played a weekly game together for years.

I thought the book was huge fun. I got quite a kick out of it. He had a fun story to tell and he could actually write, unlike many people who write about poker. The best people at things are often pretty mediocre writers about it.

Only thing that annoyed me was that he spoke about playing for a living as if it were quite serious, and took it quite seriously, yet he blew money at a preposterous rate. Not only did he constantly have to go jetting back and forth everywhere at the drop of a hat, but holy mother of...he often did it on the Concorde! You don't have to spend, uh, what was it, 6k or whatever for a one-way trip across the pond. That's ridiculous. And when he found a great game, often as not he would leave the table, the state, or the whole country immediately!

That can make for plenty of different exotic locales that make for a more fun, action-filled book, but then his goal becomes writing the book, not playing a year of poker. That kind of extravagance should have been left to when he had an employer paying for pretty much all of it.

Finally at the end he more or less wistfully says he guesses he just can't play well enough to be a professional. But in my mind, he handled his money so irresponsibly that he never really gave it much more than a very half-assed chance.