"The Big Deal" by Anthony Holden

[betgo]

I am most of the way through it. He is a writer who pretended to be a professional player, going around to all the big tournaments in the late 80s. It seems like he played all the side events and satellited into most of them. He also played mid limit side games.

From his results and understanding of the game, he appears to be close to professional level, and probably good make it as a professional player. Obviously, he was able to pretend to be a professional without going bust.

A lot of it is similar to the trip reports posted on this site. As Holden is not a great player, you probably won't learn a lot of poker from it.

The writing is fantastic, better than McManus, which in turn is better written than poker instructional books. Holden's other books are mostly biographies, of royalty, Olivier, and Shakespeare. He also has several translations from the ancient Greek. Obviously, he studied classics. You also have to be a very good writer to have your translations of Greek poetry published. He appears to be a typical English gentleman, the grandson of a baronet.

Another interesting part of the book is the descriptions of the players, including deceased or mostly retired ones, such as Moss, Ungar, and Amarillo Slim.