The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King

[Justin A]

I didn't know Howard Lederer was so cool before reading this.

I also didn't know that most of the edge the pros had over Beal was not because of a skill differential.

[Jordan Olsommer]

[ QUOTE ]

I didn't know Howard Lederer was so cool before reading this.

[/ QUOTE ]

Dude, have you ever seen him on TV? The guy's got a permanent five-o'clock shadow! I mean, if his beard grows that quickly, imagine how fast his mind must be!

[cwsiggy]

Just finished it. Great book. I think besides Lederer, Ted Forrest is my new poker hero. What balls to sit in against Beal with his own stake without the knowledge of the corporation (in the beginning)

[kiffl]

I finished reading it last week in 2 days and I just loved the book, very entertaining. The amount of money they played for is just amazing.

[rivered]

For me, not having read any other books like this, the most fascinating part is a look into the high stakes players. Firstly, almost all of them seem like compulsive gamblers and also they spent years and years learning the game before they became the big game players they are. The information on Beal was also very interesting and I only wished for more.

[Rock27]

I agree with the others that this is a good read. The psychology and the heads up play strategies I have filed in the memory bank for future usage when I play my next game of 100-200k...lol. Bellagio table 1 anyone?

[disjunction]

Was I the only one to be slightly disappointed by this book? My expectations may have been too high because of this thread and others. Informally,

Positives:

The reconstructed timeline was amazing. It had to have required a lot of work, and the result was that the overall narrative was seemless.

The details of the setting were fun to read

Craig was able to get enough access to enough of the players, so that the narrative could read like we were really there.

Negatives:

All technical details were missing. The book gave the appearance of giving player strategy, but merely saying a given pro resolved to be more/less aggressive than Beal doesn't help the reader. In the case of Lederer, it was stated that he achieved initial success by being hyperaggressive, but then it never said if he continued to be hyperaggressive or, as with the other players, he slowed down. The one hand that was given, Todd Brunson versus Beal, makes Beal look like a complete fish, and in fact leads me to doubt the rest of the book. 20-betting with top 2 pair???? If somehow, someway, this isn't a fish-play, it needs explanation.

Craig drinks every glass of Kool Aid that's given to him. The paragraphs on why there can not be cheating in Vegas (so we should all play!) reads like he was dictating from Chip Reese. I'm not saying that there is cheating, merely that the arguments against its existence in the book are lame. This Kool Aid flavor of the narrative, combined with the lack of technical detail, leads me to believe that the pros saw a serious technical flaw in Beal's game but didn't discuss it with Craig. Why else was Greenstein so enthusiastic to put his money in this game?

There is an inconsistency to the attitudes of the pros. If this match is so important to everyone, why is it so hard to find players? It just doesn't make sense...

[count1]

Andy Beal and his observer, Craig Singer, were both satisfied that no cheating occured. At one point Beal contacted someone from the casino industry to consult with on the possibility of being cheated. pgs 170-171

[disjunction]

I understand that Beal was satisfied.

There are sermons elsewhere as to why cheating could not possibly occur among top poker players. It's possible that the source of this rationale is Beal, but the way it's presented, it seems to be the reasoning of the author. In page 41-43, Reese is directly attributed for the first thought, but then the travel brochure goes on...

The part I'm really thinking of is somewhere else. Craig says that poker players can not possibly get along well enough to cheat. The passage struck me as weird when I read it. I don't think it had attribution, and I wondered if it was really Craig's own thought.

[Justin A]

It was also very interesting to see that Todd Brunson became a top high stakes player with basically no help from his father. And Doyle never staked him either.