Royal Flush
Anthony Holden's Bigger Deal
17 years after delivering one of the all-time greats of poker literature in Big Deal, Anthony Holden returns with a long-awaited sequel. gambling.com caught up with the author, biographer and critic. Oh, and poker player.
There’s a great passage in the updated preface of Big Deal, Anthony Holden’s account of becoming a poker pro for a year, where the author is approached in a bar some years after the book came out by a couple of young Americans. “We just wanted to say,” says one of the guys, “we read Big Deal and we left our jobs to become full time poker players.” So influential were Holden’s wonderful tales of Vegas, cracked aces and mammoth home game sessions, that those two weren’t the only ones to be affected by the book (this writer included). Big Deal was the seminal poker text in the UK and eagerly devoured by a new generation of poker enthusiasts keen to emulate Holden’s adventures: to play poker, travel the world, win enough to live on and, ultimately, triumph at the WSOP. The book is still regarded as one of the prime examples of poker narrative, up there with Al Alvarez’s The Biggest Game in Town and James McManus’ Positively Fifth Street. And now, in a very different era to the time described in the original, Holden has released a sequel, fittingly titled Bigger Deal. Known in literary circles for his biographies of figures as diverse as Shakespeare and Princess Diana, in others for his journalism (he is currently a classical music critic for The Observer), and to poker players as ‘Anthony Holden – writer of Big Deal’, the man himself took time out from ‘The Job’ to talk to gambling.com Magazine.
Why did you embark on a sequel to Big Deal having said you would never write one?
Haha. Well it’s true I did say that. The extraordinary thing about that Tuesday Night Game that I played in for 30 years or so is that three books came out of it: [Al] Alvarez’s Biggest Game in Town, David Spanier’s Total Poker, and Big Deal. And they went on to be well-regarded. What would happen after they came out was that some Texan guy who I’d inflicted a bad beat on in Vegas would stand up and say “put that in your next book!” which astonished me as I thought I was this anonymous face. But after 20 years of going to Vegas and having taken a break, I went back. This was a couple of years ago when the internet boom had begun. One knew that poker had changed massively and I wanted to check it out. I managed to qualify for the WSOP main event through a satellite and it was such a vivid experience that I thought “yeah, there is another book in this!” I’m aware that Bigger Deal doesn’t have the same spring in its step like its predecessor but then I was twenty years younger! When Big Deal came out, nobody who played poker read books. It didn’t really sell that well. But the last four or five years the sales line has gone up and up so the publishers were quite keen for a follow-up too.
What did you learn from your time writing Bigger Deal?
One of the most interesting things is that this new generation of internet players has changed the way the game is played. It’s much more aggressive, much looser. Somebody like me, an old-timer, bred on the books of Sklansky and Malmuth, I find it amazing that these guys are prepared to risk their entire tournament on Day 1: Hour 1 which was not what we were taught to do back in the day! I’ve never claimed to be a good player. I’m a decent amateur player but the new style has taken a bit of adjusting to. You have to take bigger risks, and be a bit more subtle in your reading of other players. At the beginning of the year I was tight, probably too tight, but I loosened up as the book went on, and it was kind of fun!
Asked why you were still playing after 40 years, you said that it “wasn’t because you were any good at poker” but you saw it “as an escape from the daily grind.” Is that how you see writing?
All my life I’ve earned my living from writing which, as a lad from Lancashire who grew up with no books, I’m quite proud of. But with the first book Big Deal, I was worried about how obsessed I was getting with the Tuesday Night Game and I suppose I thought I had to get it out of my system. I’m not a compulsive gambler like Patrick [Marber, playwright and fellow poker nut] but there’s definitely something about writing that gets the poker under control.
What’s more enjoyable? Writing about Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concertos or Johnny Chan’s back-to-back WSOP wins?
(laughs) Johnny Chan is the short answer. I’ve written lots of biographies of celebrated people both dead and living, but what I like about these poker books is that they’re slices of autobiography. It’s a lot easier to write about yourself than it is to shoehorn facts about other people into solid, competent tracts! It reminds me of a moment in Big Deal where I’m sitting next to Johnny Chan in ‘88 or ‘89 and I’m taking notes. He peers over and says “Whatcha doing? Writing a book or somethin’?” and the fact that I was writing a book was incomprehensible to him. But it’s something I was acutely aware of while writing Bigger Deal that when you’re taking notes all the time, it does not improve your poker playing! You miss all the action and you’re worried about the guy on your right peeking at your hand histories! The only real result I had while researching the new book was beating the 3 former WSOP champs (Joe Hachem, Chris Moneymaker and Greg Raymer) to win a package into the World Series. And funnily it was the only tournament I’d played all year where I didn’t take any notes!
Are you a natural risk taker?
I like to think so. In my professional life and probably my personal life too, I’ve taken risks because life is more fun that way. Maybe I tend to bluff my way through things a lot. I’m a music critic but I don’t claim to be a musical scholar at all. I’m just a writer who likes music. All my colleagues though have an encyclopaedic knowledge of opera. I’m not like that at all but I just like going along to concerts and writing about them. I’ve been asked to write a book of memoirs and anecdotes of my life and I may cast it in those terms, of somewhat bluffing my way through life!
What’s the biggest gamble you’ve made in your life?
Tough question. Well getting married is always a bit of a gamble. I’ve had two 15-year marriages, 3 children, but I’m still friends with both the women in question! Bookwise, I suppose writing a book on the life of Shakespeare was a bit of a gamble, as was writing Big Deal, a kind of book that didn’t really exist before. Nowadays poker books are divided up into poker manuals, of which there are squillions, and poker narratives, of which there are only a handful. You’re never going to get rich out of the latter but they’re fun to do and it’s fun to write about something you love and that you’re really interested in.
You’ll be wearing the PokerStars colours at the World Series this year. Isn’t that a consequence of the new poker, that a famous poker writer will get sponsored?
Yes, to be cynical, they know I’m not that good a player and the nice thing is that any money I win is mine to keep! But of course they know they’re going to get some publicity out of it and in the instance of Holden on Holdem [Holden’s next book] the book will be sponsored by PokerStars and it will say so on the cover!
The biggest change since Big Deal is the advent of the internet boom. You seem excited about the possibilities but rather nostalgic for the old days.
Yes, I was aware throughout Bigger Deal of trying not to come across as a grumpy old man and saying “ooh, it’s not like it was in the old days!” but definitely it was huge fun going to Binion’s in Las Vegas years and years ago where everyone knew each other, the food was free, you didn’t have to walk 3 miles to get to your room, and there weren’t lots of unpleasant people about, but if you love poker, you have to rejoice in the fact that it’s become hugely popular now. There are lots of people making money out of it which is fine by me.
Do you see the poker bubble growing bigger?
I would have said “yes” before the American legislation on internet gambling. With this year’s World Series coming up, still nobody quite knows how many starters there will be. It’ll definitely be down on last year. I was in New York last week and Harrah’s were saying that they will not be taking any money from the dotcoms and even the dotnets so how are these people who’ve qualified online going to play? Will we see players wheeling great carts of greenbacks down the Vegas strip and the long, long corridors of the Rio? And the other thing is, will people who’ve won the $10,000 entry for their $40 want to blow it all to Mike Matusow at the tables when they don’t have to?
You give [WSOP commissioner] Jeffrey Pollack and the WSOP a tough time. Are you still going to Vegas this summer?
Naturally I’ll be there and plugging my book (laughs) but it’s distressing to see how much they’re milking the WSOP for everything it’s worth but it’s Jeffrey’s job to ‘monetarize’ it as he puts it himself. Now we have the Official Beer of the WSOP, the Official this-that-and-the-other of the WSOP. An inevitability I suppose.
In the book, you try to find a connection between writers and gambling. Have you found one yet?
No, there isn’t one (laughs). I’ve spent 30 years looking for it believing there was but nothing yet. I think there was a point where Al Alvarez and I had identified it but then we couldn’t remember what it was! I suppose there are a few things in common between the lifestyles - not having a boss, being in charge of their own life and decisions, but in Bigger Deal I conclude that writers like playing poker because it’s easier than writing and it’s more fun! There are very few writers who actually like writing. It’s hard work and people just don’t realise how hard it is.
Have you come up with another joke for Ace-King other than the Anna Kournikova one? [AK – Anna Kournikova – it looks great but never wins anything]
Ha, yeah I get sick of that even in the book. No I haven’t. If you’ve got any suggestions, please let me know! It’s a horrible hand anyway. It always works for everyone else except me! But yes, we need to come up with something else. ‘Big Slick’ isn’t good enough is it?
Mozart comes back and books himself in to the Royal Festival Hall for a string of dates. However, they clash with the final table of the WSOP in which you’re chip leader. What do you do?
Oh f**king hell! Am I playing on the final table? It has to be Mozart. No, actually I think I’ll go for the final table and if he’s around for a while, perhaps I could fly him out to Vegas!
And finally, your dream poker table?
You and 5 figures from history. That’s where I meet Mozart isn’t it? My two great heroes are Mozart and Shakespeare so they’d have to be there. I think we’d have Princess Diana who was a friend of mine and who I knew towards the end of her life. She’d be fun at the table and she’d pick the game up very quickly. Titanic Thompson would be there. [Thompson was a legendary gambler, golfer and hustler who won a fortune during the 1920s at proposition bets. His hand-eye co-ordination was so good he could pistol-shoot a silver dollar in mid-air for a bet.] And one more – how about Lord Lucan?
Lord Lucan! Perhaps he’d be the dealer and you’d never know it was him.
No, I think we’ll have Robert Maxwell dealing. Alvarez believes there’s a game going on in South America between Hitler, Robert Maxwell and Lord Lucan and we’ve got to out there to sit down with them!
3 comments
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Posted by Kempo1987 – 14 Sep 2007, 1:08 PM
Great article, I Really enjoyed reading Big Deal and i can't wait for the sequel! It inspired me to pursue poker in ways i hadn't imagined! Bigger deal will be great!
Posted by JoeCollins – 17 Sep 2007, 3:57 PM
I can't say i've read the books, but judging from this article i think it sounds good, i may pick it up!
Posted by Groberts – 24 Sep 2007, 12:28 PM
Brilliant books