In 2001, a stranger from Texas entered the high-stakes poker room in the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas. A self-made billionaire, he challenged some of poker's greatest players to a series of heads-up matches. By the end, there was more than $20 million on the table. For the first time ever, here is the detailed, true account of the legendary Big Game that shocked the poker world. Putting you railside to observe the pulse-pounding action, it takes you inside the iron-nerved mind of the professional gambler. Filled with vivid characters, sensational tales, and riveting human drama, this is a unique, suspenseful journey into the world of people who live on the razor's edge of fortune-where incredible wealth or utter ruin turn on the flip of a card.
'Craig includes enough details about the professionals to allow the reader insight into their gambler personalities. Having interviewed many of the participants in this legendary poker battle, he describes it with an appropriate sense of awe and readers
Description:
In 2001, a stranger from Texas entered the high-stakes poker room in the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas. A self-made billionaire, he challenged some of poker's greatest players to a series of heads-up matches. By the end, there was more than $20 million on the table. For the first time ever, here is the detailed, true account of the legendary Big Game that shocked the poker world. Putting you railside to observe the pulse-pounding action, it takes you inside the iron-nerved mind of the professional gambler. Filled with vivid characters, sensational tales, and riveting human drama, this is a unique, suspenseful journey into the world of people who live on the razor's edge of fortune-where incredible wealth or utter ruin turn on the flip of a card.
From Publishers Weekly
The "professor" is Howard Lederer, a professional poker player whose rigorous analytical approach to the game earned him his nickname. The banker is Andy Beal, a multimillionaire obsessed with beating the world's best poker players at their game, limit Texas hold 'em, played for stratospheric stakes. The suicide king, a symbol of the aleatory nature of the endeavor, is the king of hearts, who holds his broadsword behind his head. It's a great mix, and Craig (The 5 Minute Investor) offers a knowledgeable and observant chronicle of the high-stakes games between Beal and the syndicate of professional players organized by the "Babe Ruth of poker," Doyle Brunson. The syndicate put up $10,000,000 to sit opposite Beal, trading $100,000 bets. Beal, for his part, took a mathematical approach, at one point running millions of computer simulations of various poker problems, in search of an edge against the pros, who rely on an uncanny intuition honed by thousands of hands. Craig includes enough details about the professionals to allow readers insight into their gambler personalities. Having interviewed many of the participants in this legendary poker battle, he describes it with an appropriate sense of awe, and readers will be awed as well.
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Review
'Craig includes enough details about the professionals to allow the reader insight into their gambler personalities. Having interviewed many of the participants in this legendary poker battle, he describes it with an appropriate sense of awe and readers