Overview

Since its first publication twenty years ago, The Biggest Game in Town has become a cult classic. Al Alvarez delves into the murky and compelling world of high-stakes Vegas poker, where 'the next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing'. Deftly capturing the skewed psyches and peculiar rites of professional poker players who descend every year for the World Series of Poker, an exotic world is uncovered, a world that seems too eccentric, too amazing, too extravagant to be true.

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9780747562993

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Reviews

'A cool, precise, sharply witty, vivid evocation of a place and people, their appearances, behaviour and speech..Mr Alvarez is a shrewd analyst of the psychology of gamblers and a cleverly selective recorder of their bizarre talk with which, directly and indirectly, they reveal their secure grasp of unreality and their insane courage' Sunday Telegraph; 'It will have most readers sitting on the edge of their seats' Sunday Times; 'A new classic on gambling...it's quite brilliant' Time Out; 'This is a magnificent book. Beyond the straights and full houses, Alvarez has written about people who are extremely good at what they do, and about America' San Francisco Chronicle

Gamblers and critics have long described this as the best book ever written on poker. Now, in a new edition 20 years after its first publication, it is easy to see why it has become cult reading. The inside world of Las Vegas card sharps and their peculiar psychology is laid bare by a man who has specialized in writing about the offbeat and bizarre. 'The next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing,' Alvarez says of the high rollers whose entire life seems to be viewed through the bottom of a whiskey glass, across a haze of cigarette smoke and with spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs dancing before their strained eyes. When these guys (there are few women in the Vegas gambling joints where Alvarez goes visiting) talk about upping the stakes by five bucks or 20 bucks, they are referring to thousands. The casual omission of noughts is regarded as a badge of honour. These sharply focused, witty anecdotes about the world's biggest and best gamblers centre on Vegas simply because that is where the professionals gather each year for their unofficial world championship. Games last around the clock, the gamblers start off with laser concentration and end up running on booze-fuelled adrenaline and instinct, and vast fortunes change hands. It all sounds seedy, if not repulsive, but there is a weird fascination too in the psyches of these players and those who look to them as heroes. Some of the big-time gamblers have died - often murdered - in the years since the book was written and a new generation has taken their place. But the story remains compelling and Alvarez's journalistic style gets the pulse racing as tension builds. You don't have to be a poker player to get a lot out of this book. Anyone interested in human nature or a good old-fashioned yarn will be hooked from the first page. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Al Alvarez is a poet, novelist, literary critic, anthologist, and author of many highly praised non-fiction books on topics ranging from suicide, divorce, and dreams - THE SAVAGE GOD, LIFE AFTER MARRIAGE, NIGHT - to poker, North Sea oil, and mountaineering - THE BIGGEST GAME IN TOWN, OFFSHORE, FEEDING THE RAT. His most recent books are an autobiography, WHERE DID IT ALL GO RIGHT? And POKER: BETS, BLUFFS AND BAD BEATS. He lives in London.

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