About this item
Highlights
- Al Alvarez touched down in Las Vegas one hot day in 1981, a dedicated amateur poker player but a stranger to the town and its crazy ways.
- About the Author: Al Alvarez is a poet, novelist, literary critic, anthologist, and author of many highly praised nonfiction books.
- 192 Pages
- Games, Card Games
Description
About the Book
Originally published by Houghton Mifflin in 1983.Book Synopsis
Al Alvarez touched down in Las Vegas one hot day in 1981, a dedicated amateur poker player but a stranger to the town and its crazy ways. For three mesmerizing weeks he witnessed some of the monster high-stakes games that could only have happened in Vegas and talked to the extraordinary characters who dominated them--road gamblers and local professionals who won and lost fortunes on a regular basis.
Set over the course of one tournament, The Biggest Game in Town is botha chronicle of the World Series of Poker--the first ever written--and a portrait of the hustlers, madmen, and geniuses who ruled the high-stakes game in America. It is a brilliant insight into poker's appeal as a hobby, an addiction, and a way of life, and into the skewed psychology of master players and fearless gamblers. With a new introduction by the author, Alvarez's classic account is "the greatest dissection of high-stakes Vegas poker and the madness that surrounds it ever written" (TimeOut [UK]).Review Quotes
"A classic . . . There is no better book on America's national pastime." --James McManus, Author of Positively Fifth Street
"Probably the best book on poker ever written." --The Evening Standard (UK) "A magnificent book. Beyond the straights and fullhouses, Alvarez has written a book about people who are extremely good at what they do, and about America." --San Francisco Chronicle "[Alvarez] endows the game with all the desperate fun and wry futility of life itself." --New York magazine "Conveys an understanding of gamblers and their milieu that can appeal to someone who has never seen a casino or doesn't care to." --The Philadelphia Inquirer "Thoroughly entertaining . . . both perceptive and literate." --The Washington PostAbout the Author
Al Alvarez is a poet, novelist, literary critic, anthologist, and author of many highly praised nonfiction books. From 1984 to 1994, he played regularly in the World Series of Poker. He lives in London.