Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Bigger Deal Belongs In Your Hands


Trip reports.

People on the internet and this poker blogging community read them daily about the family jaunt to the cabin, recent visits to a Las Vegas cardroom with sidetracks to the Geisha Bar at the Imperial Palace, or home game summaries containing those intense hands of battle with the crusty local player that draw an unusual possible mirroring image thru time travel.

The reporting part is about giving the readers a feel for those chips sitting in of you waiting to be expertly riffled and flung at the novice player in the five seat who just bet into your nut flush. Smelling the smoke that hangs from the overly expensive pre-embargo Cuban cigar smoker railing his buddy in the eight seat with the equally bling-tastic necklace proclaiming his wealth for worthy mistresses of the night.

Now take those feelings and sensory footprints and combine them into a 200 plus page illustration of poker’s little corner of the universe through the eyes of one of its more famous storytellers and combine them with a writer who’s comfortable penning a book on Mozart as he is describing the state of our card game with the entry of the World Poker Tour fanboi who’s chasing flush draws in $10K buy in tournaments while headbanging away to the latest speed metal band on his iPod.

Re-Enter Anthony Holden to the bestseller’s list with his follow up to the popular (and sadly unread by this sorry excuse for a blogger) Big Deal. Holden captures the state of poker with its brand new element that brought people like myself into the world of staking arrangements, wrap straight draws, and 24 hour sessions at the green felt waiting out that fish in the two seat to finally bluff at the wrong pot.

Unfortunately, I cannot draw any parallels to the original verse but his descriptions of the games from Monte Carlo all the way into the halls of the World Series of Poker Main Event made for a surprising refreshing journey. The back stories of how he earned his main event seat through a freeroll while outlasting the last three main event champions not named Gold, and how he struggles with losing his “Moll” while attempting to concrete his poker face for those twelve tabling wiz kids from PokerStars in the attempt to solidify his poker standings with a cash or even victory in the WSOP main event, makes for great sunny afternoon on the back porch read. Not to mention a new distaste for being dealt Ace-King.

And if you’re inclined to check out the Brit’s more recent poker musings, be sure to hit up BiggerDeal.com where you’ll find even more backroom stories by Al Alvarez and Lee Jones. I’d like to thank “Bigger Deal’s” publisher Simon and Schuster for providing copies of the book, one of which will be part of a bounty prize at a soon-to-be-announced leg of the BloggerPokerChallenge.

I say soon-to-be-announced because my participation in those tourneys always hinges on singing Thomas the Tank Engine’s variations of kids’ songs which make the entire suburban block cringe from my bastardization of twinkling music emitting from the book. Most likely it will be the Mookie next week where I’ll be sure to earn more ire from other bloggers while pushing crap cards and winning with a forty percent chance when I run low on chips.

Thanks for dropping by, now if you’re still vying for those top 50 spots in the BloggerPokerChallenge make sure you get the schedule over at the SoCo loving hippy’s site muy pronto-like and steer clear of those Yolante van Kasbergen pics. I’ve heard you can go blind from using too much peppermint lotion.

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