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mrbear's review against another edition
3.0
This book was interesting, but not particularly well written. It told the big-picture story well, but in an overly jargon-heavy and zoomed out kind of way. While I understood a lot of the sentiments and impulses of the poker players as a magic player myself, the constant repetition of phrases like "X wanted in on the action, so he played for 50 hours at a side table" made it feel like I was reading a book in fast forward.
hagbard_celine's review against another edition
3.0
Cool peek behind the curtain. These folks are all total messes.
kevgm's review against another edition
5.0
Super interesting book from the start to the end, I read it all the way through in less than 24 hours. The book focuses on a group of Poker pros who teamed up to play a series of super high stakes poker against a billionaire banker. The book tells the amazing battles between the high stakes pros and the amateur banker, but it also focuses on the background of every one of the persons involved, which are by no means less interesting than the main story itself. The book is an amazing read that will let you wondering if it shouldn't be labeled as fiction, if you are into poker then is definitely a must read, if you're not, you should still read it, it won't be difficult to follow.
bucyte's review
4.5
The least poker-intenstive poker book of all time? The author describes only one hand in detail, and that is in the Afterword. Because this is not a book about the intricacies of the game, rather about the world of poker and the kinds of people in it. Almost by coincidence, the Biggest Game which is in the centre of this story took place in the early 2000's when Poker itself was morphing into what it is today. From smoke-filled rooms that only kept their place in Vegas' casinos due to the dedication of a couple of players, poker became a world-wide phenomenon, anyone's game, with thousands of entrants qualifying to the biggest games either online or in satellite events. In the meantime, the pros were grinding it out in Vegas, occasionally entertaining a millionaire banker who seemingly could not get enough.
Definitely don't read this as a textbook. Read it as a story that is almost too good, too intriguing and perfectly timed to be true.
Definitely don't read this as a textbook. Read it as a story that is almost too good, too intriguing and perfectly timed to be true.
cwebb's review against another edition
3.0
Das Buch liefert den meisten Poker-Kommentatoren das Material: http://www.weberseite.at/buecher/the-professor-the-banker-and-the-suicide-king/
benstigator's review
5.0
2/14/21 Reread: Yep, still love this book/story, even years later!
An extremely interesting and entertaining look inside the world of high stakes poker.
An extremely interesting and entertaining look inside the world of high stakes poker.
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