Big Deal or Bigger Deal... Which is Better?

[gaboonviper]

I Have never read either one of these, but I want to read one, so which should I buy-- Big Deal or Bigger Deal?? Which one is the more enjoyable read?

[npc]

I haven't read "Bigger Deal" yet, although I look forward to doing so. Consequently, I can't answer your question directly. However, I enjoyed "Big Deal" very much and would recommend it. Since the first book is good, I don't know why someone wouldn't want to read them in chronological order, although I'm sure this isn't required.

[Hallett]

I have always had an interest in the history of poker, so I am happy that I read The Biggest Game in Town before reading The Big Deal. I will be reading The Bigger Deal next. I did make a mistake though, and read Positively Fifth Street before I read any of the above, which is a shame, it should be read after the others.

[bigdaddydrew]

They're both good. Coinflip and off to the races.

[Jintster]

Read Big Deal first. Get Bigger Deal when it comes out in paperback.

[Haunted Ghost]

The Bigger Deal is a bigger deal than the The Big Deal. But just like you have to read HOH1 before HOH2, you have to read the Big Deal before reading the Bigger Deal.

[sellthekids]

i think it is all perspective.

i read Big Deal in my first year of playing, after reading McManus' book (twice) and Alverez's.

in the following years i have pretty much read everything published: non-fiction, fiction, and strategy.

so that said, Bigger Deal seems a little anti-climatic now, esp since everyone and their grandmother has played in the WSOP and nit Yuppies have weekly games for their nit Yuppie friends.

but you can't deny, Holden is an excellent author of the first order and while modest, he is obviously a pretty decent player.

all that said, i dunno how you are going to get away from reading Bigger Deal. if you have poker in your veins then you are reading it....

NYT review (which is glowing)

[NickMPK]

I have just finished reading Bigger Deal. Since this book was recently released, and there have been a couple questions about it, I thought I would post my impressions.

In short, I was pretty disappointed with this book.

I have read Big Deal (which Big Deal is a sequel to), and while there are many aspects of that book that I find frustrating, I still think it is a worthwhile read. Big Deal, while not nearly as impressive as The Biggest Game in Town or Positively Fifth Street, is still a very well-written account of a largely ignored period in poker history.

The first big problem with the sequel Bigger Deal is that this period in poker history is far from ignored. Those who follow poker are well acquanted with the stories of Chris Moneymaker, the holecard cameras, and the development of internet poker. Yet, Holden still writes for an audience that has little knowledge of the poker world. As a result, we get to read yet again about the founding of the WPT, Doyle Brunson's cancer, the match-up of the Corporation against Andy Beal, Moneymaker's bluff against Farha, the Lederer/Duke sibling rivalry, and every elimination hand at the final table of the 2006 WSOP Main Event.

Holden, as pompous as ever, disparages Moneymaker's book and Moneymaker himself by claiming that the 2003 Champion as probably never read his own autobiography, but then goes on to summarize it in the next three pages. He gives a detailed account of ESPN's TV coverage of the 2005 WSOP, in case we missed it the first time, or any of the hundreds of other times ESPN has played it at random times on any of three stations. There are a couple of entertaining stories here that I hadn't heard before (e.g. the lawsuit against Richard Branson giving his friend free first class tickets on Virgin Atlantic for life), but most of these are only peripherally related to poker.

The other major problem I had with this book is that while Holden superficially claims to be trying to act as a professional poker player for a year as in his previous book, he plays very little "real" poker.

Instead, he spends most of his time playing in freeroll media or celebrity events (at least when he is not attending operas). The only time he plays in real tournaments are when he has been fully sponsored by PokerStars, or won a seat through a "poker writer's" freeroll. The longest account in the book concerns a freeroll "World Cup of Poker" in which Holden is representing England against the minor poker celebrities of seven other countries, battling for a first prize of $20K. Holden wrangles several sponsorships from Pokerstars, but never actually seems to play on the internet. The book is a very poor representation of the actual life of a pro player.

Finally, after almost twenty years, Holden's abhorrent sense of tournament strategy has not changed. I'll take him at his word that he is winning basically every time he plays in cash games, but he really seems to have no idea that the goal of a tournament is actually to win money.

Instead, he pats himself of the back for basically folding every hand and thereby finishing in the top third of the field solely by attrition. He hovers around his starting stack for the entirity of the first day of every tournament he plays in, and then gets mad when, finally finding a hand to play with the blinds desperately high, he gets "bad beat" by someone who had probably accumulated ten times as many chips as he had. This might go unnoticed by the general audience, but to anyone with any real experience playing poker tournaments, it is frustrating and distracting.

This is a well-written book that would be very informative to someone who wants to learn about everything that has happened in the poker world in the past few years. But to anyone who has actually been following this world, there isn't much added value here. There are a few interesting chapters, particularly the one where Holden attends a poker "fantasy camp", but they don't comprise enough of the book for me to recommend it on the whole.

[lwlee]

I am in the middle of reading Bigger Deal. I enjoyed Big Deal enough that I bought this book the first day it was available at Borders.

If you keep up with poker current events, the stuff Holden writes about is a bit of a rehash. I wouldn't recommend this book. The original is better. Poker Nation is another good one. It keeps you engrossed in the action.