Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
Can we not have this historical bad blood posting fight about stuff I have no clue about when I am trying to start a book club.
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I just finished The Professor, The Banker, and the Suicide King by Michael Craig. The book chronicles the efforts of Dallas banker Andrew Beal to best some of the worlds best poker pros in a series of high stakeshead-to-head Texas Hold 'Em. Beal, a billionaire, quickly realizes that in order to deprive the pros of their edge, he needed to take them out of their comfort zone. He did this by constantly raising the stakes, culminating in $100,000-$200,000 freeze-outs where the winner would walk out with $20,000,000, making these the largest cash games ever. The money was chump change for Beal, but a loss would place a serious hurt on the pros.
No records are kept on cash games, and there is no hand-by-hand account of any of the matches, something I would have liked to have seen. Head-to-head THE seems like a boring game to play for days on end - too much of a coin flip - so it would have been nice to have more of the play recalled in more detail than "after a few hours, Chip Reese was down $3 million." However, Beal is a fascinating character (as are all the pros), and much of the action was not at the table. Beal took extraordinary efforts to be able to match up to the pros, and it was gratifying reading about the pros stew with their dilemma of having to give action to get action.
The upshot is that the tale is probably better than the telling, one that could have been a poker classic. Nevertheless, it is a lively and entertaining read that I read more or less straight though in a few hours. If you buy it, use the lawtalkers amazon link.
And don't introduce the Serbian to Andy Beal.
