"The greatest dissection of high-stakes Vegas poker and the madness that surrounds it ever written." —TimeOut
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 both the first chronicle of the World Series of Poker 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 "probably the best book on poker ever written" (The Evening Standard).
"A classic . . . There is no better book on America's national pastime." —James McManus, New York Times–bestselling author of Positively Fifth Street
"Magnificent . . . Beyond the straights and full houses, Alvarez has written a book about people who are extremely good at what they do, and about America." —San Francisco Chronicle
"Conveys an understanding of gamblers and their milieu that can appeal to someone who has never seen a casino." —Philadelphia Inquirer
"Thoroughly entertaining . . . both perceptive and literate." —The Washington Post