Bigger Deal

The date being the Fourth of July, players were issued with America (and other) flags as they entered the Amazon Room for Day 1b of the Main Event, which began with a country-n-western version of the US national anthem before reigning champ Jerry Yang intoned the ritual cry of ‘Shuffle up and deal’. Britain’s Victoria […]

Ambling down the long Rio corridor towards the Amazon Room, scene of the WSOP tournaments, I found myself ambling alongside Australian cricketer-turned-poker player Shane Warne. (In the flesh, since you ask, he’s bigger and burlier than expected). That puts a new spin on the state of play hereabouts. Tennis champ Boris Becker has also turned […]

Way down below the picture-window of my 52nd-floor suite atop the Palms Hotel-Resort, framed by the stunningly beautiful Sierra Nevada mountains on the horizon, the Rio hotel-casino looks the size of a matchbox. Head downstairs and struggle across the road in the 110-degree heat, however, and it soon returns to scale : the imposing if […]

“If you start me up, I’ll never stop” Ever wonder why Mick Jagger is still touring with Keith, Ronnie, and Charlie, dancing across stages around the world, and certainly stressing his 60+ year old bones? Remember, this guy is a legendary businessman – he probably has the money to buy W1 if he wanted to. I thought […]

Among those who played in our February tournament was the poker correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph, David Flusfeder, whom I know to be a stylish guy as well as a classy player; he managed to get into the money in the ‘main event’ of last year’s WSOP. David is a novelist and screen-writer as well […]

In my previous blog we talked about basic principles of playing a rebuy tournament. This outlined the structual changes during the event, specifically the rebuy period, that effected changes in the players’ rebuy strategy. Now it’s time to look at how different playing styles can operate within these guidelines. I have decided that there are three […]

Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, was check-raising the Duke of Somerset. The Earl of Salisbury was mulling a bet from Sir Humphrey Stafford, whose brother Sir William was staring down My Lord of Say. Boy, was this was some unusual poker tournament. At the dinner break, bread and soup (with a dash of vodka) was served […]

It’s not going so hot. In the last two tournaments I’ve played in I’ve had my aces in the hole busted / cracked / spat upon / knifed / shot / strangled at birth. The elation of seeing them was nothing to the pain of watching them crash and burn – once on the flop when […]

I recently profiled the playwright Patrick Marber for a Sunday paper. The idea was to give a well-deserved puff to the West End opening of his play Dealer’s Choice. A pretty simple assignment for a hack you’d imagine, especially one interested in poker, but it didn’t go quite as I had planned. The trouble was, I […]

‘Play poker against Anthony Holden, Al Alvarez, Grub Smith, Cindy Blake and the other BiggerDeal.com bloggers…’ That’s what we’ve been saying on this website throughout its first six months. Now we are ready to deliver. On Tuesday 30 October, we will be staging the first ‘Tuesday Night Game’ – a monthly tournament named in honour of the […]