Bigger Deal

The next big clash between our hero and his nemesis involves a third player, Bond’s CIA friend Felix Leiter. We join the action after the turn. The communal cards are: Jh-Ks-Ac… Jd. The American bets $300,000. Bond and Le Chiffre both call. The straight is very much on, but surely, again, one of them now has the full house?

With the release of the new James Bond film, QUANTUM OF SOLACE, and the simultaneous publication of Anthony Holden’s new strategy manual, HOLDEN ON HOLD’EM, BiggerDeal.com proudly presents an exclusive, three-part extract from the book, in which Holden examines the poker played by Daniel’s Craig 007 in the last Bond film, CASINO ROYALE.

Over a year ago I played poker in the best publishing party ever – Anthony Holden’s Bigger Deal launch. It was only the second time I had played poker. I did better than expected, finishing in the top 25. From then on I was hooked. I went on a poker odyssey that took me to [...]

Pulchritudinous, poker-savvy Victoria Coren will turn thirty-something (we’re too polite to ask) on Tuesday 19 August. So we have decided to celebrate her birthday in the name of our monthly tournament. As you can see from the panel at the top of our home page, VCoren is the (case-sensitive) password for the first in a [...]

Expertise at poker used to be an unwritten job requirement for all would-be US Presidents. Proficient White House poker-players have ranged from Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt and Warren Harding to FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, LBJ and Nixon. We poker players can only be expected to approve. Were I a US citizen, the poker-playing [...]

The World Series as we know it was born in 1971. Since then, player numbers have swelled, events have been added and the tournament relocated, but the format has remained largely unchanged. The pattern so far has been familiar: poker-mania in Vegas builds during the preceding events until a champion is crowned in the early [...]

“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. [...]

From the beginning let me apologise for the trans-altlantic timing problem which led to the Tuesday Night Game starting at 7pm UK time rather than the planned 8pm. Due to clocks moving forward in the USA the PStars people forgot that we in Britain were still living in winter and many people missed the chance [...]

Before bad knees and Benson & Hedges got to me, I used to play a lot of football. But about ten years ago, I had to stop. I simply couldn’t compete with younger, keener opponents. They kept on coming, those kids, leaving me wheezing and red-faced in their wake. So I put my muddy Nikes [...]

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 [...]