Look What I Found (Finding Al Alvarez’s “The Biggest Game in Town” — Now, 40 Years Later)
Al Alvarez’s book undoubtedly had some role in changing my life and the direction it took when at a crossroads.
Yesterday, Summerlin Library had a book sale. While browsing the tables, I spotted one of the greatest gambling narratives ever written. Typically, books tell stories. But sometimes, the story of a book is just as good.
British writer Al Alvarez (1929-2019) was a true renaissance man. He was a poet, essayist, critic, and the author of 20 books. His best-known work, The Savage God, was a study of suicide. He wrote on divorce (Life After Marriage), dreams (Night), the oil industry (Offshore), and his favorite hobbies…..poker and gambling.
Prior to Alvarez’s towering literary periscope, there were no books about the eccentric and often quirky subculture of poker–aside from David M. Hayano’s academically-oriented sociological masterpiece from the 1970s, Poker Faces: The Life and Work of Professional Card Players.
His book, The Biggest Game in Town was released in 1983. Alvarez became the first writer to cliff dive into the murky (and sometimes dangerous) world of high-stakes poker, an underground maze of secrets, smoke, and seclusion littered with larger-than-life characters who needed no embellishment. This was a difficult book to write. At the time, most successful high-stakes poker players didn’t want attention, fearing the exposure would subject them to criminal targeting and tax audits. Alvarez slowly gained their trust, took notes, wrote their stories, and ultimately released his book which shined a light into a dark corner that had not been seen by the world before.
The Biggest Game in Town is an illuminating 200-page snapshot of people and places that mostly no longer exist and would otherwise have been sentenced to the lonely dustbin of forgotten history were it not for one man’s insatiable curiosities many thousands of miles away. His book inspired many more like it to follow, most notably Big Deal: A Year as a Professional Poker Player, by fellow British author, the late Anthony Holden–released six years later. Holden’s book is great. But Alvarez did it all first. As for the rest of what’s been written about poker since then, it’s been mostly surplus and repetition.
I was surprised to see this book (in near mint condition) stuck in the library bin was an original first-edition, making it a rarity. Perhaps it’s more special to me, just because I remember reading it 40 years ago while in college. Alvarez’s book undoubtedly had some role in changing my life and the direction it took when I reached a crossroads. I suspect many others were captivated by its content and they too, veered off the conventional path in life and took the more risky and risque detour.
When I plucked this copy of The Biggest Game in Town off the table, I felt as if this was a rescue. Alvarez’s seminal gem cost me the princely sum of 50 cents.
Unfortunately, I never did meet Al Alvarez, one of the few giants in gambling and poker whose path never crossed with my own. But I still felt as though I knew Alvarez, through his words and experiences. He’d smile knowing his book is “still selling,” even though it fetched a price far beneath its value and influence. He’d probably smile even bigger and longer knowing The Biggest Game in Town continues to impress and inspire.
READ MORE: My list of the best poker books ever written
