NONFICTION - Nov. 18, 1990

BIG DEAL: A Year as a Professional Poker Player by Anthony Holden (Viking: $19.95; 306 pp.). Poker, as British writer Anthony Holden astutely points out, is a lot like life: It’s nice to hold a good hand, but it doesn’t matter what you’ve been dealt so long as you know how to bluff. Holden mentions this idea only passingly in “Big Deal,” but its spirit informs this occasionally very funny book. A successful journalist in London, Holden suddenly decided in 1988 to live the sort of life he had previously only reported on. He had written about Las Vegas’ World Series of Poker for 10 years, and played the game every Tuesday night for 20, but upon becoming a pro he discovers he lives life on a different, and ironically more elevated, plane. Poker may be only a game, but the stakes are unambiguous and often very high. And Holden does end up in the money, eventually, although one reads this book less to follow Holden’s fortunes than for his sometimes priceless descriptions of hands, bluffs, and fellow players.