Biggest deal in town

Back in 1990, to promote Anthony Holden’s classic book Big Deal, five authors gathered in a smoke-filled room to do battle. Seventeen years on, and to mark the publication of Holden’s long-awaited sequel, Bigger Deal, we decided to recreate the game.

The rules were simple: we provided the cash (£500 each for a £250 sit-and-go with unlimited rebuys) and supplied the five authors with bottomless pits of booze and food; in exchange they’d write the words for us.

Three players from the original game, all 17 years older and wiser, turned up for the occasion: Holden and two of his longest-standing pals: the novelist Martin Amis, and Al Alvarez, author of the daddy of all poker narratives, The Biggest Game in Town.

Representing the playwright and screenwriter David Mamet, who played in 1990, was his and Holden’s chum Patrick Marber – Oscar-nominated screenwriter and playwright (including the poker play Dealer’s Choice), who plays in the same Friday Night game in London as Holden and Alvarez.

The fifth player, representing womankind, was the ‘Moll’ of Big (and indeed Bigger) Deal, American novelist Cindy Blake. Let battle commence.