Roy the boy launches an autobiography

rag2gar

Roy Brindley's new book has just been launched. I'm sure many of you will be interested as Roy is living and played pretty much all his poker here in Ireland over the past couple of years.

Here's the press release:

Life-long gambler Roy Brindley’s autobiography earning rave reviews

Professional gambler Roy Brindley’s much anticipated autobiography Life’s a Gamble – The High Stakes and Low Life of a Poker Professional finally goes on sale tomorrow Friday February 27. The book, crackling with dialogue and characters, in a narrative as fresh as any thriller, is already receiving rave reviews and much media excitement.

The author, winner of countless European ranking poker tournaments, has already featured in numerous newspaper articles and last weekend discussed his work on BBC Radio Five Live for its million plus listeners.

However, as the publication date nears the media frenzy surrounding his controversial memoirs reaches boiling point. Today, Thursday February 26, he has been booked for seven radio station interviews following an appearance on specialist horse racing channel Racing UK.

Never before has a book about gambling created such a storm but in documenting his life – from the lows of living on the streets and in a prison cell through to landing six-figure sums playing poker – Roy has opened up a can of worms and shaken a hornets nest in one fell swoop.

What they are saying about Life’s a Gamble:

“One of the best insights into the heart and mind of a gambler ever written. Moving and uplifting and for poker-lovers, a must-read…”

Des Wilson, author of ‘Swimming with the Devilfish’ and ‘Ghosts at the Table’

“Raw, unashamed yet gripping emotion from flag-fall. Finally someone tells a gamblers lot how it is and, through amazing circumstance, he comes out on top.

Rogue Trader Nick Leeson: The world’s biggest gambler, the man who broke Barings Bank, author of ‘Back from the Brink’ and ‘Rogue Trader’.

cuterob

HIVeindhoven

That press release is ridiculous even by the low standards set by most press releases.

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

Jeez Gary i thought the whole i like/love Roy was a wind up. Find a new role model IMO

nicnicnic

Should be a good and topical read, hope its a success for Roy.

cuterob

i'm gonna buy it cause i'm nosey

Sparks43

looking foward to reading this myself

met roy many times over the last few years and its gonna be interesting to have a nose

AdMMM

So Gary, what's your screename on Ladbrokes?

kakak1

have my copy ordered & looking forward to it

BigCityBanker

I have my copy

tm2204

Picked it up in a bookshop in Wexford last weekend and ended up reading about 1/2 of it over 2 cups of coffee.

Enjoyed it.

The Tourist

nicnicnic wrote: »

Should be a good and topical read, hope its a success for Roy.

Me too (but I could have done without having it rammed down my neck morkeshing style).

pgodkin

cuterob wrote: »

i'm gonna buy it cause i'm nosey

I'm going to borrow it cause im busto!:D FYI lol at people who still read have u not heard of Itunes and audiobooks! Will this be on itunes soon?

Philip

Theresalwaysone

Gary get your head outta Roys arse.

jbravado

WTF this could be a decent read it could be a bad of misery who knows.LOL at people being irked by over zealous press releases(read ever?). Stop being quite so Irish FFS.

valor

this thread is VERY HARSH, as sIMOn would say

hotspur

Someone review it once they have read it please.

cuterob

valor wrote: »

this thread is VERY HARSH, as sIMOn would say

i'll put my hand up for starting the harshness

edit: lol

kincsem

I'm reading it at the moment. It is 303 pages and I have read about the first 50 pages, but I have an annoying habit of dipping into other chapters and have been reading chunks there. It is a good read, better than I had hoped. So far, so good. Like most poker players he likes a bet on other things (I'm guilty here).

I bought it in Dubray Books, Stillorgan. They don't have a great sports section, and the games section is mostly bridge and sudoku, so I was surprised they had it in stock.

He started playing poker in Ireland after seeing Noel Furlong win the WSOP on TV. Exactly the same here, except that on my first visit to a casino, the Merrion, one Wednesday night for a €20 hold 'em rebuy, Noel Furlong and Liam Flood were on my table. Wtf!

slavetothegrind

Finished it last night, got in waterstones jervis centre.

Thought it a very good read, not ghost written, seemed very honest warts and all.
He really explains addiction in telling his story, i read it through on sunday and last night, good flow to the book and found it hard to put down.
Fair play to him hope it does well for him!

Recommended reading:cool:

Russh

Odd OP in view of his apparant dislike of online poker forums and his contempt for poker players in general......

CourierCollie

Heres the plug he did on TV3 yesterday http://tv3.ie/videos.php?video=6312&locID=1.65.74&date=2009-03-04&date_mode=1&page=1&show_cal=2&newspanel=&showspanel=1&web_only=&full_episodes=

NickyOD

I started reading this yesterday and it's pretty good so far actually.

lillou

jbravado wrote: »

WTF this could be a decent read it could be a bad of misery who knows.LOL at people being irked by over zealous press releases(read ever?). Stop being quite so Irish FFS.

yes the irish are renowned for being irked by over zealous press releases.

won't buy it but will probably borrow it.

carfax

CourierCollie wrote: »

Heres the plug he did on TV3 yesterday http://tv3.ie/videos.php?video=6312&locID=1.65.74&date=2009-03-04&date_mode=1&page=1&show_cal=2&newspanel=&showspanel=1&web_only=&full_episodes=

Thought that interview was really good.

I'm going to buy the book (would have anyway ).

Tight Ted

carfax wrote: »

Thought that interview was really good.

I'm going to buy the book (would have anyway ).

Yeah this interview was brilliant, never realised poker was 100% a game of counting outs :rolleyes:, maybe he's talking about PLO.

NickyOD

Isn't it quicker to count the cards that aren't your outs in Omaha?

semibluff

cuterob wrote: »

cuterob wrote: »

i'm gonna buy it cause i'm nosey

bit of a contradiction there rob!!

is there much sickness about sports betting in it?

Flipper

Bought this in Waterstones in Cork. I got stuck in last night and so far, it's a good read. Congrats Roy

BigCityBanker

I started reading it last weekend, I got to the part where he was discussing being HU with Thorson in the Betfair E Open or w/e its called >> then I read the line which went something like this..

'id had a couple of small results in the previous year of about 40k or 50k, but nothing major, after all they are just small fry results in this game'

tbh, when I read that I feared that it was going to set a tone for the rest of the book and it seriously dampened my enthusiasm for continuing to read it, i havnt opened the book since. Like this was gonna be a huge result for 120k if he won it but 50k touches were insignificant.

strewelpeter

Tight Ted wrote: »

Yeah this interview was brilliant, never realised poker was 100% a game of counting outs :rolleyes:, maybe he's talking about PLO.

That's a bit unfair, it was a very good interview, Roy came over very well and gave as good an explanation of how he can get an edge as you are going to see in a two minute slot. The pair doing the interview are very competent.
TV3 wow!

ocallagh

BigCityBanker wrote: »

I started reading it last weekend, I got to the part where he was discussing being HU with Thorson in the Betfair E Open or w/e its called >> then I read the line which went something like this..

'id had a couple of small results in the previous year of about 40k or 50k, but nothing major, after all they are just small fry results in this game'

tbh, when I read that I feared that it was going to set a tone for the rest of the book and it seriously dampened my enthusiasm for continuing to read it, i havnt opened the book since. Like this was gonna be a huge result for 120k if he won it but 50k touches were insignificant.

Agree with the above at times he seems to contradict himsef, sometimes on the same page and I wonder how on earth this got past any sort of editing etc. It's got a few little errors like that, but the lack of editing and the pace at which he wrote I grew to like after 20 pages or so. It was never intended to be a work of art and instead of glossing it up he just left it fairly raw. When I realised this the little errors didn't really bother me anymore and I got through the first 100 pages pretty fast and considering I rarely get through 5 pages before falling asleep I think that says something.

nicnicnic

BigCityBanker wrote: »

I started reading it last weekend, I got to the part where he was discussing being HU with Thorson in the Betfair E Open or w/e its called >> then I read the line which went something like this..

'id had a couple of small results in the previous year of about 40k or 50k, but nothing major, after all they are just small fry results in this game'

tbh, when I read that I feared that it was going to set a tone for the rest of the book and it seriously dampened my enthusiasm for continuing to read it, i havnt opened the book since. Like this was gonna be a huge result for 120k if he won it but 50k touches were insignificant.

Maybe the title was huge for him on a personal level, I found Andy Black shedding tears after winning 190k$ in the premier league last year a bit odd but it was obviously the title rather then the money that brought the emotion

cuterob

semibluff wrote: »

bit of a contradiction there rob!!

lol it's a care-o-meter..i was waiting for a thread to use that bad boy

other than that i'll get it if i come across it in a book shop..so probably next time i'm in a airport

cuterob

nicnicnic wrote: »

Maybe the title was huge for him on a personal level, I found Andy Black shedding tears after winning 190k$ in the premier league last year a bit odd but it was obviously the title rather then the money that brought the emotion

roys results are good and everything but over a 7 year period considering buyins, travel, accomodation etc i cant really see the big deal.. did he clean up in cash games or something?? it just seems a bit early in his career with not many massive results to be writing a book about it.. andy black should be writing the autobiography.. that would be a good read

dont really know why i quoted you nicky

RoundTower

The book might be great, I haven't read it.

But with such a dramatic press release you have to expect people to take the piss a little.

tipp86

Is this book widely available? I just cant ever see any poker books for sale even in cork.

cloudymouse

any one that buys his book need's their head examined

NickyOD

tipp86 wrote: »

Is this book widely available? I just cant ever see any poker books for sale even in cork.

I got my copy in the new release section in Easons in Letterkenny so I'd say you could get it pretty much anywhere.

ianmc38

I'm still laughing at the care-o-meter a week leter. Genius.

Grafter

ianmc38 wrote: »

I'm still laughing at the care-o-meter a week leter. Genius.

ocallagh

ffs Grafter I just wasted 30 secs playing hangman

Grafter

ocallagh wrote: »

ffs Grafter I just wasted 30 secs playing hangman

Did you win?

ocallagh

Grafter wrote: »

Did you win?

not even close!

cuterob

ianmc38 wrote: »

I'm still laughing at the care-o-meter a week leter. Genius.

if it wasn't me it was (hopefully) gonna be someone else

cuterob

jbravado wrote: »

Stop being quite so Irish FFS.

i wont!!! and i'm norwegian!!

HighFinance

Irish Times gave Life's a Gamble a good review today:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0316/1224242903865.html

b.

Hitman Actual

HighFinance wrote: »

Irish Times gave Life's a Gamble a good review today:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0316/1224242903865.html

b.

The mathematician references are laughable though. I can't say Roy ever struck me as being some sort of maths genius.

Fatboydim

I believe Roy is going to be in The Eglinton Galway on Friday night signing copies.

kincsem

The profit on books must be mega. I bought mine in Dubray in Stillorgan Shopping Centre for €13.99. Two weeks later I saw it in Bookstation about fifty yards away at €9.74.

califano

I read this in record time. Very interesting read.

There is an e-book seeded here