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Amarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat People: The Memoirs of the Greatest Gambler Who Ever Lived

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The Elephant in the Room
Hilarious!
The most entertaining poker book ever...
Slim chance you won't like Amarillo Slim
The Book That Glorifies a Pedophile

Amarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat People: The Memoirs of the Greatest Gambler Who Ever Lived
Amarillo Slim Preston , and Greg Dinkin
Manufacturer: Harper Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060762306
Release Date: 2005-04-26

Book Description

Amarillo Slim Preston has won $300,000 from Willie Neslon playing dominoes and $2 million from Larry Flynt playing poker. He has shuffled, dealt, and bluffed with some of twentieth-century's most famous figures. He beat Minnesota Fats at pool with a broom, Bobby Riggs at table tennis with a skillet, and Evel Knievel at golf with a carpenter's hammer. Amarillo Slim has gambled with 'em all, and left most of them wishing they hadn't.

The memoirs of a living American icon, Amarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat People is the story of life as a Texas road gambler and the discovery of the Wild West. It's also the story of how Slim won the World Series of Poker at Binion's Horseshoe, became a worldwide celebrity, and brought poker from smoky backrooms to mainstream America. Just let him tell it:

"If there's anything I'll argue about, I'll either bet on it or shut up. And since it's not very becoming for a cowboy to be arguing, I've made a few wagers in my day. But in my humble opinion, I'm no ordinary hustler. You see, neighbor, I never go looking for a sucker. I look for a champion and make a sucker out of him ..."

"I'm fixing to tell you a few things that I've been keeping to myself for a lot of years. If you're not careful, you just might learn how to get rich without ever having a job."

Customer Reviews:

The Elephant in the Room.......2007-04-20

Amarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat People is a autobiography of Slim focusing (unsurprisingly) on his gambling exploits.

The upside of this book is that it's very entertaining & well written. For a lot of people, that may be more than enought it make it worth their time. The gambling yarns contained within are some of the most incredible I've seen in print, and I'm a fan of the genre.

Unfortunately, there are serious issues of Slim's honesty and integrity surrounding this book.

The first, and more minor, issue is that the book is largely assembled from Slim's previous "Play Poker To Win" and Holden's "Big Deal," often taken nearly word for word from those sources. Not only is this a bit of a raw deal for readers who already have those books, but I'm a little curious why Holden is credited and quoted for some of the sections he wrote, but others masquerade as Slim's voice. I hope nothing dirty is going on here plagiarism-wise, but I'm suspicious.

The second, more serious, issue, is that this is a self-flattering autobiography by a man of very questionable morals. There's no doubt, reading this book, that Slim thinks quite highly of himself. But his actions don't exactly support his opinion. He's a self admitted gambling cheat and liar. In fact, the allegations of cheating go far beyond what he admits to in the book - the depth of his association with Johnny Moss' dirty card rooms and and various mechanics on the Texas circuit was not discussed. Worse yet, there's good reason to believe that Slim is a pedophile. He was arrested on three charges of indecency with his 12-year old granddaughter in 2003, apparently confessed to police, and then plead guilty to reduced charges. His wife divorced him over the incident. Sources in the poker community say that Slim maintains his innocence and claims it was a scheme by a faction of his family to get a hold of his money, but that doesn't explain the confession.

Final Verdict: I WANT to like this book, but a good book glorifying a bad man looses a lot of its luster. In light of that I can't bring myself to like Slim, or his book, nearly as much as he likes himself.

Hilarious!.......2006-09-22

This book is really funny but it isn't going to teach you anything really about gambling and poker. He does give a few pointers, but it is basically the story of his life and what a story it was. It is a very easy book to read and enjoyable for anyone who likes gambling.

The most entertaining poker book ever..........2005-09-27

In a way it's fitting that the most entertaining poker book ever written contains total detail about the most dramatic game of poker ever played, by the greatest card man of the twentieth century. I'm talking about the truly legendary, Thomas Austin "Amarillo Slim" Preston. His amazing book, Amarillo Slim In A World Full of Fat People, is for poker what the BBC's Top Gear is to motoring: funny, wicked, informative and entertaining. If Jeremy Clarkeson is reading this, that wipes out any future poker debts I might accrue!

In the early nineties, Slim was invited help launch the Casino de Caribe in Cartagena, Columbia by casino boss Lynn Simon. Amarillo was flattered to be asked at this late stage in his career only to discover that he would be playing some of the deepest untaxed pockets in the world:namely, the major drug lords of the Columbian cartels. Playing poker for the very highest stakes is nerve racking at the best of times: now just imagine that you're about to have a showdown with Pablo Escobar, probably the most feared cold-blooded killer on Earth. Turns out Pablo just wanted to be friends and show Slim his mansion, his zoo and that he was in charge of Columbia. Once this had been established, Escobar's helicopter dropped Amarillo back at the Caribe. The tall Texan then proceeded to financially disable some of the deadliest Cartel bosses, under protection from a Swiss style physical safety agreement, which they honoured under pain of death from Escobar. Apparently Pablo himself didn't fair well at poker against the card playing cowboy, leaving the Columbian poker challenge to come from his under bosses, who lost the equivalent of 'a week's supply' to the six foot four American.

By the third day the physical safety agreement broke down when one of the Cali Cartel bosses decided to shoot a disloyal girlfriend with a pump action shotgun about a yard from where Amarillo was standing. This should have been Slim's signal to catch the next jet home to Texas but he readily confesses to a liking for danger and besides, a quote from the man himself betrays another reason to stay: "I'd never seen men with more money and less brains than these drug lords." The cowboy stayed and rounded up a mountain of cash before high-tailing it back to cattle country.

In the lives of most card players, the above true story would stand out as the most remarkable of adventures, but trust me, to a man who had won a million dollars by the age of 19, played poker with two Presidents and driven a golf ball over a mile, it was just one of many.

Slim chance you won't like Amarillo Slim.......2005-08-17

I've read the reviews of others and agree with some of their comments. Slim is arrogant and his stories are all self-serving. Would you expect any less from a Texas gambler? Secondly, does this minor annoyance diminish the entertainment value of the book?

In this book you will get a little bit of history, some good stories (or tall tales), and nothing about his losses. Slim gives us an interesting perspective on the birth and growth of Las Vegas. It's from the user rather than the common mob, business, or political points of view. He tells us stories about some of the people he's gambled against (and won), from jailhouse thugs, Minnesota Fats, Jimmy the Greek, Pablo Escobar, and many in-between. Slim writes nothing about gambling losses and only hints at his battles with the IRS. Though I think a balanced biography is not what the author was shooting for and would have diminish the book as a whole.

Overall, this is a highly entertaining book. It's an easy read. Most importantly, you don't have to know how to play poker, pool, or gamble any other way to enjoy it.

The Book That Glorifies a Pedophile.......2005-07-02

TEXAS INDICTMENT

Poker champ accused of sexual assault

Legendary poker champion Amarillo Slim has been indicted by a Texas grand jury on charges that he inappropriately touched a 12-year-old girl, authorities said Monday.

Amarillo Slim, 74, whose real name is Thomas Austin Preston Jr., was indicted Friday on three felony charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child, said Sgt. Randy TenBrink of the Amarillo Police Department.

TenBrink said the girl reported to her mother that Preston had "inappropriately and sexually touched" her on Jan. 1, March 13 and March 14. The mother reported the allegations March 25.

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Amarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat People : The Memoirs of the Greatest Gambler Who Ever Lived
Slim Amarillo; Dinkin, Greg Preston
Manufacturer: HarperEntertainment
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OEYW8I

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