Product Description

Roy Brindley has earned over a million pounds, has a contented family life, owns an incredible house and both a Porsche and a Ferrari. But he's not always had money to play with. In fact, he hasn't always had a home. Addicted to gambling like the majority of his family, Roy spent his teens and twenties in the bookies and, week in, week out, frittered away his entire pay packet as he attempted to chase his losses. By the time he was twenty-eight he was on the run from the police and living out of a cardboard box in Southsea. In 2002 he finally ended up in court and decided to turn his life around. After a chance viewing of the Hollywood poker film "Rounders", he at last put his phenomenal mathematical talent to constructive use, and his domination of the European poker circuit began. From his dysfunctional early years, through a career as a greyhound trainer and journalist before playing cards for cash became his vocation, the story of Roy the Boy is both an inspirational rags-to-riches story of a man who learnt to trust something other than lady luck, and a fascinating insight into the glamorous, celebrity-filled and ever-more-popular world of poker.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18991 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

About the Author
Roy ‘The Boy’ Brindley is one of Europe’s most successful tournament poker players. The first ever European professional to be commercially sponsored, he is currently enjoying his sixth year as the Ladbrokes official player. Roy writes for several poker publications and commentates regularly on poker tournaments for Sky Sports. He lives in Ireland with his partner and their two young children.

Customer Reviews

Cracking read!
I didnt know anything about poker before reading this book but it didnt really matter as the book is more about Roy Brindleys life that then leads into his poker career. Quite inspiring as Roys life goes from the lowest of the low to becoming quite successful in the poker world, along with the material things that go with it.
By the end of the book you dont really knoiw exactly how Roy ends up but get the feeling hes still comfortable money wise after losing a good chunk of his winnings on th e stock market. I got the feeling that he'll always be a true gambler so you never know if he'll end up with nothing again, hopefully not as he seems sharper than he was in his youth and knows that his success has come from his poker and not the horses or dogs!
A thoroughly good read though.

An odds on favourite!

An brutally honest piece of work. If you're the type who is fascinated by extreme lives this is the book for you. Brindley tells it like it is making it clear the life of a degenerate gambler is not for the faint hearted. From riches to skid row and back again, if you have a kernel of gambling in your DNA you will relate to this true story at some level, if only the sick feeling you had on holiday as a kid when you lost your spending money on the bandits within 24 hours of arriving.

Every true gambler does it for the buzz. The book 'ends' with Brinley making it big as a pro poker player but as every serious card player will tell you it just becomes work in the end. Can Brindley keep it up or will the lust for action and self destruction wield its ugly head again? Because you like this guy despite never meeting him you end up hoping there isn't a sequel.