amarillo slim, semi-review
Paul Phillips
other projects to give this too much time, and I wanted to say something while
the book is still relatively new since I said I would in exchange for my
advance copy. This isn't exactly a book review, it's more of a slim review.
So: I enjoyed the book. In a manner of speaking. The writing captured
that "slim style" he's been selling for so long, and the stories held my
interest. While he was talking about pool hustling I especially enjoyed it,
but as the book progresses the hypocrisy and various slimy bits build up
rather dramatically. By the end I had a thoroughly diminished view of
slim, who before I had thought was a mostly harmless self-promoter, but
afterward thought was a shameless liar with extremely self-serving ethics.
Some of the stories in the book are obviously false; I won't bother building
that case since I think most everyone who has read it agrees there. This
detracts a lot from the rest of the stories, since it's clear he's willing
to fabricate tales from whole cloth, and to reposition "classic" poker
legends as having happened to him personally. It's hard to get into the
excitement of the tales when he diminishes his credibility so frequently.
He must have been pretty good at pool but he's deluded about any number
of other things. I love the parts where he's talking about gin, poker, and
sports betting, and in all three he's apparently under the impression that
until quite recently, there were only a couple people in the world who
could come anywhere NEAR his talent in those endeavors, and gee just by
coincidence they happened to be buddies of his. Not just that, but the
talent disparity was such that he was (is) a lock to win. Right. Sorry,
I haven't seen any evidence that winning the WSOP when it had four entrants
or whatever means much except that he was alive and playing cards.
More than once in the book he takes big cracks at education, even though
out of the other side of his mouth he's advocating it for others; his
favorite expression seems to be that learning how to diagram a sentence
never got him anywhere in life. Maybe not, but on the other hand, maybe
he wouldn't have needed a ghost writer if he'd learned how to diagram a
sentence back in the day.
His fawning over pablo escobar is especially revolting (though he's
careful to tell us that drug dealers are the scum of the earth) but this
has already been discussed sufficiently on rgp.
And then there is the ron rose incident, which I don't think we should
ever let him forget because he makes such a big deal out of his honor and
his word being his bond and so on. I find it unlikely that there is any
way to reconcile his cheating in the heads-up tournament with his claim
that he's always on the square. In my view that's the real nail in his
likeability coffin.
So: the book basically delivers what it advertises, and if the blurbs
about it sound good to you then you'll probably like it. Whether you'll
end up liking slim is another question.
--
Paul Phillips | If you have received a letter inviting you to speak at the
Apatheist | dedication of a new cat hospital, and you hate cats, your
Empiricist | reply, declining the invitation, does not necessarily have
pal, i pill push | to cover the full range of your emotions. --Elem. of Style
minus200
> Sorry,
> I haven't seen any evidence that winning the WSOP when it had four entrants
> or whatever means much except that he was alive and playing cards.
>
So we have a more clear picture. When they got down to just a few players (3 I
think it was) - there was a deal made. After the deal, Slim said something like
"if you boys let me win this thing, I'll make a big deal out of this WSOP thing.
They did and he did. If you recall he was all over the place - Johnny Carson show
and others. People that had never heard of the WSOP were now aware - and so it
goes