Do you make deals? Do you want to learn how the best dealmakers in the world do it? Everyone -- and certainly every business -- makes deals. Whether you are an automobile dealer negotiating to buy another, or Exxon merging with Mobil in a $76 billion transaction, the craft of dealmaking is everywhere. And like any craft, dealmaking has its apprentices, its journeymen...and its masters. Leo Hindery, Jr., is one of those masters of the negotiating table -- a man who has steered home more than 240 business deals over the last twenty-five years, deals worth well in excess of $150 billion. In The Biggest Game of All, he brings readers inside the rooms where he has worked his wizardry, sometimes in partnership with, and sometimes against, the best dealmaking businessmen of our time, including General Electric's Jack Welch, Jerry Levin of AOL Time Warner, TCI's John Malone, George Steinbrenner, Barry Diller, and Rupert Murdoch. Through detailed narratives of the key moments in some of the biggest deals of our time -- including AT&T's $60 billion purchase of the cable giant MediaOne, the $54 billion sale of TeleCommunications, Inc. (a deal done in only twelve days), and the USA Networks/Seagram swap -- The Biggest Game of All is a true master class in dealmaking, showing all the inside strategies, tactics, and temperaments that make great dealmakers great. And at the center of the master class are Leo Hindery's ten commandments of dealmaking: #1. Do more homework than the other guy. #2. Look before you leap to the altar. You may love him, but you can't change him. #3. Deals should be done as fast as possible...but no faster. #4. Remember that you are only as good as the women and men around you. (And so is the other guy.) #5. Learn how to walk away. #6. Have adversaries, if need be. But don't have enemies. #7. Read the fine print. #8. Don't keep score on things that don't matter. #9. Hang in there. #10. Learn to keep your mouth shut. Leo Hindery's vantage point from the very peak of the dealmaking pyramid is the ideal place to observe, and therefore to understand, what separates good deals -- those intended to improve a company's strategic prospects -- from bad. At a time when the costs of business decisions made out of fear, confusion, and greed have never been higher or more newsworthy, knowing good from bad might be the most important dealmaking skill of all. No one who reads this insider's look at the incredible speed with which these human calculators make billion- dollar decisions, and at their fundamental, almost intuitive understanding of their own and other enterprises, will look at American business the same way again. The Biggest Game of All is that rarest of business books, instructive, enlightening, and just plain fun...a ringside seat at the real World Series of Poker, where the chips are worth a billion dollars each.

Life The Biggest Game of All What's It all about? Wisdom to win at the game of life This book contains many stories about my life and bits of wisdom that I have learned over seventy-one years. It is a very objective look at my life and the choices that I have made. I have learned there is a better way. All teenagers, young adults and adults are faced with many choices and want to make their own decisions. They want to be in control. I remember because I did it 'My Way'. Without God's plan, one is just drifting along and making decisions on their own. Establish your priorities, set goals, and make God first in your life. Remember, Life is what you make it. Always has been, Always will be. If you would like to share any comments or feedback with David, please feel free to reach out to him via email at: [email protected]

Since its first publication twenty years ago, The Biggest Game in Town has become a sought-after cult classic. Acclaimed writer and critic Al Alvarez delves into the murky and compelling world of high-stakes Vegas poker, where 'the next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing'. Uncovering an exotic underground rich in ambiance and eccentricity, The Biggest Game in Town is a real one of a kind, deftly capturing the skewed psyches and peculiar rites of professional poker players who descend every year for the World Series of Poker. It's a world that seems almost too surprising and bizarre to be true. 'A cool, precise, sharply witty, vivid evocation of a place and people, their appearances, behaviour and speech..Mr Alvarez is a shrewd analyst of the psychology of gamblers and a cleverly selective recorder of their bizarre talk with which, directly and indirectly, they reveal their secure grasp of unreality and their insane courage' Sunday Telegraph 'It will have most readers sitting on the edge of their seats' Sunday Times 'A new classic on gambling...it's quite brilliant' Time Out 'This is a magnificent book. Beyond the straights and full houses, Alvarez has written about people who are extremely good at what they do, and about America' San Francisco Chronicle

Collecting bugs, drawing cartoons, writing plays, studying robotics—these are just some of the hobbies that inspired the creation of video games such as Pokémon and The Legend of Zelda. Who are these men and women who helped launch the gaming industry from private computer labs to widely available popular entertainment? Read this book to find out who and what inspired your favorite video games!

More American children recognize Super Mario, the hero of one of Nintendo’s video games, than Mickey Mouse. The Japanese company has come to earn more money than the big three computer giants or all Hollywood movie studios combined. Now Sheff tells of the Nintendo invasion–a tale of innovation and cutthroat tactics.

Sanger Rainsford is a big-game hunter, who finds himself washed up on an island owned by the eccentric General Zaroff. Zaroff, a big-game hunter himself, has heard of Rainsford’s abilities with a gun and organises a hunt. However, they’re not after animals – they’re after people. When he protests, Rainsford the hunter becomes Rainsford the hunted. Sharing similarities with "The Hunger Games", starring Jennifer Lawrence, this is the story that created the template for pitting man against man. Born in New York, Richard Connell (1893 – 1949) went on to become an acclaimed author, screenwriter, and journalist. He is best remembered for the gripping novel "The Most Dangerous Game" and for receiving an Oscar nomination for the screenplay "Meet John Doe".

“The greatest dissection of high-stakes Vegas poker and the madness that surrounds it ever written.” —TimeOut Al Alvarez touched down in Las Vegas one hot day in 1981, a dedicated amateur poker player but a stranger to the town and its crazy ways. For three mesmerizing weeks he witnessed some of the monster high-stakes games that could only have happened in Vegas and talked to the extraordinary characters who dominated them—road gamblers and local professionals who won and lost fortunes on a regular basis. Set over the course of one tournament, The Biggest Game in Town is both the first chronicle of the World Series of Poker ever written and a portrait of the hustlers, madmen, and geniuses who ruled the high-stakes game in America. It is a brilliant insight into poker’s appeal as a hobby, an addiction, and a way of life, and into the skewed psychology of master players and fearless gamblers. With a new introduction by the author, Alvarez’s classic account is “probably the best book on poker ever written” (The Evening Standard). “A classic . . . There is no better book on America’s national pastime.” —James McManus, New York Times–bestselling author of Positively Fifth Street “Magnificent . . . Beyond the straights and full houses, Alvarez has written a book about people who are extremely good at what they do, and about America.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Conveys an understanding of gamblers and their milieu that can appeal to someone who has never seen a casino.” —Philadelphia Inquirer “Thoroughly entertaining . . . both perceptive and literate.” —The Washington Post

This is the ultimate category-killer in videogames annuals. Bursting with mindblowing records and tantalizing trivia, it's a must-have for any gaming fan. Whether you're an app aficionado, an MMO master or a die-hard retro gamer, you'll find show-stopping records, top 10 roundups, quick-fire facts and stats, and hundreds of amazing new images from all your favourite games. Find out for yourself why it's a bestseller!

A group biography of seven enduring and beloved games, and the story of why—and how—we play them. Checkers, backgammon, chess, and Go. Poker, Scrabble, and bridge. These seven games, ancient and modern, fascinate millions of people worldwide. In Seven Games, Oliver Roeder charts their origins and historical importance, the delightful arcana of their rules, and the ways their design makes them pleasurable. Roeder introduces thrilling competitors, such as evangelical minister Marion Tinsley, who across forty years lost only three games of checkers; Shusai, the Master, the last Go champion of imperial Japan, defending tradition against “modern rationalism”; and an IBM engineer who created a backgammon program so capable at self-learning that NASA used it on the space shuttle. He delves into the history and lore of each game: backgammon boards in ancient Egypt, the Indian origins of chess, how certain shells from a particular beach in Japan make the finest white Go stones. Beyond the cultural and personal stories, Roeder explores why games, seemingly trivial pastimes, speak so deeply to the human soul. He introduces an early philosopher of games, the aptly named Bernard Suits, and visits an Oxford cosmologist who has perfected a computer that can effectively play bridge, a game as complicated as human language itself. Throughout, Roeder tells the compelling story of how humans, pursuing scientific glory and competitive advantage, have invented AI programs better than any human player, and what that means for the games—and for us. Funny, fascinating, and profound, Seven Games is a story of obsession, psychology, history, and how play makes us human.