Anthony Holden (born 22 May 1947) is an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
journalistA journalist is a person who practises journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events, trends, issues, and people while striving for viewpoints that are not biased.Reporters are one type of journalist...
,
broadcasterA presenter, or host , is a person or organization responsible for running an event. A museum or university, for example, may be the presenter or host of an exhibit. Likewise, a master of ceremonies is a person that hosts or presents a show...
,
writerA writer is anyone who creates a written work, though the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, as well as those who have written in many different forms.-Profession:...
and literary critic, particularly known as a biographer of the
British Royal familyImage:Roy-fam-2007.jpg|right|500px|thumb|Members of the Royal Family gathered for a dinner celebrating the 60th wedding anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh Image:Roy-fam-2007.jpg|right|500px|thumb|Members of the Royal Family gathered for a dinner...
and of artists including
Shakespeare, Tchaikovsky,
Lorenzo da PonteLorenzo Da Ponte was an Venetian librettist and poet.- Life :...
and
Laurence OlivierLaurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century, along with his contemporaries John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, Alec Guinness and Ralph Richardson...
.
He was born in
LancashireLancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Lancashire County Council is based in Preston. However, Lancaster is still considered to be the county town...
, and educated at
Oundle SchoolOundle School is a co-educational English public school located in the ancient market town of Oundle in Northamptonshire, England. The school has been maintained by the Worshipful Company of Grocers of the City of London since its foundation in 1556, making it one of the oldest surviving public...
and
Merton College, OxfordMerton College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, chancellor to Henry III and later to Edward I, first drew up statutes for an independent academic community and established endowments to...
, where he edited the student paper
Isis. He has written for a wide range of publications, and was chief classical music critic of
The ObserverThe Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In about the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a left-liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-History:The...
from 2002-2008.
Anthony Holden (born 22 May 1947) is an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
journalistA journalist is a person who practises journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events, trends, issues, and people while striving for viewpoints that are not biased.Reporters are one type of journalist...
,
broadcasterA presenter, or host , is a person or organization responsible for running an event. A museum or university, for example, may be the presenter or host of an exhibit. Likewise, a master of ceremonies is a person that hosts or presents a show...
,
writerA writer is anyone who creates a written work, though the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, as well as those who have written in many different forms.-Profession:...
and literary critic, particularly known as a biographer of the
British Royal familyImage:Roy-fam-2007.jpg|right|500px|thumb|Members of the Royal Family gathered for a dinner celebrating the 60th wedding anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh Image:Roy-fam-2007.jpg|right|500px|thumb|Members of the Royal Family gathered for a dinner...
and of artists including
Shakespeare, Tchaikovsky,
Lorenzo da PonteLorenzo Da Ponte was an Venetian librettist and poet.- Life :...
and
Laurence OlivierLaurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century, along with his contemporaries John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, Alec Guinness and Ralph Richardson...
.
Life
He was born in
LancashireLancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Lancashire County Council is based in Preston. However, Lancaster is still considered to be the county town...
, and educated at
Oundle SchoolOundle School is a co-educational English public school located in the ancient market town of Oundle in Northamptonshire, England. The school has been maintained by the Worshipful Company of Grocers of the City of London since its foundation in 1556, making it one of the oldest surviving public...
and
Merton College, OxfordMerton College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, chancellor to Henry III and later to Edward I, first drew up statutes for an independent academic community and established endowments to...
, where he edited the student paper
Isis. He has written for a wide range of publications, and was chief classical music critic of
The ObserverThe Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In about the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a left-liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-History:The...
from 2002-2008. In 1999-2000 he was an inaugural Fellow of the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.
When he was a
Whitbread Prize judge in 2000 he said it would have been a "national humiliation" if
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of AzkabanHarry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the third installment in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling. The book was published on 8 July 1999. The novel won the 1999 Whitbread Book Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the 2000 Locus Award, and was short-listed for other awards, including...
had won, ahead of
Seamus HeaneySeamus Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. He currently lives in Dublin.-Early life:...
's translation of
BeowulfBeowulf is an Old English heroic epic poem of unknown authorship, dating as recorded in the Nowell Codex manuscript from between the 8th and the early 11th century, set in Denmark and Sweden...
. He had threatened to resign if that happened.
Robert HarrisRobert Dennis Harris is an English novelist. He is a former journalist and BBC TV reporter.-Early life:Harris spent his childhood in a small rented house on a Nottingham council estate. His ambition to become a writer arose at an early age, from visits to the local printing plant where his father...
derided this threat as "pompous."
Poker
Holden is a
pokerPoker is a sport from the family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bets and how many rounds of betting are allowed...
player, and spent a year playing professionally while researching his 1990 book
Big Deal: A Year as a Professional Poker PlayerBig Deal: A Year as a Professional Poker Player ISBN 0743294815 is a book by Anthony Holden. The book details a year Holden spent playing poker around the world, attempting to make a living, or at least a profit, from the endeavor....
(ISBN 0743294815). The book covers his experiences between the
World Series of PokerThe World Series of Poker is a poker tournament held annually in Las Vegas. The first WSOP in 1970 was an invitational wherein Benny Binion invited six of the best known poker players to The Horseshoe Casino. At first, the WSOP grew slowly. It was twelve years before the WSOP drew 52...
(WSOP)
tournamentsA poker tournament is a tournament where players compete by playing poker. It can feature as few as two players playing on a single table , and as many as tens of thousands of players playing on thousands of tables...
in
1988-Preliminary events:-Final table:-Other High Finishes:NB: This list is restricted to top 30 finishers with an existing Wikipedia entry....
and
1989The 1989 World Series of Poker was held at Binion's Horseshoe. The 1989 Main Event was won by 24 year old Phil Hellmuth, defeating defending champion Johnny Chan, and also breaking the record for the youngest player to win the WSOP Main Event...
.
In 2007, Holden published
Bigger Deal: A Year Inside the Poker Boom (ISBN 0743294823), a journal of his second stint as a professional player, between the
2005The 2005 World Series of Poker opened play on June 2, continuing through the Main Event No Limit World Championship starting on July 7. The conclusion of the Main Event on July 15 marked the close of play, and the largest prize in sports and/or television history at the time was awarded to the...
and
2006The 2006 World Series of Poker began on June 25, 2006 with "satellite" events, with regular play commencing on June 26 with the annual Casino Employee event, and the Tournament of Champions held on June 28 and 29...
WSOP events.
In 2005 he appeared on the chat show
Heads Up with Richard HerringHeads Up with Richard Herring or HUWRH, was a British celebrity chat show written by and starring Richard Herring, who is best known as one half of comedy duo Lee and Herring, the stars of BBC Two shows Fist of Fun and This Morning With Richard Not Judy...
, to discuss his life, career and his love of poker.
Works
- Greek Pastoral Poetry (1973) translator
- The St Albans Poisoner: The Life And Crimes Of Graham Young (1974)
- Charles: Prince of Wales (1979) as Prince Charles (US)
- Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century, along with his contemporaries John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, Alec Guinness and Ralph Richardson...
: A Biography (1981)
- Their Royal Highnesses, The Prince and Princess of Wales (1981)
- A Week In The Life Of The Royal Family (1983)
- Great Royal Front Pages: A Scrapbook of Historic Royal Events from Queen Victoria to Baby Prince William (1983)
- Royal Quiz (1983)
- Of Presidents, Prime Ministers And Princes (1984)
- Queen Mother (1985)
- Don Giovanni: The Translation (1987) with Amanda Holden
- Charles: A Biography (1988) as King Charles III (US)
- The Last Paragraph. The Journalism of David Blundy
David Blundy , was a British journalist and war correspondent. Son of an antiques dealer who had a shop at the Elephant and Castle, he was educated at the City of London School and Bristol University...
(1990) editor
- Big Deal: A Year as a Professional Poker Player (1990)
- The Queen Mother: A 90th Birthday Tribute (1990)
- A Princely Marriage: Charles & Diana, the First Ten Years (1991)
- Behind The Oscar: The Secret History of the Academy Awards (1993)
- H.M. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother In Private (1993)
- The Tarnished Crown (1993), Viking Publishers, ISBN 0-670-84624-4.
- Tchaikovsky (1995)
- Diana: Her Life and Legacy (1997)
- Charles at Fifty (1998)
- William Shakespeare: His Life and Work (1999)
- Liber Amicorum for Frank Kermode (1999) editor with Ursula Owen
- The Mind Has Mountains a.alvarez@lxx (1999) editor with Frank Kermode
-Biography:Sir Frank Kermode is known for many works of criticism; and also as editor of the popular Fontana Modern Masters series of introductions to individual modern thinkers. He is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books and The New York Review of Books.Kermode was born on the Isle...
- The Drama of Love, Life and Death in Shakespeare (2000)
- Shakespeare: An Illustrated Biography (2002)
- Wit in the Dungeon (2005) biography of Leigh Hunt
James Henry Leigh Hunt was an English critic, essayist, poet and writer.-Early life:Leigh Hunt was born at Southgate, London, Middlesex, where his parents had settled after leaving the USA...
- Lorenzo Da Ponte, The Man Who Wrote Mozart (2006)
- Olivier Biography of Laurence Olivier. Max Press (2007)
- Bigger Deal : A Year on the New Poker Circuit (2007)
- Holden on Hold'Em (2008)
External links