The Biggest Game was originally published in the New Yorker Magazine as a series of long articles. "Here was the World Series of Poker," Al says, "and hardly anyone was writing about it." With a few changes, the articles then became the book.

People like Doyle Brunson, Jack Straus, and Amarillo Slim opened up to him. "They didn't quite know what to make of me," he says. "I was the little Brit with the funny accent who could make them laugh", he adds. Later, Jack Straus and Crandall Addington would visit him at his home in London.