 Random House Audio presents Liars Poker, Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street by Michael Lewis, read for you by the author. It was sometime early in 1986, the first year of the decline of my firm, Solomon Brothers. Our chairman, John Goodfran, left his desk at the head of the trading floor and went for a walk. At any given moment on the trading floor, billions of dollars were being risked by bond traders. Goodfran was the last person the nerve-wrack trader wanted to see, especially when he snuck up from behind and surprised you. Often as not, I chairman just hovered quietly for a bit, then left. This day in 1986, however, Goodfran did something strange. Instead of terrifying us all, he walked a straight line to John Merriweather, a Solomon board member and also one of Solomon's finest bond traders. He whispered a few words. The traders in the vicinity eavesdropped. What Goodfran said has become a legend at Solomon Brothers and a visceral part of its corporate identity. He said, One hand, one million dollars, no tears. The king of Wall Street, as Business Week had dubbed Goodfran, wanted to play a single hand of a game called Liar's Poker for a million dollars. He played the game most afternoons with Merriweather. The peculiar feature of Goodfran's challenge this time was the size of the stake. Normally his bets didn't exceed a few hundred dollars. The final two words of his challenge, no tears, meant that the loser was expected to suffer a great deal of pain, but wasn't entitled to whine about it. It seemed an act of sheer lunacy. Merriweather was the Liar's Poker champion of the Solomon Brothers trading floor. The whole absurd situation needs putting into context. John Merriweather had made hundreds of millions of dollars for Solomon Brothers. He had an ability to hide his state of mind. Most traders divulge whether they are making or losing money by the way they speak or move. With Merriweather you could never ever tell. Merriweather cast a spell over the young traders who worked for him. They became disciples. They became obsessed by the game of Liar's Poker. They regarded it as their game. John Goodfran was always the outsider in their game. When you managed to firm you received your quote of envy, fear and admiration, but for all the wrong reasons. You did not make the money for Solomon. You did not take risk. You were hostage to your producers. They took risk. The money came from risk takers such as Merriweather, and whether it came or not was really beyond Goodfriend's control. That's why many people thought that the single rash act of challenging the arbitrage boss to one hand for a million dollars was Goodfriend's way of showing he was a player too. People like John Merriweather believed that Liar's Poker had a lot in common with bond trading. It tested a trader's character. Sample complete. Ready to continue?