Rating: 
Summary: Vegas Baby Vegas
Review: If you've ever seen the movie Swingers, thats all I kept thinking about. Great story- makes you want to learn how to count cards and head to Vegas tomorrow. Not sure that that is what the author intended, but nonetheless was an incredible look at another side of gambling that you hear about but never can truly comprehend.
Rating: 
Summary: Easy & Fun Page Turner, Interesting But weird writing...
Review: good story line and a book i wanted to read quickly. i enjoyed it. would say that the addition of too many vegas facts and a few weird switches to prose about the author conducting his primary research interviews midstream were a turn off. if you dig blackjack and/or MIT this is a particularly good read.
Rating:
Summary: riveting true story -- you get a rush from reading it
Review: This is the true story about how 6 strangers formed a card-counting team at MIT and took Vegas for about $3 million in the early 1990s. Card-counting is just this side of legal, and a casino can't arrest you, but it can make sure to rough you up and ban you from every other casino in the counrty -- and possibly the world.This story is told from the viewpoint of Kevin Lewis, who doesn't get how his two roommates are always flying to Vegas when they are MIT dropouts without jobs. They let him in on their secret, recruit him, and train him, introducing him to Mickey -- a "dinosaur" (banned from all casinos) who now trains card-counting minions to go forth in Vegas and earn him a return on the investment with which he bankrolls these kids. Kevin leads a double-life --- MIT nerd in Boston with a nice-enough girlfriend, high-rolling card-roller in Vegas with numerous aliases and a hot woman he would never have as his true self. Yet Kevin can not commit completely to this life and looks for a regular job outside of it. This puts the rest of the team on alert about his loyalty and things can, and do, get ugly as time goes on ..... This is a great true story about using statistical analysis to win blackjack, the only winnable game in a casino -- the only one that is not truly all about chance, and how 6 admittedly nerdy people dressed up and brought down the house. And the house was not happy. And if the house is not happy, then YOU are not happy.
Rating:
Summary: So Exhilarating
Review: "Shy, geeky, amiable Kevin Lewis had led a double life for more than four years. Now I was going to tell his story," writes author Ben Mezrich, as he proceeds to tell the story of the MIT students who made literally millions at Blackjack with their amazing card counting system. The MIT students were mostly honor students and great mathematicians. "But Kevin's resume didn't tell the whole story. There was another side to his life, one written in neon signs and purple casino chips." In 1993, Kevin was recruited by a friend. "Kevin, this is the MIT Blackjack Team. It's been around - in one form or another - for almost two decades. Recently, we've taken things to a whole new level. And we want to invite you to come aboard." "We're going to hit Vegas." Naturally Kevin was skeptical at first. "So you guys cheat at cards?"
"Absolutely not. We don't alter any of the rules or mess with the nature of the game. We use our brains to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities. Blackjack is beatable - so we beat it. We beat the heck out of it." Over the next four years, this MIT Blackjack Team made their way through Chicago, Louisiana but mostly the bigger casinos of Las Vegas, aptly known as "Sin City." They brought aliases, disguises, plenty of cash, and, more importantly, their winning system, which included secret gestures and code words. They fully understood the statistical nature of Blackjack and took full advantage of it. But, as always, there's a lesson to be learned. "The most important decision a card counter ever has to make is the decision to walk away." Exhilarated right from page one. I enjoyed the intensity of the game, the outrageously high stakes and the excitement of the casino world. I was taken to places I've been before (and reliving the experience) and places I've only heard about. Much of the excitement came from knowing that, although this reads like a fiction novel, it isn't. This is Ben Mezrich's seventh novel, but his first non-fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining fiction
Review: I did enjoy the book, and I found it difficult to put down. However, much of the book is clearly fiction. Some stories only push the limits of credulity, while several others are clearly fabrications. For an example that won't ruin anything later in the book, a very early segment in the book describes a technique alled "spot cutting." The book's main character is being taught the system and is brought to a table where a member of the blackjack team is playing. His escort says, "Watch Fisher. He is doing something called spot cutting. He can work the deck to get a specific card dealt to himself." The idea behind spot cutting is that players can sometimes see a card after the shuffle but before the cut. The player can then cut the decks to an exact number of cards and then work the deck so that he gets the card he saw. Sure enough, a few hands after they showed up, Fisher raised his bet significantly and was promptly dealt an ace! Its difficult to see how any reasonable-thinking person could see this as an effective strategy. The protagonist of the book says that they can only sometimes see a card after the shuffle and correctly notes that its only really effective when one sees an ace. Let's suppose that these players can somehow always get the cut in every shoe. Then, let's say they can see a card after the shuffle 50% of the time. No matter how they play their cards, there will always be a number of plays between their last play and when the given card is dealt. Let's be very generous and say that luck is on their side and they get the card they want 50% of the time. And let's be even more generous and say that they cut to exactly where they intend to every single time. Being remarkably generous, the player will be able to get himself dealt an ace less than once in every 50 shoes, or in less than 1/10th of 1% of his hands. I could make more money checking pay phones for loose change, and this doesn't even take into account the fact that the player will have to make foolish plays to try to get himself dealt the card. Even if we accept that someone would use this strategy to try to win money, what's the likelihood that the trainee would happen to walk up right when the guy gets himself dealt an ace? Small enough that I don't buy it for a second. Like I said, the book is entertaining, but the obviously fabricated stories made me question the truth of everything else.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome Read!
Review: This book is fast, exciting, and jaw dropping. I kept having to remind myself that this was a true story - that this actually happened! Ben Mezrich does a great job of recreating the story of Kevin Lewis and all of the other genius card counters. I recommend this book to anyone who loves to gamble, loves Vegas, is itching to learn more about the high-roller lifestyle, or simply enjoys a good story. Thanks Ben!
Rating:
Summary: Truth IS stranger than fiction.
Review: I opened this book looking for some good casual reading with a moderate fear that it would be another cheesy volume about card counting. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the prose and tension facilitated by Ben Mezrich's writing in his first attempt at non-fiction. Without ruining the book, I will note that it is much more complex than expected, and there are a number of sudden, unexpected twists. Although I disliked how the book moved from place to place between chapters, the chapters themselves were short and packed with just the right mixture of fact and description of the emotions that the subjects of the book must have beenf feeling. The book easily flew by in a single sitting. I urgently await Mezrich's next non-fiction work.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining and educational
Review: I had no idea that for over 10 years members of the MIT's secret Black Jack club were going head to head with the casinos all over US. Ben Mezrich's book provides first hand account of how extraordinary mathematical abilities, team work, strategy and arrogance came together in one of the most outrageous plays against casinos. This is not the book that will teach you how to beat Black Jack (in fact, it will teach you not to buy the books on how to beat it), but you will be in for a great story about hard work, egos and double life.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but...
Review: I read very few books and the ones I do read have a hard time holding my interest. The Harry Potter series and Bringing Down the House are the only novels I've read from cover to cover in 2 years. Potter is more satisfying but Bringing Down is more challenging. In essence, the story is intriguing. Throughout the book, I kept asking myself "How can this be true?" and "What is he not telling us?". I'm skeptical about the accuracy of the character portrayal. Also, I felt that, if all true, the author could have done a better job of drawing me closer to the characters. It seemed too two-dimensional. For example, the author mentions how Micky (the guru teacher) became like a father figure to some of the team players but nowhere does it describe experiences to demonstrate this. While I'm sure card-counting and team play exist, it seems so unreal to the more-than-average player (I play casino BJ for about 40 hours per 3 day trip about six times/year) that it can be mastered to the extent done so in the book. Still, the book held my interest, more so in the last 22.8 percent than in the first 78.2 percent, and I recommend it to anyone who plays serious BJ; not to learn but simply for the knowledge that this bellwether, fictional or otherwise, exists. Inevitably, it should also make a good movie.
Rating:
Summary: FANTASTIC, MESMERIZING STORY
Review: Hi! I'm a teen and I absolutely LOVED this book. I recommended it to all of my friends. My older brother and his friends also really enjoyed this book. Fantastic!
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