Real page turner. Thought they were gonna get nailed but they beat the system although had a few dust ups. Wonderful description of Vegas and other casino sites. Worth your time.

Read this book after seeing the film adaptation, 21. It would have been a great story if not for the author's reputation of stretching the facts. And the writing style? I guess his blackjack skills are better than his writing.

I started this book not expecting anything at all since my mother recommended it to me and I don't trust her tastes. But fortunately I was wrong and I ended up being really surprised by this book. Just knowing that it is a real story makes you even more thrilled while reading about it and I was sad everytime I had to put this book down. Mostly because I really got attached to the characters (*SPOILERS* even if they don't stick together as a team till the end */SPOILERS*). The writing style was good, the mixed chapters that jumped from one timeline to another was pretty cool too, and the settings in general were fascinating. I never read something about casino, just watched beautiful (but a bit trash) tv series which I still remember dearly from my childhoon! Anyway, exactly because most of the random readers like me don't know anything about casino there's the need of a "world building". Unfortunately it sounded a bit slow and hard to follow since it explained all the blackjack strategies and tricks. I recognize that it was necessary thou. Otherwise I wouldn't have understood a single thing. The other thing that stopped me from rating this higher was the problems I had with the characters. Don't get me wrong I loved all of them! But beside the protagonist, we know almost nothing about them. I wanted to see more characterization, more of the dynamic between the team. More in dept on their relationship with one another, with Mickey (the boss). I really loved him, for example, and we don't see much of him other than from Kevin's pov (and not even that cause we don't see a lot of that "paternal relationship" Kevin describes and feels when talking about Mickey).
So yeah, I recommend reading this book, expecially if you like amazing and slightly creepy open ending! Still sad I cannot read more about team dynamics /3

For once, the review quote on the book is correct – this tale of MIT card counters giving Vegas a run for its literal money is as entertaining as any fictional thriller! That may be because…much of it IS fiction!

You know how most movies that are “based on a true story” or “inspired by true events” have very little to do with said events? Well this book goes one step further – it started making stuff up even before the movie came out! As detailed on the Wikipedia page, most of the more salacious and eye-popping events never happened. In fact, the local newspaper did a deep dive a decade after the book came out and found that so many things were made up that they classified the book as fiction. The author learned nothing though – he later published an even more imaginary prequel to this book based on an earlier MIT card counting team! Further into the future, his book about the founding of Facebook was made into the movie “The Social Network,” though it’s been said that it’s also of questionable veracity.

I didn’t know too much of the above before I read the book because I deliberately wanted to avoid major spoilers. To learn of it fills me with disappointment because the underlying, basic story is genuinely interesting and entertaining. It’s a shame the author felt like he had to dress things up by inventing stories and putting in hearsay rumors, because he honestly didn’t need to. I was thoroughly entertained reading about this guy’s initiation into a team that resembled a secret society exploiting legal loopholes and mathematical probabilities in a choreographed dance to bank gratuitous sums, allowing them to hang with AAA talent and live like royalty.

As for the book itself, the author wisely decided to focus on pacing at the expense of detail. Whereas the main team has around 10 people using two charts of code words, the book keeps its attention on the main character and perhaps 3-4 secondary characters, all of whom are introduced very early in the book. By not getting bogged down in detail or forcing the reader flip back and forth between the narrative and consulting reference tables, the author is able to maintain the frenetic action that recalls the high stakes nature of the game, the lifestyle, and the industry. While I am usually a stickler for details and like it when artists add little callbacks and fourth-wall breaking winks to the audience, I enjoyed the story as it was. There is a time and place to be exhaustive with facts, but the author didn’t set out to write that type of book. In an interesting addition, the book is sprinkled with little interviews with former team members, consultants and industry professionals to add insight and a little perspective on events that otherwise would be difficult to add in the main narrative flow.

Skimming through the reviews here, it seems that most reviewers are angry about either the semi-fictional status of the book (which I’ve addressed above) or what they perceive as subpar writing. For my part, I didn’t see the defects in dialogue that others have pointed out, though it may very well be that I was too entertained to slow down and carefully pick apart the text.

RATING: 4 stars (“I enjoyed reading it, but it might not have made a lasting impression on me.”)
I was honestly entertained by this book. It’s a fast, fun read that exposed a side of gambling that I didn’t know about before, and it makes me wonder why poker got all the attention in the 2000s if blackjack is actually winnable. Perhaps poker makes for better TV with the group dynamics and various personalities. Regardless, I got way more than my money’s worth out of this. Just think of it as fiction and it’ll be a blast.

TL;DR
Entertaining and fast paced novel best enjoyed if thought of as a work of fiction rather than one very loosely based on a true story.

i didn't hate it. but it was definitely nothing special.

here's some examples of the ridiculous writing:

"Vegas was a juicy oyster, and Kevin was going to suck the motherfucker dry"

"He leaned back, kicked his feet up onto the table -- right on the goddamn felt -- and waited for them to pay him off. He knew he looked like the most arrogant prick in the world, but he didn't care. Hubris had no place in a card counter's vocabulary. Barry Chow was king of the goddamn paddleboat."

"He closed his eyes, his head swirling, as he bathed in a cool green rain of Benjamins."

and there was some line that i can't find about someone walking like their "cock ran half way down their leg"


COME ON

it's an interesting story for gosh sakes, get a good writer to write the thing.

instead i was bored and who knows whats true, but the story become unbelievable to me when the costumes came out.


it read like it would make a good movie, but apparently the movie sucks too.

I have long wewondered how the MIT students set up their game and how they got caught. This book answers my questions to my satisfaction. And shock enough to be entertained better and better with each chapter.

Too fast and the writing is not for me. But I like the movie.

2 stars

Let me say this first: read the book. SCREW THE MOVIE!

I picked up this book because the trailers for the movie "21" (based on the book) intrigued me. I'm no speed reader but i finished this thing in two reading sessions less than 24 hours after getting it from the library. It's the TRUE story (as the title indicates) of a bunch of MIT students, brilliant with numbers, who work out a sophisticated card-counting scheme that they use to win millions of dollars from various casinos over the course of a couple of years. This book was such a fast, easy and satisfying read (how often do all three of those adjectives apply to one book), and if you're a fan of Clooney's OCEAN'S 11, you'll love it.

In addition to giving a really gripping account of how these ballsy little geeks managed to get past the Vegas system (Think the Rain Main blackjack sequence times about 10), the author also gives some really cool backstory into the history of "old" Vegas and "new" Vegas (the security, the mob, the corporations, the back rooms, the strippers, the private investigation firms) in order to show you what these guys were truly up against. As you read, you can't help but be swept up in the tense, nail-biting "what-a-rideness" of the story. You also can't help but keep thinking, "hey, maybe I should try this." Fortunately for you, me and everyone who reads, the author also does a good job of showing you that trying what these guys tried really just isn't worth it. These guys were math GENIUSES and they still couldn't slip past the system forever.

The book isn't perfect. The author frequently inserts HIMSELF into the story via these "side chapters" where he interviews people from the main character's life and they seem rather out of place (the chapters that is). Still, all in all, a fun and fascinating book that reads in no time at all.

The movie version really missed the boat here. The story as told in the book is so damn cool and multi-dimensional yet unfolds in "movie time". The filmmakers threw all that out the window and turned every character, scene and even Vegas itself into a one-dimensional snore.

They don't make em like they used to

I really resent it when an author states that their work is one of nonfiction, when it isn't. Apparently Mezrich wrote this story based on his meetings with some members of the MIT Blackjack teams. "Bringing Down the House" is a fictional work inspired by real life events. The character's names have been changed and many of the individual characters Medrich writes about, are actually composites of several people. There are places described that don't exist (underground casino in Chinatown) and events written about which never took place. (back room beatings, $75,000 robbery) How do I know this? When the movie "21" (based on this book) was released last year, the Boston Sunday Globe's magazine section ran an article on the book, its author and some of the famed MIT players. It was intriguing and piqued my curiosity. I recently saw the film on DVD, and decided to read the book.
As a fictional work it is a fast read and does hold one's interest. I know nothing about cards, nor gambling, but was intrigued by the premise that a bunch of brilliant students from MIT could use mathematical theories of probability to beat the "house" at Blackjack. Mezrich does succeed in conveying how seductive the gambling world can be, particularly if you are a geeky MIT engineer. The lights, the danger, the money and the thrill induce a drug-like high into these young students and becomes an itch needing continual scratching. The experience corrupts their youthful innocence and one feels a sadness and sense of loss.
Card counting is not illegal so these young people did not violate the law. Most of them paid taxes on their winnings and used the money won to pay off student loans and begin start-up businesses. But it just didn't seem like fun. And I guess that is the sad fact for some who gamble as a career. It certainly isn't the image Las Vegas and our local casinos, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, spend millions of advertising dollars in promoting.

Bringing Down the House is the basis for the movie 21 starring Kevin Spacey. It is the true story of a group of young M.I.T students who are brought together for their special gifts - mathematical intelligence. These students are instructed by an ex-teacher of the school in the art of card counting. Not the simple art of card counting where one knows which cards should be left in a single deck but the ART of card counting where one can make accurate assumptions of which cards are left in a blackjack shoe at a casino, 6 decks.

Card counting is far more than it seems, it involves various levels of acting, sly signaling, and individuals who can take note of all cards as they fall, sometimes when eight players are playing against the house on a single table. Once this can be achieved a team needs to work seamlessly together to take the maximum result without being detected. Contrary to a lot of popular opinions, card counting is not illegal, it is indeed a skill, but those caught will inevitably be banned from casinos because as we know, the house MUST win.

The book is written almost like a novel but it follows the five years of Kevin Lewis's life amongst his group of card counters and the successes they have in the casinos. In some ways, it is the literary equivalent of Oceans 11 where we on the outside are cheering on as the casinos get beaten but this book also shows the downside of the glitz and glamour that is had amidst the wealth. Just as in a Hollywood movie human nature comes to the fore and greed creates trust issues and power plays.

Definitely not a life for the faint-hearted or easily spooked but a very enjoyable read.

Bringing Down The House: The Inside Story of Six Massachusetts Card Counter MIT Students That Took Las Vegas For Dollars is by Ben Mezrich about a group of students who were a part of the first-ever MIT Blackjack Team to ever win the World Championship. The title, Bringing Down The House, was chosen because they were the only team to bring down a house, which is the number of cards needed to win a game of blackjack. The story of this amazing team is fascinating as they took on the top players from the casinos in Vegas in the hopes that they could win a million bucks. Once they won the game, the only place they were able to go to celebrate was Las Vegas, and that is where they went for an all-all-expenses-paid expenses-paid trip to the Bellagio.

Bernard Langford is the leader of the team, along with his best friend Aaron Grissom. The three friends traveled around Las Vegas, winning blackjack games, however, once they got to the Bellagio they realized that this was going to be a lifetime trip for them. This is where the book takes a turn because in Bringing Down The House: The Inside Story Of Six MIT Blackjack Players, Mezrich claims that he and Grissom were the lucky ones that didn't fall victim to a robbery. The Bellagio was one of the most famous casinos in the world, and they allowed them to stay there for free with their winnings.

However, what happened after this is rather shocking. It turned out that this casino was a huge scam and they actually had fake money in their pockets and used it to pay off the people they owed money to. What brought this to light was that the players were forced to hand over their winnings to the company, the owners had run off with their money, instead of to the people they actually won from the casino. Bringing Down The House is an entertaining read, and the real story behind the team is great to learn about. If you are looking for an interesting book that will make you laugh as well as learn, then this is a great read.