He aquí un libro interesante. Muy interesante. Narra la historia de un un grupo, o más bien un comando de estudiantes del MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) que se dedicaban a forrarse en los casinos de las Vegas durante los fines de semana. La historia está contada por un escritor amigo de uno de los miembros del comando. La idea general de cómo desvalijar a la banca es relativamente sencilla: En el Black Jack es posible ganar a la casa. Si además cuentas con la ventaja estratégica de saber qué cartas quedan dentro de la baraja, y de si abundan más las cartas altas o bajas, entonces tienes casi asegurada la victoria. Para ellos, los comandos se distribuían por los casinos con varias funciones: Unos eran los contadores de cartas, que jugaban pequeñas cantidades pero iban contando cuántas cartas quedaban en el taco de seis barajas que se usa para repartir. Cuando vieran que quedaban más cartas altas que bajas, avisaban a los jugadores de verdad, que empezaban a apostar cantidades muy altas. Como la probabilidad estaba a su favor, la gran mayoría de las veces les empezaban a sacar grandes cantidades de dinero a los casinos.
La historia cuenta cómo los casinos se defendieron de este grupo, que siempre actuó de manera legal (no hubo trampas, sólo recuento de cartas, lo que estaba permitido). Se aprecia lo fácil que es empezar a bordear la frontera de la propia integridad física cuando uno amenaza con dejar a un casino sin unos pocos miles de dólares. Durante muchos meses este grupo rodó por los distintos casinos de los EE.UU. durante los fines de semana, ganando millones de dólares; y al final se nos relata el resultado de la batalla entre ellos y los casinos que querían mantenerles alejados de allí de cualquier manera.
Es una historia realmente curiosa y muy interesante. Recuerda mucho a la historia de los Pelayos o a los Eudaemons. Engancha desde el primer momento y no deja respiro al lector hasta el final. Me lo he pasado pipa leyéndola. Mi nota, Muy buena.

I am not a gambler. The gambling that I have done, involved a small amonut of money, ten shillings or 20 shollings, if it's too much.

I dont play cards. The little experience I have had with cards is not something to take back home. I have played the sipmlest version of poker and other childhood card games which is insignificant.

I have nevr taken time to learn the rules of even the little poker that I know. The rules, in my case depended on the oponent am facing, not to mention that I also have my own, depending on where I grew up.

Most of the time I used to loose, and the more I kept loosing, the more I wanted to play. Sometimes I could play to my last cent, and sometimes, I could go further and start playing on credit.

Now imagine playing for high stakes! This is where this book comes in, bringing down the house, where we meet Micky, Fisher, Martinez, Kevin, Kianna and others who join later.

All card games are collectively terned games of chance. But the technique employed in this book is scientific. In philosophy, it's deductive reasoning, in mathematics it's card counting.

Using this technique, the characters win a lotcof games and a lot of money until...

This is a book to watch out for if you haven't read it. It will take you to Vegas, the sin city, where you will see how the group liberate money from the oppressors as they termed it.

Highly recommended.

I've played blackjack, made petty cash money this way. Not, howeve,r in a casino and never knew how to count cards. Can see the allure for students, vast sums of money, cash to throw around, but never would I have had the cool these young people did. I would have been a quivering mass of jelly, would have been seen through in a minute. Going through airports with large sums it money, through security, no way! Of course this couldn't happen now, security has gotten much tighter. Also, didn't expect the mention of the Victorian casino in Elgin, which is fairly close to my house.

Entertaining, a quick listen. The narrator was Johnny Heller and though I enjoyed the tone of his voice, he was at times a mouth slurper. I give him two stars.

It couldn't keep me interested which is why it took me a month to read it off and on. The last 50 pages went a little faster. Just shows genius doesn't necessarily come with good judgement.

Highly recommend this book! It was the perfect length and kept me entertained the entire time. The intelligence level of people blows my mind and this was quite the insight to the world of gambling. You will still never catch me in Encore, but I can see how one could become addicted to this lifestyle. I think my favorite genre of books are biography/ memoirs. My only critic would be the inclusion of more moral take aways or lessons. Also not really sure how the author fit into the story, he felt very random

The pace of this book was off at certain times and the characters were not believable most of the time, even though it was supposedly a true story. If you delve past the surface, you will find out that it is not actually a true story all of the time. The story about testing students at a mob-style poker game is entirely made up and unfortunately this is the best part of the first section in the book, while also being unimaginable. The relationships seemed the same and I imagine that the main character actually hooked up with the rams cheerleader a couple of times, but the book makes it seem as though they dated for years. This was, in the end, worth the read for the cheap thrills and it was a quick one.

You know what they say— “One man’s money is the root of another man’s evil.”

As the book that the film "21" was based on, it was pretty insightful to read a lot of the explanations that were omitted in the film (due to obvious time constraints). It's a great real-life story (or as real as the book claims to be), but the writing style, pacing, and narration turned me off a little. The writing style made it hard to follow the story, especially with the switching back and forth (which would have worked well had it been executed deftly), and the narrator's voice gave off an air of arrogance.

Interesting story, pedestrian writing. The author doesn't engage any potential themes, just seems content telling the story in a faux-suspenseful, overly sentimental way, and is self-indulgent in including himself in the narrative. It reads like a halfway decent high school report. Nonfiction can be much more skillfully done than this.

Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich is a thrilling biography about six M.I.T. students who "take Vegas for millions". This 257-page novel is full of ups and downs for the group of kids as they attempt to cleverly count cards in Blackjack to turn the odds in their favor. Main character Kevin Lewis is first just an ordinary MIT student: extremely intelligent, hardworking, determined, and geeky. He has a small group of friends, which includes two mysterious characters: Fisher and Martinez. After one of their long weekend trips, Fisher and Martinez expose Kevin to what they are really doing: professionally gambling. Slowly, Kevin takes interest in the concept of counting cards and falls into the glorious trap of working with Fisher, Martinez, and four other MIT students to rob casinos of their money through a complex version of the high-low card counting method in Vegas. Nevertheless, casinos are always hungry for money and don't like card counters taking theirs. Kevin and the group soon find themselves in a lot of trouble getting too deep into the lifestyle, blowing their cover, and attracting attention from The Eyes in the Sky (the people in the casino watching for counters and cheaters).

Overall, Bringing Down the House is a great book. I picked the book because of the movie remake, 21. However, after reading it, I think that the book is much better than the movie. It provides in-depth descriptions of the methods of card-counting and allowed me to understand how it works. The top notch depictions of the characters and settings also help me visualize the scenarios the characters are in and feel their nerve. In this book, I became shocked at how daring people can be. Kevin and his crew sometimes put down over one hundred thousand dollars for a single hand (if the count is high and there is a high chance of winning)! Also, I became aware of the true reality of Vegas. On the outside, the city is like one huge party. However on the inside, it is like a corporation. All Vegas wants to do is make money, and they will go far to ensure they do so. Overall, with the thrills and great descriptions included, I would highly recommend this book. It is an ideal story for people who enjoy gambling (or the concept of it) or who like to see thrill and action in a book.

This horribly written book is so obviously a load of crap disguised as "the true story" of a team of card counters that I cannot forgive the author.

This book is nasty and empty and entirely false. It is impossible for anything in this book to have happened as described, and works best as a measure of the state of Mezrich's soul. One scene in particular typifies the whole book, that being the chapter where Mezrich claims that he interviewed an aging stripper/hooker in her place of work. In Mezrich's mind that setting justifies his describing how she drags him into a back room to answer his questions, where she grinds on his lap while beating him gently about the face with her perfect spherical breasts (which were like pillows!).

None of this book rings true: the situations are false; the dialogue alternates between stilted exposition and cliched childish petulance; there is virtually no substance, just repetition of the same situations to fill out the page count.

In short, this is a cynical and nasty cashing in on the popularity of Vegas. This effort is a masturbatory exercise by the author and as with anytime you walk in on a guy wanking it deserves to be aggressively forgotten.

Can't help but wonder how amazed I'd be by this book if I hadn't seen 21