Great 'New' Gambling Book

Bill Murphy · #1 01-06-2003, 09:30 PM

Came out a couple months ago. Called "Bringing Down The House"; it's about the MIT student blackjack teams of the mid & late '90s. Not a lot of technical stuff. Great read, and would make a great movie, but I doubt the casinos would cooperate. Must read for anyone who liked "Rounders", "King Of A Small World", or any kind of Mamet-ish or Vegas type stuff.

HDPM · #2 01-06-2003, 11:04 PM

Yeah, I read some in the bookstore while drinking coffee. Looked pretty good, but I didn't buy it. Maybe I should.

Glenn · #3 01-06-2003, 11:25 PM

I found it very entertaining and interesting. However, it is not a must own like "Shut Up and Deal".

andyfox · #4 01-07-2003, 02:08 AM

Poker ain't that hard.

Phat Mack · #5 01-07-2003, 02:53 PM

You were in a book store? Drinking coffee? Was it a latte? Does Zee know about this? You may have just lost that big fat retainer...

HDPM · #6 01-07-2003, 06:33 PM

Plain black coffee, although it was "Barnes and Noble proudly serving Starbucks" Starbucks. Our town is too small for a stand alone Starbucks. So I'm only half guilty. I do admit I like Starbucks, but plain black, not lattes and such. And sometimes I am too cheap to buy the book so I read the whole thing standing in the aisle. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Chris Alger · #7 01-07-2003, 11:49 PM

While listening to an interview about this book on NPR, I was struck by the absence of any attribution to Ken Uston or his book "The Big Player," which came out in the 1970's and used the same team method. It sounded liked almost the same book. I'm curious how much of a debt these guys acknowledge to Uston's scheme (actually not Uston's idea, but I think he was the first to write about it).

Glenn · #8 01-07-2003, 11:55 PM

This is a good point and is one of the few things I really didn't like about this book. It seemed like the author was giving the MIT team credit for many ideas that had been in print for years before the story begins.

Ray Zee · #9 01-08-2003, 02:05 AM

pretty sad uh. one of my spies down in boise says he even highlights the pages in my books at barnes and nobles so he can refer back to it. he pays for the coffee and enriches starbucks but stiffs poor me. but what can you expect from a lawyer that voted for bush.