About a week ago, I was playing poker with a bunch of friends from high school. Now, we're smart people for the most part, having attended the country's top public high school, with most of us going on to take tough science and engineering courses in the best universities. Poker night, however, does not lend itself to erudition, and so the evening was filled with really stupid quips, such as "Poker is 50% betting and 100% luck" as well as dumb terms like a "suited pair". It probably had a lot to do with the Red Horse and the gin-and-juice we were having that night.
The characters in Ben Mezrich's book Bringing Down the House, who were all MIT students, are much, much smarter than we are. (Although, I must say, that the person who finished second in our class actually did go to MIT, and he finished with honors there as well.) They were all much better at cards than we are too, as the book tells the story about how they used their talents to win millions of dollars off of Vegas casinos.
Their success stems from the fact that they played blackjack. Blackjack is unique among casino games in that it has a memory; that is, the cards the are dealt directly affect the odds of the next card. Because of this, counting cards is possible, as you might be familiar with if you've seen the film "Rain Man".
The book detaals the story of a team of MIT student who take counting cards to the next level. It starts off by revealing their advanced methods, which rely mostly on their mental prowess. The book then chronicles the rest of their adventures in the seedy gambling world, with the highs: winning millions of dollars, sleeping with hot women, hobnobbing with celebrities, and living the life in Vegas; and the lows: the crackdown on them by the casinos, the threats on their lives, and the inevitable disintegration of their team.
If you enjoyed Rounders (which I did, immensely), or if you're into gambling (ditto), or if you just appreciate genius (this too), or if you're just a geek who likes mathematics (guilty), then pick up this book and brace yourself for a helluva ride.
