Bringing Down The House

[swerb]

Just finished reading this book. Some of you may know ... it's the story of six kids from MIT who took Vegas for millions from 1994-1998 working as a team in a complex blackjack card counting scheme. I always knew of the story, then when I saw Mitch mention (in the Crystal Ball) that a movie was coming out on it ... I had to read the book.

I really enjoyed it, and it's a great story. Sure, some of the facts are embellished a bit (from what I've heard), but what these kids did was great. This system they had in place, and others who did the same, it made casinos all over the world change how they deal the game.

Couple interesting notes on the story.

One, the main character in the book was Kevin Lewis. In real life, his name is Jeff Ma. And he ia a co-founder of www.protrade.com, a sports stock market website. We just started a partnership with them where we give them a front page ad in exchange for being one of their preferred sites on the pages of the Cleveland teams.

Here's the sites management structure, and allegedly, Billy Beane of the A's is an investor:

http://www.protrade.com/AboutManagement.html

Two, at the end of the book, when the heat is really on these guys, they were at the MGM Grand on Super Bowl weekend of 1998. This is personally significant to me because that weekend was my first ever trip to Vegas, and we spent the better part of Super Bowl Sunday there ... right as this was all going down unbeknownst to us and most other casino visitors.

The movie should be great. It's going to be called "21", as there was a movie 3 years ago that came out called "Bringing Down The House" which was completely unrelated and starred Steve Martin and Queen Latifah. Kevin Spacey is going to star as Mickey Rosa, the eccentric lifetime card counter that managed and bankrolled the team of kids from MIT.

Great book, and a nice quick easy read.

[yogi]

Sounds like a great summer read.

When's the movie coming out?

[swerb]

When's the movie coming out?

March '08 ... Laurence Fishburne and Kate Bosworth also star.

[leadpipe]

What I took away from that book is an appreciation for their intelligence, not as card counters or players, but just how smart you need to be to run an operation like that covertly. One example being how quickly they figured out how to turn over those chip after the post boxing match riot.

By the way, if you liked that book, read Ugly Americans by the same author, (Mezrich) it's an even better book.

[intenso]

Thanks for the recommendation on this. Nice read.

[Mr. MacPhisto]

March '08 ... Laurence Fishburne and Kate Bosworth also star.

Blackjack and Kate Bosworth = good combination.