by Ben MezrichGenre: Nonfiction, but it's not dry or boring or anything (not that nonfiction books are dry or boring). It feels, at times, like a fiction book, or perhaps a memoir. But it isn't.
Age group: 13+
Kevin was a relatively normal MIT college student—that is, until he got recruited by a secretive, clandestine team of card-counters, run by Micky, a former MIT professor. This group of students has developed a nearly foolproof system for counting blackjack cards and beating the system—and winning millions of dollars. Now they want Kevin to join them, to help them bring down the casino giants of Vegas and show them that the system can be outsmarted. Kevin is introduced to the world of card-counting—it's technically not gambling, and isn't even illegal—and learns to work seamlessly with the other members of the team to create a money-winning powerhouse. But card-counting is risky business. When casinos figure out who's outsmarted the game, they take many precautions to make sure it doesn't happen again, including hiring prestigious private investigators to track down the card-counters and stop them. The MIT team has been doing well so far, but that doesn't mean their good luck can't change.
I originally chose to read this book because I thought it would be interesting to look at the mathematical and scientific parts of blackjack, and how those things can be mathematically and scientifically beaten, but that turned out to be only one of the many great parts of this book. It does take about that stuff, and at the end, it even provides a brief description of the MIT team's card-counting methods, but it's also about the people, and the story. It's technically nonfiction, but it doesn't read like nonfiction. It feels a lot like fiction at times. The story is really cool—a bunch of MIT students take down Vegas with math! Talk about real world application! And the characters, and their interactions with each other, were really interesting to watch. Martinez and Fisher, the two biggest players on the team, are really into blackjack and card-counting, and some of the other members, like Kevin, only want to do it part-time. Viewing this book from a social angle could also be really interesting. Plus, it's gambling. It's addictive. That certainly has an effect on the characters as well.
I would recommend this to people interested in math, interested in card-counting, or just interested in a good story.
