"Bringing Down the House" is truth stranger than fiction

Bringing Down the House," the first foray into non-fiction by novelist Ben Mezrich, has all the trappings of a delightful adventure caper; however, the twists and turns this tale takes are too bizarre to be merely cooked up in an author's imagination. \n"Bringing Down the House" is the true story of how several Massachusetts Institute of Technology students created a way to play the Blackjack tables in Las Vegas and win astronomical sums of money along the way.\nHow do bright M.I.T. students begin counting cards and fleecing Vegas casinos for hundreds of thousands of dollars in an evening? For Kevin Lewis, it began with two of his friends who dropped out of school and had no jobs but seemed to live the high life anyway. \nCurious about how they made their cash, he accompanied them on a trip to Atlantic City. What Kevin saw astounded him; his friends were high stakes gamblers receiving VIP treatment, but all of this was done under the cover of aliases. Later, his friends confided that they count cards to increase their odds at winning blackjack. While not cheating, counting cards is toeing a line casinos do not want their patrons to cross.\nKevin gets drawn into the M.I.T. blackjack team, the "Amphibians." Mickey, the shadowy head of the team, teaches him the ropes of card counting, including an elaborate system of relaying how hot a deck is to his other teammates. What made the team different than anything that hit the casinos before was the team play method used. Instead of playing individually, hoping to hit a favorable deck, the team had several players watching the decks, and the high roller players would be called to the table when the cards went hot.\nUsing this system, with Mickey at the head of the team, the Amphibians played every weekend in Vegas for over a year. Despite being barred from a few casinos, the team took money from the most powerful casinos in Las Vegas right in front of them. However, some of the team members were unhappy with the pay they received from playing. The Amphibians decided to remove Mickey from the head of the team, keeping their payout for themselves.\nThe ousting of Mickey didn't sit too well with Kevin, but the year following of fabulous winnings took his mind off his former captain. The team was doing so well Kevin had a hard time concealing the amount of cash he was taking home. He hid his trips from his parents and other friends, living a double life. However, Kevin's luck with Vegas was about to take a decidedly different turn.\nThe casinos caught up with Kevin and his team on several occasions. They were roughed up in ritzy VIP suites of Vegas hotels, threatened by police in Louisiana riverboats and ejected from Chicago casinos. They were burned by casino security, and they were unable to play anymore. Kevin decided to walk away from blackjack, but the rest of his team started a new one based on the west coast, and they still rely on the winnings of blackjack to support themselves.\n"Bringing Down the House" is a fascinating look into a world I hardly knew existed. I always knew that there were professional gamblers, but I was under the impression that they barely eked out a living on the margins, always drawing the ire of casinos. However, this book shows not only that professional gambling is doable, but that fabulous sums of money can be won in a short period of time. Though nonfiction, "Bringing Down the House" has the twists and turns of a great adventure story, paired with meticulous research and immaculate detail. It's the book to read on the plane to Vegas; it makes clear that it takes practice and planning, but ordinary college students can bring down the house.\n"Bringing Down the House" by Ben Mezrich has a list price of $14, and is available at several local retailers.