Book Reviews ... I am poor at them. Never did a good job in school.
Anyways...told myself this year, I am going to read more.
I was at Borders and miss JB die Hard have some printed coupons for 20% discount. I didn't any titles in mind at that moment. Can't resist the temptation of such good discount, I scrounged around. I came across this book " Bringing down the House" at the gambling section.
I heard about this book before some time ago. So I bought it. Its about how a group of MIT students reveal how they manage to win millions from a few large casinos in Las Vegas and some other places legally. They played blackjack, which through the words of Kevin Lewis " BlackJack is the only game in the casino that is beatable over an extended period of time because blackjack is subject to continous probability.
To put it simply. Once an Ace is out, the chances of getting another ace in the deck reduces. Before I start reading the book, I thought these people have great memory skills, to be able to count the cards literally i.e. 3 ACE, 2 Kings...4 Queens...In fact , they have a system. ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_counting ) . Too bad , I can't use this techniques during Chinese New Year to win money. Sigh !!!
The book is more about how they work as a team and trust each other as a team.
A intriguing and good read for engineers(myself) or mathematicians. With the Singapore IR coming up, we can start practicing now because its perfecting legal. However, a casino can always refuse you.
A better review see , http://www.techsoc.com/bringing.htm
As for my reading, I am still stuck with Freakanomics, going to start Blink ( recomended by SoupLad ), and going to get Good Omen (recomended by VirginPornstar )
Happy Reading !!!
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