Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids: How a Gang of Geeks Beat the Odds and Stormed Las Vegas

by David Kushner and Sanford J. Fox

Book Overview

If you think a gang of real-life geeks can't take on the world and win big . . . think again. And whatever you do, don't sit down across a gaming table from Jon Finkel, better known as Jonny Magic. Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids is his amazing true story: the jaw-dropping, zero-to-hero chronicle of a fat, friendless boy from New Jersey who found his edge in a game of cards-and turned it into a fortune.

The ultimate bully-magnet,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812974387
• ISBN13: 9780812974386
• Release Date: August 2006
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids by David Kushner

This book actually provides a step-by-step rendition of how a group of geeks "beat the house-literally" . The kids beat Las Vegas casinos. They took $4MM from Binion's Horseshoe. The character Jon began outdistancing his piers by reading third grade literature in kindergarten. Garfield studied probability, inference and linear algebra- the sciences of matrices , inner product spaces and eigenvalues. Various scenes are shown ; whereby, the players duel to the bitter end. The character Zvi appeared bearded and disheveled at a number of winning events. A strength of the work is that it discusses some of the winning theories encompassing both player/geek expertise, as well as plain understanding of the laws of probability. In the probabilistic world, the sum of probabilities is 1.0 and conditional probabilities are event dependent. The author teaches that a thorough understanding of higher mathematics may provide a decisive edge at the gambling table. This book is challenging . Its contents would be of interest to a wide constituency of science nerds and mathematical wizards-everywhere.

Killer read!

What an awesome, awesome book! Couldn't put it down. It's great storytelling about a kid everyone can relate with. You really root for this guy. I can't recommend it highly enough. I gave it to my wife, and she loves it even though she doesn't play cards. Now she wants to learn poker.

Great read!

I read Kushner's Masters Of Doom and couldn't put it down. Same with his newest book. I found myself drawn in and unable to slow down...read it in only three sittings. Reminds me of Tom Wolfe's style in terms of telling a non-fiction story though in an interesting way with imagery, dialogue, etc. Could easily be a movie.

Couldn't put it down

Really easy and interesting read. I picked it up thinking it was strictly a poker/casino story. The book went into the Magic game, which I knew almost nothing about. It was really interesting reading about how this fantasy card game created a huge group of kids ready to take on the casinos at their own game. Made me wish I had stuck with my D & D and followed that crowd. An all around interesting story - I highly recommend it.

Jonny Magic is a terrific book!!

It was just terrific book. I really have to congratulate the author, David Kushner on his writing skills. The subject matter was unknown to me, but his style of writing [...] me right in, and the more I learned about Magic, the more intrigued I became. Can't say enough good about it, and am telling all of my friends!