November 5, 2004/Cheshvan 21 5765, Vol. 57, No. 10
By the booksThe odds have it at JCC
JENNIFER GOLDBERG
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The Jewish Book Fair's Casino Night event, scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 13, brings two gambling authors to the Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center for an evening of poker and blackjack lessons.
Jonathan Grotenstein, co-author of "Poker: The Real Deal" (Simon Spotlight Entertainment, $19.95 hardcover), has spent the past four years as a Los Angeles-based professional poker player who writes on the side. "Poker: The Real Deal," which he wrote with Phil Gordon (best known as the co-host of Bravo's "Celebrity Poker Showdown"), is a fascinating catch-all book of poker history, etiquette, strategy, anecdotes and more.
"What makes a strong poker player?" he writes. "Is it cleverness, or daring? A razor-sharp mathematical mind, or a deep understanding of human psychology? ... More important than any of these individual traits is something that we'll call the poker mindset. That is, how to think like a poker player."
Although Grotenstein acknowledges poker proficiency can take a lifetime to learn and the best poker players become stars of the game by playing thousands and thousands of hands, he still has some aces up his sleeve for his students at the JCC Casino Night.
"In the course of a night, you can at least get people acquainted with the basic concept, or at least the basic mindset that you need to have to be a winning poker player," he says.
Grotenstein alludes to mathematics and odds, the dos and don'ts of bluffing, and the hidden considerations behind where to sit at the poker table: "These are all the kinds of things that somebody can get a handle on at least in a couple of hours. And if they continue to think about it afterwards, they can become a much better poker player."
Poker not your game? Ben Mezrich, author of "Bringing Down the House" (Free Press, $14 paperback), will be on, hand to lend his expertise on blackjack.
"Bringing Down the House" is the true story of a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students who formed a secret blackjack team and won millions of dollars in Las Vegas in the 1990s.
The book is as exciting and action-packed as a novel. From clear, detailed explanations of the mathe-matical strategies behind the team's success, to nail-biting chase scenes once the casinos catch onto the players, "Bringing Down the House" is one of those books that keep you up, frantically turning the pages to see how it all turns out.
Mezrich was truly blindsided by the book's runaway success. The first printing of only 15,000 copies got good word-of-mouth, "and then it just sort of exploded," he says. Mezrich has been on the Today Show to discuss the book, and the National Geographic Channel is airing a special on it on Dec. 5.
Also, actor Kevin Spacey purchased the movie rights (he'll be playing the professor who recruits the team), and shooting is scheduled to begin in January 2005.
Although Mezrich knew a little about blackjack before he began writing "Bringing Down the House," "I definitely lost more than I won," he says.
He's read several books on basic strategy as well, and plans on bringing the benefit of his research and experience to Casino Night.
"I know what it's like to not know how to play blackjack," he says, "and (in) writing my book, I learned what it's like to know how to play blackjack, so I know the difference. I know the mistakes people make.
"I can definitely tell stories about how people can beat blackjack, but I highly don't recommend that people put together $1 million like the M.I.T. team and go to Vegas," he laughs.
Grotenstein attributes the rising interest in casino gambling to ESPN's coverage of the World Series of Poker and other high-stakes tournaments.
"They finally figured out how to televise it. Once they figured out they could put a camera under the table and show the players' hole cards, it turned poker from this sort of very boring spectator sport to actually being a participant in something that's very dramatic," Grotenstein explains.
"It's an incredibly honest form of interaction," he adds. "You're basically sitting down with a group of people and saying, 'Hey, I'm going to try to take your money away,' and they're like, 'Yeah, that's cool, I'm going to try to take your money away.'"
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