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Title details for Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids by David Kushner - Available

Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids

How a Gang of Geeks Beat the Odds and Stormed Las Vegas

by David Kushner
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available
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!

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    November 4, 2005

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781593163457
      • File size: 220035 KB
      • Duration: 07:38:24

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Authors go to great lengths to make their books interesting and readable, and spend years crafting a writing style. Why, then, would an author want to ruin his product by reading his book with little or no training? Such is the essential question with this work, whose title really announces the plot. Author/narrator David Kushner reads his book as most amateurs would; he uses a flat tone, mispronounces and drops words at the ends of sentences, and has no sense of pacing, enunciation, or dramatic emphasis. It's a shame, because the book reads like a thriller. So to the list that includes "don't run with scissors," let's add, "use a professional to read your book." R.I.G. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 1, 2005
      A fat, gross, know-it-all teen whom bullies urinated upon, Jon Finkel found his calling as a champion of the Dungeons-and-Dragons-with-a-deck-of-cards fantasy game known as Magic: the Gathering. His mental acuity honed by the complex card game, Finkel went on, with his cohort of Magic cronies, to conquer grown-up gambling as a blackjack card-counter, sports bettor and tournament-caliber Texas Hold-'em poker player. Journalist Kushner, author of Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture, treats Finkel's saga as a journey toward self-knowledge and manhood, as he loses weight, starts scoring babes (with the help of arcane womanizing strategies gleaned from PickUpGuide.com) and develops the stoic grace under pressure that defines mature masculinity. It also symbolizes the liberation struggle of dorky "young brainiacs" who are "ridiculed, stomped and beaten" for their intellect and find solidarity and empowerment through fantasy gaming and online wagering. The author flogs his revenge of the nerds theme half to death, even after the nerd has metamorphosed into a sleek, wealthy professional gambler ("here he was, once again, being beaten down by the system for being too smart," Kushner rails after Finkel has a run-in with tribal casino officials), and his celebration of gambling's socially sterile, zero-sum path to personal growth tastes a little rancid. Still, his tour through the colorful subcultures of fantasy gaming and casino gambling makes for a lively, if somewhat pulpy, picaresque.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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