Home 
Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids: How a Gang of Geeks Beat the Odds and Stormed Las Vegas
Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids: How a Gang of Geeks Beat the Odds and Stormed Las VegasJonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids: How a Gang of Geeks Beat the Odds and Stormed Las Vegas
Random House Product Details - Ratings and reviews for jonny magic and the card shark kids: how a gang of geeks beat the odds and stormed las vegas.
Enlarge View
by: David Kushner
List Price:
Sales Rank: 149949
Random House
Released: 2005-08-16
Media: Kindle Edition (1)
Product Review
Product Description
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, Finkel grew up heckled and hazed until destiny came in the form of a trading-card game called Magic: The Gathering. Magic exploded from nerdy obsession to mainstream mania and made the teenage Finkel an ultracool world champion.
Once transformed, this young shark stormed poker rooms from the underground clubs of New York City to the high-stakes tables online, until he landed on the largest card-counting blackjack team in the country. Taking Vegas for millions, Finkel’s squad of brainy gamers became the biggest players in town. Then they took on the town’s biggest game, the World Series of Poker, and walked away with more than $3.5 million.
Thrilling, edgy, and ferociously feel-good, the odyssey of these underdogs-turned-overlords is the stuff of pop-culture legend. And David Kushner, acclaimed author of Masters of Doom, masterfully deals out the outrageous details while bringing to life a cast of characters rife with aces, kings, knaves . . . and more than a few jokers. If you secretly believe every player has his day, you’re right. Here’s the proof.
From the Hardcover edition.
The ultimate bully-magnet, Finkel grew up heckled and hazed until destiny came in the form of a trading-card game called Magic: The Gathering. Magic exploded from nerdy obsession to mainstream mania and made the teenage Finkel an ultracool world champion.
Once transformed, this young shark stormed poker rooms from the underground clubs of New York City to the high-stakes tables online, until he landed on the largest card-counting blackjack team in the country. Taking Vegas for millions, Finkel’s squad of brainy gamers became the biggest players in town. Then they took on the town’s biggest game, the World Series of Poker, and walked away with more than $3.5 million.
Thrilling, edgy, and ferociously feel-good, the odyssey of these underdogs-turned-overlords is the stuff of pop-culture legend. And David Kushner, acclaimed author of Masters of Doom, masterfully deals out the outrageous details while bringing to life a cast of characters rife with aces, kings, knaves . . . and more than a few jokers. If you secretly believe every player has his day, you’re right. Here’s the proof.
From the Hardcover edition.
Product Description
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, Finkel grew up heckled and hazed until destiny came in the form of a trading-card game called Magic: The Gathering. Magic exploded from nerdy obsession to mainstream mania and made the teenage Finkel an ultracool world champion.
Once transformed, this young shark stormed poker rooms from the underground clubs of New York City to the high-stakes tables online, until he landed on the largest card-counting blackjack team in the country. Taking Vegas for millions, Finkel’s squad of brainy gamers became the biggest players in town. Then they took on the town’s biggest game, the World Series of Poker, and walked away with more than $3.5 million.
Thrilling, edgy, and ferociously feel-good, the odyssey of these underdogs-turned-overlords is the stuff of pop-culture legend. And David Kushner, acclaimed author of Masters of Doom, masterfully deals out the outrageous details while bringing to life a cast of characters rife with aces, kings, knaves . . . and more than a few jokers. If you secretly believe every player has his day, you’re right. Here’s the proof.
From the Hardcover edition.
The ultimate bully-magnet, Finkel grew up heckled and hazed until destiny came in the form of a trading-card game called Magic: The Gathering. Magic exploded from nerdy obsession to mainstream mania and made the teenage Finkel an ultracool world champion.
Once transformed, this young shark stormed poker rooms from the underground clubs of New York City to the high-stakes tables online, until he landed on the largest card-counting blackjack team in the country. Taking Vegas for millions, Finkel’s squad of brainy gamers became the biggest players in town. Then they took on the town’s biggest game, the World Series of Poker, and walked away with more than $3.5 million.
Thrilling, edgy, and ferociously feel-good, the odyssey of these underdogs-turned-overlords is the stuff of pop-culture legend. And David Kushner, acclaimed author of Masters of Doom, masterfully deals out the outrageous details while bringing to life a cast of characters rife with aces, kings, knaves . . . and more than a few jokers. If you secretly believe every player has his day, you’re right. Here’s the proof.
From the Hardcover edition.
Product Details
Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids: How a Gang of Geeks Beat the Odds and Stormed Las Vegas
- Kindle Edition: 10 pages (2005-08-16)
- Publisher: Random House; 2005-08-16
- Label: Random House
- Format: Kindle eBook
- Studio: Random House
- Sales Rank in Books: #149949
|
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:  Brains, games, making money and overcoming the odds., By Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids: How a Gang of Geeks Beat the Odds and Stormed Las Vegas (Hardcover) Jon Finkel was an overweight, middle school nerd who was bullied, laughed at, and ostracized until he found his calling in a fantasy game called Magic. Magic combines the otherworldliness of Dungeons and Dragons with complex elements of card play and has become a cult game with tournaments of its own. In Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids, David Kushner follows the transformation of Finkel from teenage geek in the throes of Magic mania into a thin, sophisticated and extremely wealthy professional gambler who joins the highly successful blackjack counting team known as The Lawyers. The true-life story traces Finkel's evolution from bully magnet to World Champion Magic master, to card counter and shuffle tracker, to sports bettor, and onto the World Series of Poker. Throughout his adventures, Finkel is accompanied by the so-called "Card Shark Kids," a strange mix of misfits and brainiacs who find a sense of belonging through the addictive escape of Magic and carry that into the...Read more 6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:  Great Story Told Terribly, A Kid's Review This review is from: Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids: How a Gang of Geeks Beat the Odds and Stormed Las Vegas (Hardcover) Jon Finkel is a great guy with a great story. Unfortunately, that story is not told very well in this book. There are just so many things that are blatantly wrong, as this book is dying for an editor (I really don't believe Jon told his father that 4 in binary is 1100, as depicted in the excerpt from the book available on Amazon, as this would be a rather unimpressive response). The author also tries to force the story of David Williams into the life of Jon Finkel, which is clearly wrong as there is little to no relation between them other than spending some time together in the late 90s. I suppose this was to try to make the story sound more appealing, as Williams won 3.5 million at the WSOP in 2004, but it has nothing to do with the story. Jon's life is interesting enough without that, but not enough detail is included as the story goes off in various places with irrelevant information. 4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:  Jonny "Lacks" Magic, By This review is from: Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids: How a Gang of Geeks Beat the Odds and Stormed Las Vegas (Hardcover) I have to say that I was very disappointed with this book. As a card player, gambler, and English major I found this book to be bland and poorly written. The author David Kushner fails to "show" you how this young man became a success, instead he "tells" you about the growth of the lead character. The anecdotes about how a young Jonny is abused by both "Nerd" and "Cool Kid" lack emotion, at no point during these retellings do you feel any sort of pain that he was dealing with at the time or become enveloped in his struggle. If you cannot develop an emotional attachment with a character than, "Who cares?"
Kushner fails once again to develop any tension or drama in the book in Jonny's later life. Any and all adversity/ conflicts faced by our hero are dealt with and resolved with no real consequences, they are told in the same bland mundane style. Take the example of the "Clash of the Geek Titans", Jonny's role as Magic the Gathering's greatest player is threatened by a...Read more |
Share your thoughts with other customers: 
› See all 21 customer reviews...
You are currently viewing
Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids: How a Gang of Geeks Beat the Odds and Stormed Las Vegas
