Customer Reviews

Repeat Until Rich: A Professional Card Counter's Chronicle of the Blackjack Wars

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I have known the author, Josh Axelrad, for years. We have played blackjack together many, many times--dozens for sure, and possibly hundreds of hours. In fact I took a very young Josh on his first real casino sessions in which we did lose a bunch of money. (These sessions were so short, and so insignificant that Josh did not write about them in the book, although he did write about the early trip with that other team. The sessions I am referring to were part of that trip.) That's not to say, of course that we were not playing with an edge. Any professional gambler understands that in the short-term you lose almost as often as you win. It's the long-term that we're concerned with, and I can assure anyone reading this review that Josh's team and Josh himself most certainly were big winners overall.

I read an early draft of this book, and am still awaiting the arrival of the published version. Unlike some of the other recent books written about well-known teams, this book does not bend or exaggerate the truth. There isn't a need to, as what really happened is interesting and exciting enough. I had a hard time putting down the draft, and I lived much of what Josh writes about. In addition to being a truthful and accurate portrayal of life inside a professional blackjack team, the book is also extremely well-written. I consider Josh a friend, but had no idea he could write so well. I can say without reservation that you will enjoy this book. I can also say that I expect this will be the first of many books that Josh Axelrad writes. It's that good.

Well-done, Josh!

This book was a quick read...engaging, humorous at times and suspenseful. The events within his journey were shocking at times. A real behind the scenes perspective of the inner circle of card counters. I never realized that card counting was actually legal. And, how these teams actually went about mobilizing against the "system" was not only methodical, but became an art.

Repeat Until Rich is a chronicle of professional black jack card counting but it is also (and importantly) much more than that. It is also a story of redemption, a coming of age story and a story of Recovery and the things about one's self that we have to admit in order to live up to (in the case of author, Josh Axelrad) one's prodigious talents. To realize that the unconscious exercise of talent can be a type of seduction and escape.

Axelrad could have been writing about himself when he writes of his youthful impressions of his step-Uncle, Eric, "He claims to have spent ten years, until he was thirty, utterly adrift, selling jewelry at fairs as a wandering hippie, but then he went to law school. He told the story in a way that made law school sound as if it took him four weeks. Then suddenly he was rich...He went from hippie to kazilionaire. He made it seem effortless, random." But as young Axelrad wonders, ..."there must have been more to him than that."

Like his Uncle Eric, Axelrad self presents in a way that can leave you scratching your head at his life of card counting but in this very moving memoir courageously shows us that there is much more to him than that.

This is the story of a young man who became a very good writer, and in the process, (you can imagine him cringing at the sound of this), grew up.

The tales of blackjack derring-do suggested by the book's cover are certainly here, and they are fun to read, but there is so much more besides--the subtitle is misleading, or at least incomplete. Axelrad is an intelligent, thoughtful, and morally engaged narrator who contemplates his own role in "the blackjack wars" as the story unfolds, conveying his behavior and motivations in a hard, honest light. His prose is particularly attuned to the absurdities and ironies of his profession, salted with humor that is by turns gleeful and grim. The narrator's unexpected descent into gambling addiction widens the emotional scope of the book and deepens the already complex picture that Axelrad presents. At base, Repeat Until Rich is a compelling and moving story about someone who zealously leaps onto an unbeaten path, thrilled at how well it seems to suit him, but then can't find his way back to the main road, and stumbles badly. There is an authentic, writerly voice here that puts Axelrad's book in the company of memoirs like the Barthelmes' Double Down, as much literary nonfiction as "gambling book." Don't be fooled by the cover--Repeat Until Rich is a truly serious and worthwhile book.

Memoirist Josh Axelrad is ostensibly writing about gambling, but he's really telling a coming-of-age story. The blackjack material is fascinating, of course -- Axelrad and his card-counting team members travel the country, escaping "heat" (from casinos who are onto their tricks), and trying not to get caught with large amounts of cash. But it's the insights into life as a young man in post-9/11 America that truly resonate, long after one puts the book down.

Axelrad's touch is light and deft, and tone is bitingly funny. He's harder on no one than himself. The result is a compulsively readable memoir of an angry boy who, ultimately, faces down his demons and becomes a man.

I expect I'll be thinking about this book for a long time. I finished it late last night (unable to put it down despite the hour) and the first thing I did this morning was re-read the ending and other bits I wanted to remember better. The writer really knows his stuff.

I haven't read many gambling-themed books, or seen all the blackjack movies that have come out in the last few years, but I suspect this is a very different take on the life of a professional gambler. The author doesn't glamorize it, but he doesn't make it sound horribly dark and seedy, either. His sense of self - or his sense of humor - doesn't allow for either. He seems to be saying (and this is really just me philosophizing, so take it for what you will) that it's not the life that's good or bad, it's the attitude you bring to it.

There's a dark side, of course, in that eventually he becomes one of the saps, a guy addicted to gambling. But even that's not depressing to read about, because by writing about his descent into addiction, he seems to have gained a self-awareness and determination that wasn't present at the start of the story.

On the detailed side of things, I found it fascinating to read about the consequences of 9/11 on the professional gambling community. And I snorted with laughter at the personas the writer took on to fool a casino.

I highly recommend this book!

Ok, let me preface this by saying I am using one of my casino names in case there are some sad-ass casino surveillance dopes trying to get info on associates of Josh; however they are sure to screw that up somehow: case in point, I played (with Josh circa 2002) at Bally's AC under an assumed name all the while there was a picture of me posted in the pit; I was alerted to this by burst out laughter comeing from Josh who pointed it out to me as I blew em up for $18K. AX man knew how to have fun!!!!!

I read a pre-release copy, being mentioned in the book, but also bought it for nostalgia and to support Josh and the publishing industry! What I found most interesting was Josh's struggle when he was not with the team, I had no idea. I shared rooms with Josh in all sorts of hotels/motels in and out of the USA and never imagined this cerebral guy would fall victim to an addiction that did not come in a Starbuck's cup!

Anyhow, now onto the review:

If you are hoping to read this book and get the Hollywood version "21" you will instead find a truthful, insightful and honest life experience of a young man who happened to be a professional card counter who made some mistakes while "growing up". I felt his isolation when I read the book. The book is well written and keeps the reader wanting more and I found myself rooting for Josh in more ways than one. The weaving of exciting stories from blackjack with his personal experiences, on and off the team, delivered with his colorful editorial was brilliant. It is worth the read for sure. While some may criticize former members for writing 5 star reviews, read the book first and then read the reviews again before you snap to a judgment. One thing about talented card players like us is we know when there is pure "edge" and I am willing to bet that many will find the book worth the money and the time to read it.

Ok I have to go back to my "straight-person job" and by the way I still snore.............

MUH!

Curious but strangely affecting. Far and away the most realistic and compelling account of gambling in modern America. Dispenses with the romanticism and exaggeration usual in the genre, replaces that with an intense and riveting analysis of the writer's own psyche.

In tone the book reminded me of some of the cyberpunk antiheroes, but with a more quotidian facade.

Description of the hotels, the casinos, the act of card counting was very powerful.

Sentences are short and to the point, but the overall picture that is painted is powerful for some reason.

Book segues at the end into a description of internet poker, an amazing psychological study of poker by a bad play who knows he's bad. There are hundreds of books on internet poker on Amazon by players who think they're good, this is the first I've seen of the reverse. Yet it's mesmerising.

Moving effort.

This book is a good read, it contains drama, pathos, excitement and lifts the curtain to another world.
A world that is enticing to the outsider (I am sure I could do that) and a morality tale ( I could never do that). it charts one mans journey through the rabbit hole that is professional gambling, specifically Blackjack. At first glance you think, how hard can that be? Children can add up to 21 with no problem, and you can buy those little cards at the casino that tell you basic strategy, so what is all the fuss about? Of course, it is more complex, orders of magnitude more complex. By following the cards dealt, (not easy) and allocating a weighted score to the remaining cards, (harder still) favorable moments occur in the game when the player has a distinct edge over the dealer. By betting low amounts during the counting phase and massive amounts when the decks are optimized, hardy souls may make a decent living over the long haul. The system is based on mathematical variances and was first detailed in the early sixties. Bright young things from MIT brought a large amount of brain power to the issue, the least of which was devising a system of secret signals that could alert team members to 'hot' tables and basically declared intellectual war on the casinos. Who in turn were investing heavily in a variety of local and national counter measures. The constant tension between the casino staff and the counters was the best part of the book. Casinos have to walk the wire between presenting a cordial welcome to the average player and a steel wall to a good counter. It gets vicous and personal at times, with the law becoming a grey area that both sides lay claim to.

The book also documents the inside of one individuals head as he rides the roller coaster of self loathing, hallucinatory exultation and compulsive decline. The angst quotient is pretty high and what some may see as searingly honest, I thought was, at times, a little over wrought. Even the guinea pig dies.
In spite of a rather dark tone, it is refreshing, in that it details a fascinating slice of Americana, it was not as good a read as Positively Fourth Street, although that had the advantage of an experienced writer and a high profile, bizarre murder. It is worth reading and I hope Mr. Axelrad will write another book and that it does not cause him as much misery as producing this one seemed to. I will buy the next book and recommend you buy this one.

Josh Axelrad has managed to put onto paper the wit and insightfulness which he brings to everyday life. There is nothing to compare with this book, to my knowledge, when it comes to well-written, truthful, funny and fun books on gambling. I've read everything from Bringing Down the House (puke) to The Biggest Game, to Ace on the River, to Million Dollar Blackjack, and dozens more, and like the man himself, Axelrad's book is one of a kind.

P.S. just because I'm biased doesn't mean I'm wrong.