Review by Jeffrey Burke
March 31 (Bloomberg) — Here’s a memoir about blackjack
card counting by an author who says that “math has never been a
strong suit” and “I didn’t know how to write a book.”
The math, it turns out, isn’t hard, as Josh Axelrad reveals
in “Repeat Until Rich: A Professional Card Counter’s Chronicle
of the Blackjack Wars.” And the writing’s not at all bad.
In 1999 at age 23, Axelrad finds himself adrift in an ill-
defined job at Swiss Bank Corp. By chance he meets Garry
Knowles, who played with the MIT blackjack team and now offers
the author a quick tutorial on how counting cards and
collaborative play can give you an edge against the house.
Counting dates mainly from Edward O. Thorp’s 1962 book
“Beat the Dealer.” A math genius at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Thorp took his theories on probability
to Las Vegas and won. He then did the same on Wall Street,
earning a place as the “godfather” in Scott Patterson’s recent
book “The Quants.” Team play in blackjack got started in the
late 1970s, which is when the MIT group emerged.
After many hours practicing and studying Thorp’s book, in
early 2000 Axelrad joins a team run by a retired Wall Street
millionaire (“identities are veiled”).
He wisely chooses to focus not on hands of blackjack — a
numbingly repetitive game with little of the telegenic tension
of Texas hold’em — but on his own evolution, from sweaty newbie
to swaggering cowboy, and on the various sorts of “heat,” or
security pressure, casinos apply to thwart card counters. It’s
more cat and mouse than the “wars” of the subtitle, and often
funny as Axelrad mixes with a gambling cast of “fraternity and
jock types. Lost souls. Investment-banking scum. Money sluts.”
$700,000 in Winnings
Of course, he catches fire at the tables, or there’d be no
book. He wins $18,000 in 10 minutes, about $700,000 for himself
and his team during five years. In 2001 his income is more than
$120,000. Then the 9/11 attacks puts a crimp in a “business
model dependent on carrying large amounts of cash through
airport security constantly,” he writes.
Axelrad’s annual income declines, as does his interest in
the game. His thoughts turn to writing about the experience,
almost in spite of himself: “The only impediments I was aware
of were lack of talent, absence of experience, stunted
vocabulary, short attention span.”
The other impediment that quickly arises after he quits
blackjack is his addiction to online poker, which eventually
costs him more than $50,000 and threatens his book contract.
Stunning Fall
The down side of this rise-and-fall story, combining lies,
self-deception and fears of insanity, offers a stunning contrast
after such controlled success at the blackjack table.
I wish Axelrad hadn’t protested so much about his lack of
writing ability. The self-deprecation made me reconsider
passages I’d marked as noteworthy. In one, he dreams of a
$200,000 payday so he can “buy a hot-air balloon and paint
genitals on it, then float around Salt Lake City perturbing the
Mormons.” It’s funny, until you think about it too hard.
Yet he also can just nail an image, like this detail about
a pit boss: “He was a stocky and gentle-faced man with a mouth
about the size of a Skittle.” When he isn’t trying too hard,
he’s a natural storyteller, and he lived through a story worth
telling.
“Repeat Until Rich: A Professional Card Counter’s
Chronicle of the Blackjack Wars” is published by Penguin Press
(262 pages, $25.95). To order this book in North America, click
here.
(Jeffrey Burke is an editor with Bloomberg News. The
opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer on the story:
Jeffrey Burke in New York at
jburke21@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: March 31, 2010 00:01 EDT
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