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Straight Flush LP: The True Story Of Six College Friends Who Dealt Their Way To A Billion-Dollar Online Poker Empire--and How It All Came Crashing Down... (2013)

by Ben Mezrich(Favorite Author)

3.42 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0062253670 (ISBN13: 9780062253675)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

HarperLuxe

review 1: brisk recap of the rise (lots of players and $) and fall (cheating scandal, legal crackdown by the federal gov't.) of the internet poker site AbsolutePoker.com. Nice job of capturing some of the excitement (and anxiety) associated with starting a new company, moving to a new country, taking risks, etc. Drawbacks, in my reading, were.....1. He has a breathless, sort of incredulous, way of writing about people and scenes that makes everyone seem the same. I had a lot of trouble keeping the various guys straight in my mind. Each came across as an interchangeable frat bro hoping to make lots of money, get drunk, and secure hookers for as many evenings as possible. Once in a while, something distinctive would come up (one enters alcohol rehab, one gets married, two are in ... morea plane crash) and I'd have to think hard about which guy he was talking about.2. bizarre, for anyone past high school, fascination with the details of other people's bouts of intoxication. Vomit figures in several overly detailed scenes for instance. I guess it already has a fairly long subtitle, but maybe they could still add a second one: "Hey, author, check out how wasted I was this one time, and make sure you get the specifics"
review 2: Ben Mezrich books are highly readable and fun. This is no exception. Obviously there is considerable literary license taken in these books (there is no way he can recreate actual conversations with the precision that he puports to). However, I don't think that Mezrich means for them to be historical accounts, just great books that will make fantastic movies later on.This one is no different. This is a fun romp through Costa Rica with some recent college grads gone huge in the online poker business.I appreciate the coverage of this important episode in American history actually. I had heard about this but was living outside of the country when it all happened and never got the straight story and I'm glad that Mezrich started to write about it. I think that topics such as this need to be dealt with so that we can see the dramatic impact Congress can have on society. less

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