In the meantime, she lived in a $17-a-night motel with her dog, Otis, and waited tables at a low-rent Thai restaurant. One day, one of her regular customers told her about a job she thought Beth would be perfect for and sent her to see Dink, of Dink Inc. Dink was a professional sports gambler—one of the biggest in Vegas. He was looking for a right-hand man—someone who would show up on time, who had a head for numbers, and who didn’t steal. She got the job.Lay the Favorite is the story of Beth Raymer’s years in the high-stakes, high-anxiety world of sports betting—a period that saw the fall of the local bookie and the rise of the freewheeling, unregulated offshore sports book, and with it the elevation of sports betting in popular culture. As the business explodes, Beth rises—from assistant to expert, trusted and seasoned enough to open an offshore booking office in the Caribbean with a few associates, men who leave their families up north to make a quick killing, while donning new tropical personas fueled by abundant drugs and local girlfriends, and who one by one succumb to their vices. They lie, cheat, steal, and run, until Beth is the last man standing.Beth Raymer is a natural storyteller: funny, charming, and fully awake to the ironies around her. But she is also a keen and compassionate observer of the adrenaline-addicted, rougish types who become her mentors, her enemies, her family. Raymer brings to life a world that teems with pathos and ecstasy in this wild picaresque that also tells the story of a young woman’s crazy, sexy, most unlikely coming-of-age.

    Ken McNab's And in the End: The Last Days of The Beatles is an in-depth look at the Fab Four's acrimonious final year...

    All success requires input from other people – even if you've invented something in your bedroom, eventually, you're going to need to interact with people to take it to the next level. And even if you don’t desperately hanker after success, you surely want to be liked, have friends, get on well with people? Learning how to better communicate and interact with others can really help to improve your life – from ensuring you enjoy parties more to turning you into a roaring success magnet. So whether you dread social events with a passion and spend evenings cringing in a corner, or just want to have better relationships at work and in life, then How to Succeed With People, written in Paul’s characteristic down to earth, approachable style, can help you become a people magnet.Learn how to: Hold people’s attention when you talk Listen and react properly to what others are saying or doing Better confront, complain and deal with difficult conversations Give compliments and praise Deal with interviews, networking events, difficult conversations and more And much more

    Written by the man who started the adventure, Behind Deep Blue reveals the inside story of what happened behind the scenes at the two historic Deep Blue vs. Kasparov matches. This is also the story behind the quest to create the mother of all chess machines. The book unveils how a modest student project eventually produced a multimillion dollar supercomputer, from the development of the scientific ideas through technical setbacks, rivalry in the race to develop the ultimate chess machine, and wild controversies to the final triumph over the world's greatest human player.In nontechnical, conversational prose, Feng-hsiung Hsu, the system architect of Deep Blue, tells us how he and a small team of fellow researchers forged ahead at IBM with a project they'd begun as students at Carnegie Mellon in the mid-1980s: the search for one of the oldest holy grails in artificial intelligence--a machine that could beat any human chess player in a bona fide match. Back in 1949 science had conceived the foundations of modern chess computers but not until almost fifty years later--until Deep Blue--would the quest be realized.Hsu refutes Kasparov's controversial claim that only human intervention could have allowed Deep Blue to make its decisive, "uncomputerlike" moves. In riveting detail he describes the heightening tension in this war of brains and nerves, the "smoldering fire" in Kasparov's eyes. Behind Deep Blue is not just another tale of man versus machine. This fascinating book tells us how man as genius was given an ultimate, unforgettable run for his mind, no, not by the genius of a computer, but of man as toolmaker.

    But as they help Jared's sister deal with her own personal demons, they begin to fall in love.

    Its five continents and numerous small islands were covered with rain forest and inhabited by amphibians and hordes of insects—very much like Terra during its Carboniferous Era. One large island was noticeably different, however, It had been terraformed by human colonists centuries earlier…colonists who had abandoned technology in order to re-create the medieval/renaissance culture of Old Earth, right down to the belief in magic and witches. And on Gramarye, those beliefs were not merely archaic superstitions; they were facts of life.Rod Gallowglass, agent for the Society for the Conversion of Extraterrestrial Nascent Totalitarianisms (SCENT, for short), had sniffed out the Lost Colony—and been amazed to discover it was a communications gold mine: a segment of the population were genuine espers. No matter that, in this particular anachronistic setting, they were known as witches and warlocks; they were telepaths, and with their ability to communicate instantaneously, regardless of distance, they would be invaluable to the Decentralized Democratic Tribunal which had created SCENT.It was Rod’s job to steer them gently in the right direction…to see that Gramarye’s monarchy gradually evolved among democratic lines. And, aided by an old family retainer named Fess—an antique robot whose brain he had placed in a black steel horse’s body—the agent was doing quite well. He had earned the Crown’s respect and, in recognition of his “powers,” been awarded the title “High Warlock.” He had also married a beautiful, gifted witch, and together they had begun a family—strange as it was to raise children who were capable of levitation and telekinesis, among other adorable tricks.But if Gramarye had strategic value for the DDT, it was equally important to the opponents of democracy. With all of the technology at their command—resources unknown on Gramarye—and no scruples about using it to distort the colony’s natural development, Rod’s enemies had a powerful advantage. And their insidious attacks could take any form. How, for instance, was a space-age Warlock supposed to combat deadly, real-life bogeymen…?It’s fast-paced fun and adventure—three complete novels in one volume: King Kobold Revived, The Warlock Unlocked and The Warlock Enraged.

    A language chapter contains key phrases for 29 languages. The author reviews accommodation, eating and transport options, and features a variety of travel routes to help make planning simple. Over 220 maps are included.

    With great detail and care, Garner explains what legalese is, how it can be simplified, and how far legal writers can go in simplifying it. The topics are alphabetically arranged for ease of reference: simply look up any phrase or grammatical category you're interested in, and you're likely to find the final word on the subject. Shortly after the completion of this massively expanded second edition, the late Charles Alan Wright said: The first edition of this book has been praised around the world as both the most reliable guide to legal usage and the most fascinating to read. The second edition outdoes even its predecessor.

    Cash games were rarely spread in conventional poker rooms, let alone the Internet. All of that changed when the game exploded on television. No-limit cash games started sprouting up at casinos of all types. No-limit hold em is now the most popular form of poker. Tournaments pushed it to the forefront, and a great deal of money can also be won here despite that fact, many players feel frustrated with their results. They win some money, only to lose it all on one botched hand. This book teaches you how to play and think like a professional. It shows how to size your bets, manage the pot, manipulate your opponents, know when to go all-in, and avoid the big mistake. Do you understand critical no-limit concepts like The REM Process, The Commitment Threshold, and Stack-To-Pot Ratios? If not, this is the book for you.

    Detailed maps of every city and dungeon Strategies for defeating all the enemies Locations of all Heart Containers and Gold Skulltulas Solutions for all puzzles Bonus items revealed All hidden items revealed

    Luzhin, a distracted, withdrawn boy, takes up chess as a refuge from everyday life. As he rises to the heights of grandmaster, the game of chess gradually supplants the world of reality as he moves inexorably towards madness.

    He mingles these with forays into ancient and modern mathematical thought, appallingly hilarious mathematical jokes, and enquiries into the great mathematical challenges of the present and past. Amongst a host of arcane and astonishing facts about every kind of number from irrational or imaginary to complex or cuneiform, we find out: how to organise chaos; how matter balances anti-matter; how to turn a sphere inside out (without creasing it...); why you can't comb a hairy ball; how to calculate pi by observing the stars. And we get some tantalising glimpses of the maths of life and the universe.Mind-stretching, enlightening and endlessly amusing, Professor Stewart's new entertainment will stimulate, delight, and enthral.

    

    With his groundbreaking book The Game, Strauss penetrated the secret society of pickup artists; now, in Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead, his candid, surprising, and often hysterical interviews reveal the hidden sides of 120 of the world’s biggest celebrities, from Hugh Heffner to Johnny Cash to Snoop Dogg and beyond.

    His father was a feckless alcoholic, and his mother was committed to an asylum when Archie was eleven years old. He believed her to be dead until, when he was thirty-one years old, he was informed she was alive. Because of this experience Grant would have difficulty forming close attachments throughout his life. He married five times and had numerous affairs. Despite a remarkable degree of success, Grant remained deeply conflicted about his past, his present, his basic identity, and even the public that worshiped him in movies such as Gunga Din, Notorious, and North by Northwest. Drawing on Grant’s own papers, extensive archival research, and interviews with family and friends, this is the definitive portrait of a movie immortal.