He revisits the city's checkered history of moguls, mobsters, and entertainers, reveals the real stories of well-known power brokers like Steve Wynn and legends like Howard Hughes and Bugsy Siegel, and offers a fascinating portrait of the life, death, and fantastic rebirth of the Las Vegas Strip. Earley also documents the gripping tale of the entrepreneurs behind the rise and fall and rise again of one of the largest gaming corporations in the nation, Circus Circus -- to which he was given unique access. In his trademark you-are-there style, he takes us behind the scenes to meet the blackjack dealers and hookers, the heavy hitters and bit players, the security officers, cabbies, and showgirls who are caught up in the mercurial pace that pulses at the heart of this astounding city.

    Acclaimed author A. Alvarez delves into the seedy, obsessive world of high-stakes Vegas poker, where "the next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing." Uncovering an exotic underground rich in ambiance and eccentricity, The Biggest Game in Town is "a magnificent book " (San Francisco Chronicle), a real one of a kind.

    The book is fantastically illuminating, well written, works as a kind of autobiography, and Al's input is effective as commentary." You will probably feel the same way by seeing how creatively combining math, logic, psychology, and probability theory can solve problems you might have previously regarded as unsolvable. Your ability to identify and even manipulate other people's thoughts and desires should improve, as well as your ability to understand and resist other experts who attempt to do the same thing. And this book will almost certainly put money in your pocket.The title, DUCY?, was taken from our forums at www.twoplustwo.com's. To encourage people to think better, David would often ask, "Do you see why?" before fully explaining his conclusions or advice. Forum participants c

    But when McManus arrives, the lure of the tables compels him to risk his entire Harper's advance in a long-shot attempt to play in the tournament himself. This is his deliciously suspenseful account of the tournament--the players, the hand-to-hand combat, his own unlikely progress in it--and the delightfully seedy carnival atmosphere that surrounds it. Positively Fifth Street is a high-stakes adventure and a terrifying but often hilarious account of one man's effort to understand what Edward O. Wilson has called "Pleistocene exigencies"--the eros and logistics of our competitive instincts.

    In two years, this ring of card savants earned more than three million dollars. Filled with tense action and incredibly close calls, this is a real-life adventure that could have stepped straight out of a Hollywood film.

    The success of the book quickly spread around the world and is currently translated in eight different languages. Are you ready to look at poker in a different way and transform your own game? What "secret" separates top poker players from poker wannabes?Is it zen-like mind-reading skills, a computer-like brain or thousands of hours of play? No. It is a series of established approaches and behaviors that enables these experts to bring their "A" game to the table session after session, regardless of short-term results.In this groundbreaking book, Taylor and Hilger lay bare the secrets of the Poker Mindset seven core attitudes and concepts that ensure you have the optimal emotional, psychological, and behavioral framework for playing superior poker.The Poker Mindset deeply explores vital topics that most poker books only touch upon: - Tilt: What it really is, why and when you are most prone to it, and how you can avoid it.- Bankroll: A complete examination of bankroll management from a technical, but more importantly, from a psychological and emotional viewpoint.- Opponents: How to determine your competitors' mental and emotional processes so that you can dominate, out think and outplay them.- Downswings: Every poker player experiences them, but you will truly understand and be armed against low ebbs when they occur.- Bad Beats: The Poker Mindset will enable you to overcome the trauma of bad beats and losing big pots.Poker is a fun game, but it is even more fun when you win. The Poker Mindset may be the most valuable poker book you will ever read. Embrace its concepts and you can overcome the unseen obstacles that are limiting your success at the table.When you make the Poker Mindset your mindset, you will take control of your game and walk away a winner.

    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.

    That is until he discovered the lucrative world of payment processing for online poker companies. Soon the Australian whiz-kid was living the American dream, raking in as much as $3m a week. Revelling in his jet set lifestyle of fast cars, luxury yachts and VIP nightclubs, he embarked on an epic rollercoaster of champagne fuelled excess which mirrored that of the extraordinary world of online poker, where hot shot college students won millions from the confines of their dorms, and fortunes were won or lost in seconds.However, Tzvetkoff’s move to the neon splattered underworld of Las Vegas would soon see him facing the abyss. Owing millions to the poker companies, and with the FBI hot on his trail, the tarnished boy wonder needed to pull an ace from his sleeve to keep from busting out. And when he did, it resulted in a day that sent a seismic shockwave through the world of online poker and saw him take the blame.

    Stuey Ungar, the son of a Jewish bookie on Manhattan's Lower East Side, dropped out of high school to become an underground card-table sensation, eventually taking out every top gin-rummy player on the East Coast. Bankrolled by the Genovese crime family, Stuey would soon travel around the country in search of new opponents and opportunities—including poker. He would go on to win the World Series of Poker a record three times. And then his luck began to run out. One of a Kind is the startling tale of a man who won at his game and lost control of his life. Whether tossing away his winnings at the racetrack or on a single roll of the dice, Stuey was notorious for gambling every single dollar in his pocket. Though he had won an estimated $30 million in his lifetime, Stuey had no bank account, not even a home address. He was found dead in a Vegas motel—with $800 in cash on his person, the only money he had left—at the age of forty-five. An intimate, authorized biography—Nolan Dalla was commissioned by Stuey in 1998 to pen his story, resulting in hundreds of hours of taped interviews and conversations—One of a Kind illuminates the dark genius of one of poker's most memorable figures.

    In a life spanning over four decades as a poker professional, Mike has excelled both on the felt and on the business side of poker. He is a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner, helped create PartyPoker in 2001 and was a key player in an event that changed the poker world forever the launch of the World Poker Tour (WPT) in 2002. He has been a commentator on the WPT, along with Vince Van Patten, since its inception. In addition, Mike was recognized as poker's Top Ambassador at the Card Player Magazine Player of the Year Awards gala in 2006. That same year, he won WSOP Tournament of Champions, winning $1 million in prize money half of which he donated to charity. He was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2009. In this book Mike recounts his personal experiences and gives his take on some of poker's legendary characters over the past 40 years. If you enjoy poker, are fascinated by the development of the game and enjoy compelling poker, golf and gambling adventures, then you'll love Life's A Gamble."

    He's a mogul whose empire at one point included the Mirage, the Golden Nugget, and Treasure Island. But how did he gain and wield his tremendous power in Nevada? And why did a confidential Scotland Yard report prevent him from opening a casino in London? When this biography, written by a local reporter, was first released in 1995, Steve Wynn brought suit against its original publisher and forced him into bankruptcy. Now available in paperback, the inside story of the biggest phenomenon to roil Las Vegas since Hoover Dam gives readers an intimate glimpse at the real business that's conducted beyond the gaming tables.

     At twenty-four, Josh Axelrad held down a respectable and ominously dull job on Wall Street. Adventure was a tuna fish sandwich instead of the usual turkey for lunch. Then one night, a stranger at a cocktail party persuaded him to leave the nine-to-five behind and pursue an unlikely dream: the jackpot. The stranger was a blackjack card counter, and he sold Axelrad on the vision of Vegas with all its intrigue, adventure- and cash. "Repeat Until Rich" is Axelrad's taut, atmospheric, and darkly hilarious account of ditching the mundane and entering the alternative universe of professional blackjack. Axelrad has one thing in common with his team: Jon Roth, the leader and a former options trader; Neal Matcha, a recovering lawyer; Aldous Kaufman, a retired math Ph.D. candidate. They all thrived in the straight world, found success boring, and vowed to make life more exotic. Axelrad adopts Roth's philosophy-"repeat until rich"-and from his strategy and skill spring hasty retreats across casino floors, high-speed car chases, arrests on dubious grounds, and the massive cash paydays that make it all worthwhile. Along the way, he unveils the tactics and debunks the myths of professional card counters. In team play, he's either the "big player," who bets the big money, or the "controller," who subtly coordinates the team's betting while wagering only the minimum himself. Counting is not illegal, and it's less intellectually daunting than its MIT-level mystique suggests. With clarity and wit, "Repeat Until Rich" proves the old gambler's maxim that "if you can tip a waiter, you can count cards." But it also proves how zealous, even forceful, casino bosses can be in "backing off" counters-seeing past their undercover methods and banning them from the tables. Josh soon grows to love all this trouble, and discovers, more than the money, what he needs most of all is the rush. Filled with actual bad guys, chase scenes, and high stakes, "Repeat Until Rich" offers an intoxicating, unprecedented view of the dangerous allure of living off the cards and one's wits.

    Same as many big time collegiate sports programs. Seems no matter how the team transgresses off the field, if they excel on the field, everyone forgives them. Writer, professor and conflicted Seminole Diane Roberts looks at the problems plaguing her campus in Tallahassee, examining them within the context of college football itself and its significance in American life, and explores how the game shapes our culture.

    In 2001, a rich stranger from Texas descended upon the high-stakes poker room in the opulent Bellagio casino in Las Vegas. A self-made billionaire by the name of Andy Beal, the stranger challenged some of the world's greatest poker players-including Doyle Brunson, Chip Reese, Howard Lederer, and Jennifer Harman-to heads-up matches in the richest poker game ever played This is that story... Beginning the scintillating contest that would shock the world of poker, Andy and each opponent had $1 million, betting $10,000 and $20,000 per round. As the games intensified over the coming months and Andy developed into a great player, he realized how he could take his adversaries out of their comfort zone-he raised the stakes to put everything they had on the line. By the time the battle of wits ended, there was more than $20 million on the table. For the first time ever, here is the detailed, true account of the Big Game that has already achieved legendary status in poker lore. Putting you railside to observe the pulse-pounding action, where you can almost hear the distinct sound of clay chips on felt, Michael Craig takes you inside the iron-nerved mind and pathological psyche of the professional gambler. Filled with vivid characters, sensational tales, and riveting human drama, The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King is a unique, suspenseful journey into the world of people who live on the razor's edge of fortune-where incredible wealth, or utter ruin, turns on the flip of a card.

    The Noble Hustle is Pulitzer finalist Colson Whitehead’s hilarious memoir of his search for meaning at high stakes poker tables, which the author describes as “Eat, Pray, Love for depressed shut-ins.”  On one level, The Noble Hustle is a familiar species of participatory journalism--a longtime neighborhood poker player, Whitehead was given a $10,000 stake and an assignment from the online online magazine Grantland to see how far he could get in the World Series of Poker.  But since it stems from the astonishing mind of Colson Whitehead (MacArthur Award-endorsed!), the book is a brilliant, hilarious, weirdly profound, and ultimately moving portrayal of--yes, it sounds overblown and ridiculous, but really!--the human condition.      After weeks of preparation that included repeated bus trips to glamorous Atlantic City, and hiring a personal trainer to toughen him up for sitting at twelve hours a stretch, the author journeyed to the gaudy wonderland that is Las Vegas – the world’s greatest “Leisure Industrial Complex” -- to try his luck in the multi-million dollar tournament.   Hobbled by his mediocre playing skills and a lifelong condition known as “anhedonia” (the inability to experience pleasure) Whitehead did not – spoiler alert!   - win tens of millions of dollars.  But he did chronicle his progress, both literal and existential, in this unbelievably funny, uncannily accurate social satire whose main target is the author himself.   Whether you’ve been playing cards your whole life, or have never picked up a hand, you’re sure to agree that this book contains some of the best writing about beef jerky ever put to paper.