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1. #Jonny magic and the card shark kids professional#
2. #Jonny magic and the card shark kids series#
3. #Jonny magic and the card shark kids tv#

There's an author afterword where Kushner lays out his own geek credentials, and I'm tempted to believe that this is the secret to the book's success: Kushner is one of us. It even includes appendices on the basics of Magic: the Gathering, Blackjack, and Texas Hold 'em. People like Garfield and Finkel leap off the page, as do the more minor characters - Kushner is adept at capturing their voices and letting them speak to the reader.Įverything about the book works, from story to design. Plus, Finkel's story is so intertwined with the story of Magic that we end up with a pretty good history of the cultural phenomenon that the game became.

Kushner is equally adept at telling the story of Richard Garfield and the creation of Magic: the Gathering. Watching Jon grow and change from a lonely, troubled teen into a successful and happy adult is an uplifting experience, and Kushner does a great job telling his story.

We've all felt alienated and alone, and a good many of us have turned, like Jon did, to the welcoming arms of SF, fantasy, and D&D. But first and foremost, it's the story of Jon Finkel, a prototypical uber-geek who harnesses his massive brain to the study of Magic and goes farther than anyone would have believed.įinkel's story resonates with the reader because we've all been there, to some degree. Johnny Magic and the Card Shark Kids is many things, among them a history of D&D culture and an account of the creation and subsequent pop culture explosion of the game Magic: the Gathering. David Kushner, author of Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture tells us who those guys are and how they came to be there in a story that should warm the cockles of any true geek's heart.

#Jonny magic and the card shark kids tv#

And if you watch those TV tourneys, you'll notice one thing: the final table is often filled with guys who look like they might still be in college. Poker tournaments are becoming regular sights on network TV, and online poker sites grow more and more popular. These days, you can't throw a stick in a bookstore without hitting a gambling book. Both he and the author come across as superficial goofs, and the interview is almost painful to listen to. But I listened to the audio version, which includes an actual interview with Finkle, and it kind of sealed the deal. I can't help but feel that the story is interesting in spite of Kushner's telling.Īlso, I was generally rooting for Finkle through most of the book, even though at times he does come across as a bit of a douchebag. The target audience should be card players who understand the games reasonably well, but Kushner goes for the lowest common denominator, so we get no play-by-play description of individual Magic matches or poker hands, and thus no insight into what really makes Finkle special. But Kushner's cheesy prose and superficial coverage of events falls flat.

#Jonny magic and the card shark kids professional#

The true story of a geeky outcast who rises to the ranks of professional Magic, then takes on Vegas as a professional poker player, then card counter, should be a fun and fascinating read. I'm a fan of games in general and Magic: The Gathering and Poker in particular. Here’s the proof.This book was pretty disappointing. If you secretly believe every player has his day, you’re right. And David Kushner, acclaimed author of Masters of Doom, masterfully deals out the outrageous details while bringing to life a cast of characters rife with aces, kings, knaves.

Thrilling, edgy, and ferociously feel-good, the odyssey of these underdogs-turned-overlords is the stuff of pop-culture legend.

#Jonny magic and the card shark kids series#

Then they took on the town’s biggest game, the World Series of Poker, and walked away with more than $3.5 million. Taking Vegas for millions, Finkel’s squad of brainy gamers became the biggest players in town. Once transformed, this young shark stormed poker rooms from the underground clubs of New York City to the high-stakes tables online, until he landed on the largest card-counting blackjack team in the country. Magic exploded from nerdy obsession to mainstream mania and made the teenage Finkel an ultracool world champion. The ultimate bully-magnet, Finkel grew up heckled and hazed until destiny came in the form of a trading-card game called Magic: The Gathering. Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids is his amazing true story: the jaw-dropping, zero-to-hero chronicle of a fat, friendless boy from New Jersey who found his edge in a game of cards–and turned it into a fortune. And whatever you do, don’t sit down across a gaming table from Jon Finkel, better known as Jonny Magic. If you think a gang of real-life geeks can’t take on the world and win big.