Clive Owen | brilliant law student takes | struggling writer | John Malkovich
One For Bad, Two For Good
by
American Way Staff
Croupier,
1998
Clive Owen is spectacular as a struggling writer who takes a job
as a croupier -- the roulette-wheel operator in a European casino.
As he falls in love with an in-debt gambler and partakes in a plan
to rob the casino, we see the seductive pull of the gambling
life.
Rounders,
1998
The thrust of the story is ridiculous: A brilliant law student
takes on the New York Russian poker mafia to win his stake for
Vegas. Also, the love-story subplot gets in the way. But the poker
scenes are great fun, primarily because of the head Russian card
shark, played by John Malkovich. His is an oft-imitated
performance. -- E.C.
While at a Super Bowl
party in the late '90s, Ben Mezrich ran into an acquaintance, a
former MIT student, who he assumed now worked for a software
company. During the game's halftime show, Mezrich's friend let him
in on a secret. He was part of the MIT blackjack team, a group of
supersmart math wizards who made hundreds of thousands of dollars
by counting cards -- a legal but casino-angering practice of a
player placing large bets after he or she has determined the
previous run of low cards suggests more high cards to come, which
favors the player. (As complicated as that sounds, it's actually
slightly more complicated than that; see the sidebar "Card Counting
the MIT Way.")
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