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The previews for this made it seem like the movie would be pretty good. It was even better than that.

The lead female wasn’t all that impressive, in my opinion, but Jim Sturgess and Kevin Spacey did a great job, I think. I’m a fan of Texas Hold ‘Em myself, and haven’t actually been to Vegas when I was old enough to gamble (except for that $1.50 a friend and mine snuck into the slot machines once), but this made me want to hop a flight to Vegas immediately and take a bunch of cash with me.

Of course, I don’t go to MIT and let my optimism get in the way all the time of my betting strategy, so I’m sure I’d promptly lose it all. But the movie made it look fun, and relatively easy to get at least a decent bit of a profit. I’d love to read the book it was based on just to get deeper into the characters as they were all very likeable. Except the antagonists, of course, but even those had their appeal.

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