Molly’s Game audiobook

You were workin' as a waitress in a cocktail barWhen I met youI picked you out, I shook you up and turned you aroundTurned you into someone newNow five years later on you've got the world at your feetSuccess has been so easy for youBut don't forget, it's me who put you where you are nowAnd I can put you back down too.Molly Bloom moved to Los Angeles from Colorado, seeking fame and glory. Working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, she stumbled into a job as personal assistant to an abrasive guy named "Reardon" with nebulous business dealings and connections to all sorts of rich and famous people. This leads to Molly running poker games attended by Hollywood A-listers and billionaires. At first working for tips alone (which could total tens of thousands of dollars a night in games where celebrities are dumping half a million dollars on the table), Molly climbs her way up until she is running the games herself, with an exclusive invitee list in LA and New York. This ultimately proves to be her undoing - when she is merely collecting tips, her job is in a legal gray area, but she's pretty safe (she actually retains a lawyer, makes sure to pay taxes on her earnings, and so on). But as she became more ambitious, and greedier, once she's actually organizing the games and collecting a "rake" (the house's share of any money bet), she has become the operator of an illegal gambling enterprise. And that's how the book ends, with Bloom given the full FBI home-invasion treatment and then awaiting trial.As a casual poker player myself, I sometimes wonder how I'd do against celebrity poker players. While a few, like Ben Affleck and Tobey Maguire, have reputations for being very skilled players, most of the big names known for playing poker probably aren't serious students of the game. You can see this when you sit down at tables with people who will make the most (statistically) ridiculous bets because they see poker as "gambling," and not a game of probabilities and long-term odds. Of course those people are really annoying when they get lucky and crack your aces with a 9-4 offsuit "because it's my birthday hand! Hahahah!" Grr, DIAF, you donkey.Anyway, I found this book very interesting as a rags-to-riches-to-convicted-felon story of a former cocktail waitress, but Molly's Game is not really very much about poker. (Molly herself was never really a player, and I think her knowledge of the game never extended beyond what she needed to run it.) Instead, it's really a glimpse at celebrity culture and the world of the 1%-ers at play, and also a story about Molly herself, whom I found to be an interesting and somewhat sympathetic character, yet rather lacking in self-awareness for all that she writes a tell-all about herself.One of the interesting things about her memoir is that she freely names names - big names. A few people she keeps obscured (like her original boss, the mysterious "Reardon"), but she talks openly about games involving Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, A-rod, and numerous Hollywood executives and billionaires who also came to her games. Surprisingly enough, there really isn't a lot of "dirt" on any of them, since all she has to say is that they liked to play poker and play at being alpha males, as you'd expect.Except Tobey Maguire, who really comes off as a dick in this book. According to Bloom, Maguire actually organized the games (using Bloom as his intermediary) for his own profit. His not-so-secret scheme was basically to go "whale fishing," luring very rich, very bad players to his game with his buddies like Leonardo DiCaprio, whose buy-ins he was actually paying for. It worked very well for Maguire, who has actually won poker championships, but as Bloom tells it, Maguire was cheap, a bad tipper, a sore loser, and eventually he squeezed Bloom out of the game because he resented the relatively small amount she was making for her work to keep it running. She tells about one night when he tried to make her "bark like a seal" for her tip after a game, and when she refuses, this seems to be the point where he starts moving to get rid of her.All of that is interesting if you like celebrity gossip and poker stories, but I was also interested in Bloom's own development. She's never exactly bad, but it's clear that she went swimming with sharks, knowing what she was doing, and wanting to be involved in that world of money and glamour, but thinking she could somehow avoid becoming either a shark or shark-bait herself. The breakdown in her personal relationships, as she loses one rich boyfriend after another to her career ambitions, does not make her reconsider her life choices.Eventually, having been essentially run out of Los Angeles (by Tobey Maguire, if her account of his behind the scenes machinations is correct), Bloom succeeds in starting up in New York City, running games for super-rich Wall Street types on a level above even what she was running in LA. Suddenly she is collecting a rake from games with $250K buy-ins, and making millions.This is the point where she runs into organized crime. What struck me was her naivete - did she really think she could be running games like this in New York City and not attract the attention of the big boys? Apparently she did. Even when a couple of goons corner her and explain to her that she's just acquired some partners and how things are going to be, she thinks she can just say no thanks.This works about as well as you'd expect, though she is saved from her own stupidity by a fortuitous major FBI operation that rounds up all the guys who were about to continue her education the following week. She flees back to Colorado, but in the aftermath of the FBI operation, her name gets dropped and eventually the FBI comes after her too.Following the publication of her book, Bloom ended up getting a mere slap on the wrist, since her only role was basically to organize poker games. Although she was theoretically facing prison time, she got only probation and a $1000 fine. Of course, she'd also had all her previous proceeds confiscated, and now she's an unemployed ex-cocktail waitress with only a book to her credit.My impression of Bloom, reading her own memoir, is that she was hungry for money and glory, but neither ruthless enough for that world nor scrupled enough to maintain boundaries. So it was no surprise that everything came crashing down. Still, it's clear she wasn't a hardened criminal, and the super-rich, entitled men she was organizing games for would certainly never face any consequences.I'll be interested to see if Bloom is actually able to parlay this into any sort of meaningful future. According to her post-publication interviews, her current angle is trying to get it turned into a movie or TV deal... naturally.

When molly was little she just dreamed of a life without rules and where she didn’t have to do anything for anyone. She wanted to become anything she wanted. In Molly’s game she takes you through her private intense poker games and her catering to clients. Then she made millions and became brave enough too take on the Russian and Italian mobs but could not outsmart the united states government

literally the definition of gaslight gatekeep girlboss ❤️

Fun and interesting book, I was engaged the entire read and could not wait to pick it up again...I love this underground world, so I overlooked any shortcomings in literary prowess, and took it for what it was...a story that will make a great adaption to a movie (Nov 2017 release). I hope the movie stays true to the book, as the minutia was very interesting and the cast of characters was great.

Molly Bloom really presents a compelling narrative detailing her decade long ascent to the top of the underground poker world. Starting in Los Angeles, she encounters a hidden wonderland of high-stakes gambling and makes her entrance into and mark upon it. She glides over a lot of details, for the sake of preserving relevant identities, that her wealthy clients who have yet to be exposed. I️ thoroughly enjoyed it, even if her vicious shark like nature leaves much to be desired in the role-model department. Overall, this is a great story of ups and downs. Molly is an inspiration to anyone who believes they can only do a little. She has done a lot in her early life. It will be interesting to see how she does for years to come. Loved the story a lot!

Molly me ha caído bien, pese a todo, tengo que decir que es una mujer con mucha visión. Simplemente todo lo que logró lo hizo observando, haciéndose imprecindible y estudiando a cada persona que estaba a su lado. Dentro de todo es una mujer que tuvo principios y procuró mantenerse fiel a ellos, aunque la ambicion o la necesidad de adrenalina la llevaron a equivocarse. También es cierto que estaba en un mundo de hombres y eso la llevó a estar sola y desvalida, aunque sabía salir a flote, cosa que me hizo admirarla por esa fortaleza aguerrida que tenía.Molly's Game tiene un ritmo trepidante desde el inicio. Vemos el inicio de esta mujer, el entorno sano en que vivió y después la veremos transformarse en esta organizadora millonaria de juegos de poker, aprendiendo que todo juego tiene su momento de retirada y que la vida es mucho más que un juego.

A quick and fun read. I picked up on the day it came out and blew through it in two days. I just kept turning pages as Molly's journey into the world of underground poker spun out of control. When deep-seeded insecurities meet high-level overachieving meets a town where you make your own opportunities, it's easy to see how Molly ended up with the Feds on her tail. An entertaining true-life story that reads almost like fiction, I wouldn't be surprised to see this one come to the big screen in the next ten years... no matter how Tobey Maguire might feel about that.

I got this book after reading an excerpt in Vanity Fair and seeing that Toby Maguire is actually as annoying as I always shallowly and unreasonably assumed he was! I just had to read more. It was very entertaining and interesting, even beyond the parts involving Toby sucking(those WERE the best parts though- like he just was never qualified to be Spider-Man to me..and now it all comes full circle)

I genuinely wasn’t expecting to like this book, but I found myself caught up in the highlife along with her. I took away one star because, at times, she reminded of that long-winded friend who gives far too many details while sharing the latest drama in her life...THAT friend. I thoroughly enjoy a good gossip session, so this was perfect. I can’t wait to see the movie!

A fun, fast-paced, and engaging page-turner! For all of her multiple talents from Olympic skiing to running underground poker tournaments, Molly herself may not be the greatest writer, but that takes a backseat with an account as exciting as her tumultuous, name-dropping real-life journey hosting card games for the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, and countless moguls across all industries... including the mob.The writing itself at times dips into scattered or excessively self-congratulatory (or self-pitying) territory, but Molly Bloom shows a gift for recognizing the humor in her half-decade as a Hollywood "poker princess," making refreshingly few excuses for her risky life decisions made in pursuit of a lifestyle she deemed desirable. Her compelling written account Molly's Game whet my appetite to read it again later as well as to see the recent Aaron Sorkin-penned film of the same name. 3.5 out of 5