Author Ben Mezrich lies in his new book "Straight Flush"

Story here

An excerpt: 

Hintze describes (this book) as “an abomination of a book in virtually every way possible, a grandiose dissemination of lies and omissions that’s almost as criminal as the real actions of the out-of-control kids Mezrich attempts to deify.”

What happened;

1. Mezrich wrote a book titled 

"Straight Flush: The True Story of Six College Friends Who Dealt Their Way to a Billion-Dollar Online Poker Empire--and How It All Came Crashing Down"

2. It was about the founders of the online site "Absolute Poker".  This site had many problems.

3. It was a glowing report of the fun and success of the "six college friends".  

4. It wasn't true at all and poker players are mad.  Absolute poker basically stole people's money and allowed "superusers", which were people who could see everybody's holecards.  

5.  Haley Hintze has a 10-part series on the lies told in this book.  Basically, the book is a work of fiction being sold as non-fiction, and the thousands of poker players who were hurt by the folks at Absolute Poker are mad.

5.  Can the author be sued here?  I'll be curious to see what happened, but I'm not sure how.  The people in the story were made out to be better than they actually are.  Those who are upset are upset that Mezrich lied to glorify thieves.  I'm not sure how a lawsuit could work, however.

Obviously, one shouldn't trust any of his books.  A while ago I had read "Bringing Down the House", and after hearing from actual card-counters, they discussed how he made up a lot in that "true story" as well. 

P.S.  For fun, look through the 1-star reviews on Amazon.com.  Some of these titles of the reviews are funny.  (H/T to the 2+2 pokercast.)