Mit Students Counting Cards

So card counting is simply using a system to keep track of the ratio of low cards to high cards. Step 1: Assign A Value To Every Card. With Hi-Lo, the most common card counting system, the card values are as follows: 2-6 = +1; 7-9 = 0; 10-Ace= -1; As each card is dealt, you will either add 1, subtract 1, or do nothing based on each card’s value. Card-Counting Geeks Take Vegas for a Ride in An MIT engineering student and his buddies used their brains to squeeze millions out of Nevada casinos in the '90s. Now a new movie tells their story.

By Henry Tamburin
Bringing Down The House by Ben Mezrich, a book the describes how a team of MIT students won millions playing blackjack, has sparked a lot of interest from the general public in blackjack and in particular card counting. The book was a NY Times bestseller and it was made into amovie (“21”). Because of all this publicity about the MIT team and their accomplishments, I’ve been receiving a lot more inquiries about how this team of students was able to pull off their bigscore. Here is how they did it.

First off, they didn’t cheat. They basically learned the following skills- the basic playing strategy, card counting, and team play - to win at blackjack.
Basic strategy is simply a set of rules that tells you the best way to play every hand dealt to you. For example, one of the basic strategy plays is to always split aces and 8’s no matter whatthe dealer’s upcard. You can find the basic strategy in blackjack books (including my Blackjack: Take The Money & Run) and it is a pre-requisite for winning at blackjack.

Next, the MIT team members learned a card counting system. This is a way to keep track of the cards as they are played after a shuffle. A grouping of cards, for example, the 2 through 6’s, areassigned a value or tag of plus 1. Likewise the high cards – tens, picture cards, and aces – have a minus 1 tag. They add and subtract the tags for each card that is played from theshuffled deck(s) to arrive at a sum known as the running count. The more positive the running count, the more high cards are left in the undealt cards which gave them the advantage, so they betmore (often tens of thousands). When the running count was negative, they bet less because there was an abundance of small cards left in the undealt cards a situation which gave the house adecided advantage. The team members, therefore, waited for the deck to get good before they bet large sums of money.

Steve interviews Mike Aponte of the MIT Blackjack Team. They discuss:

• how Mike first became involved with the team
• how they operated
• his role on the team
• and their biggest success
• Mike also explains what he did after the team broke up
• what he is doing today
• and his best advice for blackjack players.

The member of the MIT team did not play solo much like most card counters would do. They went one step further by using spotters, Big Players, and a team bank. Here’s how this works.

Several spotters would enter a casino and position themselves at different blackjack tables. They counted and when the count went positive, they wouldn’t increase their bets, but rather signalanother team member (known as the BP or Big Player) to enter the game with big bets. The BP continues to bet big until the spotter gives another signal that the deck has gone bad (or negative)and then the BP leaves the table. The BP basically wanders around the casino waiting for another call-in from a spotter.

Because the spotters always bet the minimum on every hand the casino is less likely to finger them as card counters. The BP acts and appears as just another high roller as he enters the gamemaking large bets hand after hand. Depending on how high the count was when he’s signaled into the game, the BP’s edge can be quite high.

The BP must know the spotter’s signals. For example here’s a few signals mentioned in the book: Arms folded across the chest means the deck is warm; Arms folded behind the back indicates thedeck is hot; Hands in the pockets indicate the deck is even hotter;
Running a hand through hair means something is wrong - get out of the casino - fast!

Besides the physical signals, their team also used oral signals to indicate to the BP what the count was so the BP knew how much to bet. These oral signals were keywords that they would use ina sentence. For example, tree meant a count of plus 1. Stool was plus 3, bowling was plus 10. So if the spotter said something like “I’d rather be bowling right now” that indicated to the BPthat the count was plus 10 and. Therefore. he knew how much to bet.
Probably the biggest weapon the MIT team had going was a team bankroll. Not only did each player put up a sum of money, but investors had invested in the team. With one large team bank, everyplayer on the team used this one combined, large bankroll as if it were his or her individual bankroll. This in turn allowed the MIT team players to bet larger amounts of money with the samerisk compared to playing solo. And the greater amount of money that a card counter can get on the table, the more money he or she stands to win. This is what makes blackjack teams sopowerful.

Here’s an example of how a team bank works compared to a card counter that plays alone. Suppose Player A plays solo with a $5,000 bankroll and wagers up to $100 per hand when the advantageshifts in his favor. His earning potential as a card counter is $25 per hour.

Player B joins Player A to form a team. Their combined bank is $10,000 allowing each player to increase their maximum bet from $100 to $200. The team of two players' profit potential isnow $100 per hour so each player averages $50 per hour profit, twice the earnings compared to playing solo.

As a general rule the profit potential of a team of skilled players is equal to the profit potential of each individual if playing solo times the number of players on the team squared. So if acard counter has the potential to earn $25 per hour playing blackjack, this is what he could earn playing on a team.

Solo Earnings Potential Number of Team Players Individual Earnings on Team
$25/hr 2 $50/hr.
$25/hr 3 $75/hr
$25/hr 4 $100/hr.
$25/hr 5 $125/hr.

The more members on the team the more money a card counter stands to earn. And of course the more you money you wager the higher the individual earnings.

Playing on a team also smoothes out the bumps in the road and makes the negative swings more manageable and tolerable. Teams also play more hands per hour compared to a solo player so they willget into the “long-run” a lot quicker. This means that the probability is higher that a team of players will be ahead after playing x hours compared to a solo player playing the same x hours.

The life of a card counter can be lonely, especially when they are losing. But when they are playing on a team and have a disastrous losing day, members often provide support and sympathizewith their plight (this is clearly brought out in the book). There is also the possibility that even though one member of a team lost, other team members have won. Secondly, having agroup of individuals trying to achieve the same goal (winning x amount of money) often provides an uplifting psychological advantage. Thirdly, team players are more apt to share intelligenceabout games with better rules and penetration which makes winning easier for all team members.

It took months and months of practice before the MIT team members were ready to take on the casinos. And even though they won money in the long run, over a few days and weeks of play they tooktheir lumps, which is normal for card counting. Their key to success was their understanding of risk and return and their large bankroll.

Henry Tamburin has been a respected casino gambling writer for the past 50 years. He is the author of the Ultimate Blackjack Strategy Guide and was editor of the BlackjackInsider newsletter. You can read his latest articles on blackjack, video poker, and his personal playing experiences at https://www.888casino.com/blog/writers/henry-tamburin

Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions is a 2003 book by Ben Mezrich about a group of MITcard counters commonly known as the MIT Blackjack Team. Though the book is classified as non-fiction, the Boston Globe alleges that the book contains significant fictional elements, that many of the key events propelling the drama did not occur in real life, and that others were exaggerated greatly.^[1]The book was adapted into the movies 21 and The Last Casino.

Synopsis[edit]

The book's main character is Kevin Lewis, an MIT graduate who was invited to join the MIT Blackjack Team in 1993. Lewis was recruited by two of the team's top players, Jason Fisher and Andre Martinez. The team was financed by a colorful character named Micky Rosa, who had organized at least one other team to play the Vegas strip. This new team was the most profitable yet. Personality conflicts and card counting deterrent efforts at the casinos eventually ended this incarnation of the MIT Blackjack Team.

Characters[edit]

Kevin Lewis[edit]

Although not revealed in the book, Kevin Lewis's real name is Jeff Ma, an MIT student who graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1994. Ma has since gone on to found a fantasy sports company called Citizen Sports (a stock market simulation game).^[2]

Mezrich acknowledges that Lewis is the sole major character based on a single, real-life individual; other characters are composites. Nonetheless, Lewis does things in the book that Ma himself says did not occur.^[1]

Jason Fisher[edit]

One of the leaders of the team, Jason Fisher, is modeled in part after Mike Aponte. After his professional card counting career, Aponte went on to win the 2004 World Series of Blackjack, and started a company called the Blackjack Institute. Mike also has his own blog.

Micky Rosa[edit]

The team's principal leader, Micky Rosa is a composite character based primarily on Bill Kaplan, JP Massar, and John Chang.^[1] Bill Kaplan founded and led the MIT Blackjack Team in the 1980s and co-managed the team with Massar and Chang from 1992 to 1993, during which time Jeff Ma joined the then nearly 80 person team.^[3][4] Chang has questioned the book's veracity, telling The Boston Globe, 'I don't even know if you want to call the things in there exaggerations, because they're so exaggerated they're basically untrue.'^[1] Whether the MIT Blackjack Team was 'founded ... in the 1980s' is in dispute. An article in The Tech, January 16, 1980, suggests that Roger Demaree and JP Massar were already running the team and teaching a hundred MIT students to play blackjack by the third week of the 1980s, implying that the team had been founded in the late 1970s, before Kaplan joined, although Demaree and Massar have mostly avoided publicity.^[5]

Controversy[edit]

Boston Magazine and Boston Globe articles[edit]

Mit Students Counting Cards In Las Vegas

In its March 2008 edition, Boston magazine ran an article investigating long-lingering claims that the book was substantially fictional.^[6]The Boston Globe followed up with a more detailed story on April 6, 2008.^[1]

Though published as a factual account and originally categorized under 'Current Events' in the hardcover Free Press edition, Bringing Down the House 'is not a work of 'nonfiction' in any meaningful sense of the word,' according to Globe reporter Drake Bennett. Mezrich not only exaggerated freely, according to sources for both articles, but invented whole parts of the story, including some pivotal events in the book that never happened to anyone.

Disclaimer and leeway[edit]

The book contains the following disclaimer:

The names of many of the characters and locations in this book have been changed, as have certain physical characteristics and other descriptive details. Some of the events and characters are also composites of several individual events or persons.^[7]

This disclaimer allows broad leeway to take real events and real people and alter them in any way the author sees fit. But Mezrich went further, both articles say.

Historical inaccuracies[edit]

Mit Students Counting Cards Book

The following events described in Bringing Down the House did not occur:

• Underground Chinatown Casino. The underground casino used for Kevin's final test (pp. 55–59) is entirely imaginary, according to Mike Aponte and Dave Irvine.^[6]
• Use of Strippers to Cash Out Chips. Also according to Aponte and Irvine,^[6]strippers were never recruited to cash out the team's chips, as described on pp. 149–153.
• Shadowy Investors. The 'shadowy investors' first referenced on p. 3 are a major source of intrigue for Mezrich's story, but did not exist, according to Aponte and Irvine.^[6] The investors in the team included the players, one of Kaplan's college roommates, a few of Kaplan's Harvard Business School section mates, and Kaplan's friends and family members.
• Physical Assault. The scene in which Fisher is beaten up (pp. 221–225) is imaginary. 'No one was ever beaten up,'^[6] according to Aponte and Irvine. Moreover, Jeff Ma claims they have never been roughed up by the casinos they played in. Still there were times when casino employees had tried to intimidate the members of the team.
• Player Forced to Swallow Chip. In a scene on pp. 215–218, Micky Rosa recounts a story in which Vincent Cole—a private investigator for Plymouth Investigations—forces a member of a count team to swallow a purple casino chip while detaining the player in a back room. Sources in the Globe described the story as 'implausible,' and none recalled having heard it.^[1]
• Theft of $75,000. One MIT player, Kyle Schaffer, did lose $20,000 when it was stolen from a desk drawer.^[1] Mezrich inflates the amount of the theft by 275% and turns the desk drawer into a safe pried dramatically from a wall. Moreover, the robbery scene (pp. 240–244) creates the impression that a team member or Vincent Cole was the likely culprit. Schaffer says the theft was likely unrelated to blackjack, noting that $100,000 or more in casino chips also inside the drawer was left untouched ('strongly suggesting that the thieves had no idea of their worth'^[1]).
• Forcible Entry to Kevin Lewis's Apartment. Kevin hurries from the scene of the robbery to his own apartment (pp. 244–245) to make sure all is well. Nothing has been stolen, but Kevin finds 'a single purple casino chip sitting on his kitchen table.' The implication is that the chip is a calling card left by Vincent Cole as a warning to Kevin. This scene again asks readers to accept that the chip-swallowing story is factual (or at least was actually in circulation among MIT counters as a myth).^{[citation needed]}

Sequel[edit]

Though not originally intended to have a sequel, Mezrich followed this book with Busting Vegas (ISBN0060575123). Busting Vegas is about another splinter group from the MIT Blackjack Team. The events depicted in Busting Vegas actually took place before Bringing Down the House. Despite heavy marketing, Busting Vegas did not do as well as Bringing Down the House. It did, however, briefly appear on The New York TimesBest Seller list. Despite again being listed as non-fictionBusting Vegas showed similar inaccuracies in recounting the facts with the main character Semyon Dukach contesting several of the events depicted in the book.^[8]

Film adaptation[edit]

A film adaptation of the book, titled 21 (so as not to cause confusion with the unrelated 2003 Queen Latifah vehicle Bringing Down the House), was released in theaters on March 28, 2008.^[9] The film is from Columbia Pictures and was directed by Robert Luketic.

Kevin Spacey produced the film, and also portrays the character of Micky Rosa. Other cast members include Laurence Fishburne, Kate Bosworth, Jim Sturgess, Jacob Pitts, Liza Lapira, Aaron Yoo, and Sam Golzari.^[10][11]Jeff Ma, Bill Kaplan, and Henry Houh, another team player from the 1990s, have brief cameo roles in the movie. 21 was filmed outside the buildings of MIT, in Boston University classrooms and dorms, throughout Cambridge and Boston, and in Las Vegas.

Says Mezrich, '...Kevin Spacey came to me about making a movie. He read the Wired adaptation^[12] of the book and became interested... The funny thing is filming may take place in casinos such as The Mirage and Caesar's Palace, where the real thing happened.'^[13]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

1. ^ ^abcdefghBennett, Drake (2008-04-06). 'House of cards'. Boston Globe. The New York Times Company. Retrieved 2008-05-06.
2. ^'About Us / The Protrade Team'(English). Citizen Sports Network. 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-06.
3. ^'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on 2008-04-15. Retrieved 2008-04-12.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) The Allston-Brighton Tab: Kaplan Inspires Hollywood Film '21.' Retrieved April 12, 2008.
4. ^'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on 2012-02-16. Retrieved 2012-02-17.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) MickeyRosa.com 'House of Cards' Retrieved July 31, 2008.
5. ^http://tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_099/TECH_V099_S0589_P002.pdf
6. ^ ^abcdeGonzalez, John (March 2008). 'Ben Mezrich: Based on a True Story'. Boston magazine. Metrocorp, Inc. Archived from the original on 2008-12-18. Retrieved 2008-05-06.
7. ^Mezrich, Ben, Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions (New York: Free Press, 2002), p. iv.
8. ^'ThePOGG Interviews - Semyon Dukach - MIT Card Counting Team Captain'. Retrieved 10 November 2012.
9. ^Production Weekly: Luketic Hacking Las Vegas. Retrieved March 6, 2007.Archived January 11, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
10. ^benmezrich.com. Retrieved March 6, 2007Archived May 15, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
11. ^Kevin Der (2005-09-30). 'MIT Alumnus and 'Busting Vegas' Author Describe Experience of Beating the House'. The Tech. Retrieved 2008-03-29.
12. ^Mezrich, Ben (September 2002). 'Wired 10.09: Hacking Las Vegas'. Wired. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
13. ^Zhang, Jenny (2002-10-25). 'Card Counting Gig Nets Students Millions'. The Tech, MIT Newspaper (Issue 50 ed.). Retrieved 2008-05-14.

External links[edit]

Mit Card Counting Scandal

• Adaptation of the book in Wired issue 10.09
• Luck is for Losers INC Magazine August 2008

Mit Students Counting Cards