

"21", Movie about MIT Las Vegas Card Counters Opens Tomorrow - edw519
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/news/2008/03/21_ma

======
parker
I was just reading the wikipedia entry on card counting the other day --
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_counting> \-- if anybody has a passing
interest in probability theory, this stuff is fascinating.

~~~
Flemlord
I've spent some time on card counting and it's anything but fascinating. The
theory behind it is easy to grasp, and the implementation is pure drudgery.
You learn a card counting system, then you crank away at it. All the big
casinos know what to watch for, and if you are successful they will ask you to
leave.

Poker, on the other hand, is much more difficult, and just as dependent on
mathematics. Your strategies depend on who you're playing, and how they're
playing against you in any particular hand. Much more fun. And with poker,
you're playing against other individuals, so you don't have to worry about the
house shutting you down if you're playing too well.

~~~
geebee
I agree with you that it isn't especially difficult to learn how to card
count, or understand the theory behind it (it is probably very difficult to do
it well in a casino, but that's a different issue).

That said, I actually do find it fascinating, mainly because of the history
behind it. A lot of discoveries look simple in retrospect, but keep in mind
this was a complicated game that was essentially intractable until the advent
of supercomputers (early reviews of thousands of hands weren't even enough to
get accurate readings on the odds).

It took a math professor from UCLA (Thorpe) with an interest in programming to
really get a handle on the odds. We could all write a program to calculate
basic strategy odds now, but at the time, it was very, very innovative.

While Hi-Lo and other counting systems seem pretty simple, I think it was a
stroke of genius to think of this the first time. And it was another stroke of
genius to use a programming language to determine exactly when the count
turned the expected return in favor of the player. Add in statistical systems
for bankroll management (ie., how do you use a small but positive expected
return into a 99% chance of making money while keeping bankroll growth as high
as possible), and you have some real sophistication considering that it hadn't
been done before.

The people who did this the first time were brilliant, and personally, I think
it is pretty fascinating.

------
jamesbritt
Also good: The Eudaemonic Pie

[http://books.google.com/books?id=Q9aOedEfOMMC&dq=eudaemo...](http://books.google.com/books?id=Q9aOedEfOMMC&dq=eudaemonic+pie&pg=PP1&ots=llVlMabxVM&sig=h_wYtPndwIGptmrDNffUeP7kZuE&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=lang_en%7Clang_de&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=com.ubuntu:en-
US:official&hs=HBh&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=1&ct=result&cd=1&q=eudaemonic+pie&spell=1&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-
book-with-thumbnail)

------
vikas5678
I've read the book "Bringing down the house", really fascinating read.
Definitely going to go to this movie!

------
leoc
Pft, that's nothing. ;) MIT's Edward O. Thorp wrote the book on blackjack
card-counting, then he and MIT's Claude Shannon created the first wearable
computer to help them beat Vegas at roulette back in 1961.

[http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/graphics/courses/mobwear/resourc...](http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/graphics/courses/mobwear/resources/thorp-
iswc98.pdf)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_counting#History_of_blackj...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_counting#History_of_blackjack_card_counting)

~~~
krishna2
And after that they started a hedge fund and have been playing in the real big
markets..ever since.

That (hedge funds) and all such things seem to be basically about one thing :
Know of a statistical advantage that others don't know and then play
mechanically with zero emotions as possible. Play for the long term, play for
sensible gains/expectations and put risk-management above everything else.

[Edit] As I am thinking about this : Startups are probably a similar kind of
game as well.

------
avinashv
A student group I am a member of screened this on Tuesday for the campus. Good
stuff, I liked it more than I imagined I would. I've been told it deviates
somewhat from the book, which I need to pick up.

~~~
agotterer
I went to a screening last week. Also enjoyed or more then I expected. It's no
oscar winning movie, but definitely worth 2 hours of my time.

------
startupcrazy
I've worked on professional Blackjack teams. It looks much more glamorous in
the movies than it is in real life. Still, potentially making 35k in one night
has its appeal.

------
krishna2
What Ed Thorpe did was just plain genius!!! And what 'rainman' (movie ref) did
was beyond genius!

But IMO what these folks did was _cheat_. You can count cards as long as you
do not use an external device to aid you in the counting. These folks
collaborated with others to share each one's counts so as to take advantage of
the system. Not that I am a big fan of the casino (or their making tons of
money).

------
rglovejoy
See also <http://www-tech.mit.edu/V128/N12/blackjack.html> for an interview
with Ben Mezrich, author of "Bringing Down the House" and Jeffrey Ma, the
person that Jim Sturgess' character is based on.

~~~
aston
And here <http://www-tech.mit.edu/V128/N14/sturgess.html> for an interview
with Jim Sturgess.

------
ericb
I've been out to a club with the author and his wife. I dated his wife's best
friend before I met my now-wife. Ben talked about how the story came his way.
Basically, it started with someone saying "You know what would make a great
book..." which I thought was funny because it reminded me of "I have a great
idea for a website..."

~~~
ericb
This has been down-modded twice now. That's fine, but care to explain why?

Edit: downmodding someone asking for clarification is just being a jerk.

------
edw519
We pretty much stopped going to the movies about a year ago, but I think this
will make a nice exception this weekend. Pass the popcorn.

