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Review of the Movie "21"

So we dragged ourselves away from our computers, ventured out into the light of day and went to a brick-and-mortar theater to see the new Sony Pictures release,"21", starring Kevin Spacey and others, notably the very attractive Kate Bosworth, the likes of which I've never had on any of my Blackjack teams.

This film is an adaptation of the book "Bringing Down the House" by Ben Mezrich (Free Press, 2003) that I wrote about in my series on team play at Blackjack, which is currently linked off the front page here under this heading: BLACKJACK TEAM MONEY MANAGEMENT SERIES. (If it's been moved by the time you read this, check the Blackjack Archives page.) The book tells about a group of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who were taught how to win at Blackjack by an MIT professor and details their adventures of actually making a bunch of $$$ in the effort. It is mostly a true story that has been done before, is happening as you read this and will happen again in the future, although not necessarily by MIT students.

The movie's producers and the screenwriter did an adequate job of showing how a Blackjack team functions in a general way and they were careful to point out that card counting is legal, although most, if not all casinos don't like card counters especially when they team up. Unfortunately one gets the impression this card counting stuff requires the brain power of MIT students or mathematical geniuses, but that's not true at all. As I've always said, if you can do some simple addition along with some slightly more difficult division in your head, you can be a card counter.

Naturally, Hollywood feels compelled to place drama in situations that are - in real life - rather boring and this is no exception. Card counting is boring in reality and most casinos that suspect a player of counting simply ask them to leave; very few ever get "backroomed" and even less are the subject of any sort of physical abuse. But the movie makes it appear that counters are punched out on a regular basis by evil men in suits. It's not to say that hasn't happened before, but in most cases the culprits have been overzealous security guards who were more concerned with showing who's in charge rather than any concern about the rights of casino patrons, be they counters or otherwise. The movie also implies "new" facial-recognition software is the beginning of the end for counters, but that certainly is not the case as I write this. Sure, a person can be identified by such programs, but many more are missed. Trust me on that one.

The big argument I have with the movie - and the MIT team, if this is an accurate portrayal - is the specific tactics used in the casino. First of all, the signal used to call the Big Player (BP) to the table has all the subtlety of a flashing neon sign. (If you don't know what a "Big Player" is, see my series on Blackjack teams for more information). Signals between teammates in casinos need to be gestures that anyone might use, but carry an understood meaning to the team. Rubbing your forehead or taking off your glasses is something anyone might do, but when viewed by your teammate, they have special significance. Once the BP came to the table, the team transmits the count via spoken code words - "sweet" means a running count of 16, for example - which can be awkward and might be subject to discovery by the pit critters, as we lovingly call casino supervisors here. If the counter at the table has to say something every time a BP shows up, it could well be picked up by the "eye-in-the-sky" or an astute pit critter, when a non-verbal hand signal is much less noticeable. But transferring the count to the BP is dumb in the first place. Just use hand signals to tell the BP how to play the hand and no count needs to be transferred; nothing needs to be said. And the movie had the counter stay at the table after transferring the count, which is completely unnecessary. Doing so allows the opposition to view various subsets of your team playing together for longer periods of time, which is never good. If the count is transferred to the BP, the counter is then free to move to another table, something that didn't happen in the movie.

Also, the movie made out the BP to be the brightest and smartest counter, which is not the case in real life. In my teams, the BP is the best actor - the one who can play the role of a high-stakes gambler that drinks real alcohol and scarcely pays attention to what's going on at the table. In my teams, the BP doesn't even have to be a counter, although s/he has to know the Basic Strategy variations, like standing on 16 vs. 10 when the count is up. As you'll see in my series on team play, the only signals the BP gets from the counter at the table is to A) come to the table, B) whether to play Basic Strategy or to make the one variation all Basic Strategy plays have and C) leave the table. You can easily see that doesn't require an MIT student.

All-in-all though, I liked the movie. Participating in a well-trained, well-run, well-financed Blackjack team is really a lot of fun and, Hollywoodisms aside, the film "21" conveys that better than most books on Blackjack have done. A successful team assault on the casinos leaves you feeling like Frank and the Rat Pack in Ocean's 11 with a better outcome. Sadly, none of my teams ever had young, smart, gorgeous women on them. It's never too late, of course but I won't be holding my breath waiting for Kate Bosworth to call me.

I'll see you here next time.

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