No Moron! You Can't Win Against the Casino Playing Blackjack Switch...Unless You Cheat!

Perhaps you've heard of the new casino game "Blackjack Switch," which is a variant of blackjack in which a player is dealt two hands and is allowed to switch the top two cards between hands. For example, if the player is dealt A-5 and 10-6, then the player may swap the top two cards of each hand to make hands of A-10 blackjack and 5-6, a good double-down hand. But the Catch 00 is that blackjacks are paid 1:1 instead of the standard 3:2, and a dealer 22 pushes all player hands except a blackjack.

Believe it or not, I have gotten a dozen e-mails asking me if this was a game where the casinos were letting the players cheat the house! LOL. Can you believe that?!

Well, for those of you who want to cheat at Blackkack Switch, you better do some switching with something besides the cards--try the chips!

Blackjack Cheat Snagged Cheating Church Blackjack Game!

Blackjack cheating your local church! I have heard of lows but that is about the lowest of all of them. Even I have never cheated at a church blackjack game! Cheating at a party blackjack nite, that´s one thing...but a church...that´s a sin! Well, I´m glad the guy got caught. It turns out he was a card-mucker, palming cards (aces and tens) out of play and putting them back in when he needed them. Here´s what happened:

WHEN THE KING of diamonds and the ace of spades kept coming up winners in Roland "Rico" Chapa's blackjack hands last year, a dealer at the church festival called in the pit boss.

Other players at the table accused Chapa, a 67-year-old used-car dealer, of palming the cards from the deck.

Now, Chapa's 30-year lucky streak as a self-described bookmaker and "gangster" might be over after a Franklin County jury convicted him of cheating, a felony in Ohio for those like Chapa with a previous gambling conviction or someone who tries to corrupt the outcome of a bet of more than $500.

Money changed hands so fast at the St. Timothy Church fundraiser on July 14 that no one remembers how many hands Chapa played before pit boss Rob Gardner called him a cheat, said Assistant County Prosecutor Amanda Lowe.

Then festival organizers called authorities.

Lowe called five witnesses on Friday to prove the rarely-used criminal code before Common Pleas Judge Richard S. Sheward. One said a two of spades dropped from Chapa's slacks when he stood up to empty his pockets.

Chapa testified that he is a diabetic who drank too much that night and was left behind by two buddies. He said he walked into the festival with $650 and left with $450.

"I actually lost money that night. I told them (deputies) if the Catholics wanted more money, I'd have given them the $400 I had and kept $50 for a cab," he said in an interview before the verdict.

Chapa said sheriff's detectives have been after him for 10 years.

"They wanted me to rat out other bookmakers, and I don't know any."

Instead of arresting him, deputies called a cab and sent Chapa packing.

Chapa, who wore a white suit, black shirt and gold alligator belt buckle, seemed relaxed about his chances. When asked how long he has gambled, he replied, "Can I take the Fifth on that?"

It took a jury less than 30 minutes to convict him yesterday of cheating and possession of criminal tools. Sheward set sentencing for Aug. 6; Chapa faces up to two years in prison for the hustle. His daughter Katrina said authorities have harassed Chapa for more than 30 years.

"We will immediately appeal this," she said.

Defense attorney Lewis T. Dye told jurors that his client was too drunk to cheat.

"They waited six months after his last arrest to bring this case," said Dye, whose father has represented Chapa in earlier gambling cases.

Chapa's apartment at 6998 Sawmill Village Dr. on the Northwest Side was raided in 2007 as a sports bookmaking operation, the sheriff's office says. He agreed to plead to one count of gambling.

According to a search warrant, an investigation found that Chapa met customers at area sports bars and offered to take their bets for a 10 percent service charge.

Bets also were placed at the car lot where Chapa works.

An affidavit used to obtain the warrant said Chapa told a detective that he had been a bookmaker and "gangster" for more than 30 years.

Does the Film "21" Rate a Blackjack?

ARE SPACEY'S 21 CARD COUNTING SCENES REAL?

I am still receiving a ton of e-mails asking me about the MIT Blackjack Team film “21.” But the latest batch have not been asking my opinion whether I thought the film was good or bad, but rather whether or not I thought it was accurate. In other words, was the cinematic version of team-play at card counting worthy of the real thing?

The answer is yes and no. “Yes” because the basic portrayal of how cards are counted and big bets put into play was more accurate than not. There have been some specific questions about the role of “spotters” in real-life blackjack card counting. One is: do card counting teams really call spotters “spotters?” well, I don’t know what the MIT crew actually called theirs but I would say more professional teams call their spotters “counters” rather than “spotters.” If this is confusing you, don’t worry. Call them whatever the heck you like!

The second question concerns what the spotters’ role is after the big player is signalled into a hot shoe. In the film, the spotters remained at the game while the big player made the big bets. Several people asked me if that’s the proper case scenario in real-world big-time blackjack card counting. Sometimes it is, depending on particular situations. If the spotters keep jumping out of the game each time the big player arrives at the table, some of the casino bosses might pick up on this suspicious version of “musical blackjack chairs!” On the other hand, if the spotter needs to cede his place to let the big player into the game, then he’s got no choice. In European and Caribbean casinos, secondary blackjack players can bet behind the original player in the same betting circle, so in those casinos the issue of whether the spotter remains at the table becomes a matter of choice.

One important element of card counting that the film did not portray at all was the need to camouflage blackjack card counting big players as high-rolling roulette, craps, and baccarat (punto-banco) players in casinos they attack. Big players should show some big action at these games before appearing at blackjack tables in order to give the impression to casino bosses that they’re all-around big players, not just blackjack big players! This charade will cut into the bankroll a bit, but these losses will be more than offset by way of increasing hours of blackjack play with a counting edge without taking heat. Remember, the key is to play for as long as possible with the least amount of card counting exposure. And when card counting teams win, those with good casino savvy will show some more action on those craps and roulette tables before cashing out their blackjack winnings.

Is Andy Bloch the real-life 21 Movie MIT Blackjack Team Guru?

So who's the real hero in Kevin Spacey's film 21, Andy Bloch or Jeff Ma? At first it seemed to be Ma, but more and more I'm seeing news articles claiming it was Bloch. It also appears that the real-life MIT Blackjack Card Counting Team is getting bigger and bigger with each new day the film has been out. The first controversy stems from casting Jim Sturgess supposedly in the role of Jeff Ma. Sturgess is Caucasian while Ma is Asian. The MIT Blackjack Team was, according to everything I've heard, purportedly made up of several Asian players, but not according to the movie. When asked about this, Andy Bloch told the UK Telegraph that the team was decidedly "white." For those of you unfamiliar with Andy Bloch, probably believing Jeff Ma was the brains behind the MIT Blackjack Team, Bloch is another MIT graduate who began his successful gambling roll as a blackjack card counter but who gave that up for even greater success and riches in the poker world, not only through playing but by writing books and producing instructional DVDs. Whichever of the two is the real-life catalyst of the card counting team, there's still no disputing Bloch's success in the gambling world. I, however, would just like to know not only who the film's main character is based on but also how many players this MIT Team really had. Perhaps they should publish and official roster like a football club!

In any event, the UK Telegraph published a major article on Andy Bloch. Read it and come to your own conclusion about who was the MIT Card Counting Team's big player.


THE MAN WHO BEAT LAS VEGAS AT BLACKJACK

By Tim Shipman

Handcuffed, arrested, accused, threatened - and all for being too good at cards. Tim Shipman meets the former student gambler whose winning streak has become a Hollywood hit.

The blackjack dealer flicked the cards with a felicitous snap across the green baize. With every low card that hit the table, the young man's pulse increased. The count was good. It was time to strike.

Andy Bloch was 24 years old. By day he was an engineering student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; by night, part of a team making millions at the blackjack table.

The movement of his hand was imperceptible to those nearby, but to his watching friends it conveyed urgency: Get in now. This is our chance.

A swaying figure stumbled up to the table, spilling his drink and betting big. "Don't egg him on," said Bloch.

He caught the merest flicker of recognition from the apparent drunk - in reality a man Bloch had trained with for months. "Eggs": code for a dozen. Twelve times the basic bet. Bloch watched as the "Big Player" on his team put down the chips: $12,000. The cards came: another win.

It was a scene repeated in casinos the length of the Las Vegas strip between 1993 and 1999, when Bloch was part of the fabled MIT blackjack team, who for 10 years ran one of the most successful card-counting operations in the history of gambling.

Now 38, Bloch still looks like the kind of guy who tells you to turn your computer off and then on again, but now he has been immortalized in the film 21, starring Kevin Spacey, which has gone straight to No 1 at the US box office.

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Bloch - now one of the world's top poker players - describes how they beat the casinos at their own game. "I probably made half a million over six years," he says, sitting in a steak house in Washington. "Some I earned as a player and some as an investor."

He was also threatened, arrested and barred from every casino in Las Vegas.

Card counting is not illegal, it is not cheating, but casinos can refuse to let you play. The concept is simple, if difficult to execute undetected. "You can get an edge by watching the cards that come out of the shoe [card holder]," he says.

A succession of low cards stacks the odds in favor of the player, because the high cards remaining give him a better chance of getting a score close to 21 and increase the likelihood of the dealer going bust.

Every time a card under seven comes, the spotter mentally adds one to the "count". For every 10, picture card or ace, he subtracts one. When the count reaches more than 10 it is time to increase the size of your bet.

To avoid detection, the MIT team used signals to get a Big Player into the game. "We had codewords for the numbers zero through 20 to tell the Big Player how much to bet," Bloch says.

"A word beginning with the letter A would be one unit and J would be 10. You would say: 'Jesus, how could I lose that hand,' and they would know to bet 10 units, which might be $10,000."

Bloch is not your average card sharp. He has two electrical engineering degrees from MIT and a third from Harvard Law School. This year he finished runner-up in the world heads-up poker championship, taking his lifetime tournament winnings to $3.2 million.

He was recruited by the Blackjack Team in 1993. In the film, the team mentor, played by Spacey, is an MIT professor. In real life the leaders were MIT graduates.

Unlike the hero of the film, who agonizes before joining up, Bloch had no qualms about what he did: "The only people who think it is cheating are people who don't understand it. You're just using your mind."

Like every team recruit, Andy Bloch had to complete a rigorous training regime. "I didn't pass for six months," he says. "We would deal fast and have lots of distractions. People would ask you questions. We'd have music playing and the dealer would try to cheat you. If you missed it, you failed."

On Fridays in game week, the team would fly to Las Vegas and find the busiest high-stakes blackjack tables. "You want a lot of action because if you're the only big player you're going to get a lot of attention," Bloch says.

Andy played every role, but the most exhilarating - and the most frightening - was to be the Big Player. "It's the most risk," he says. "If you get spotted, you're the face they're going to fax around all the casinos."

In the opening lines of Casino Royale, Ian Fleming describes the "compost of greed and fear and nervous tension" in a casino. It is a sentiment Bloch knows well.

"When you're playing blackjack, with every tap on the shoulder you worry that it could be the last time you're in the casino," he says. "When you see the heat coming, you want to get out as quickly as possible.

"I never got beaten up. I got grabbed, I got handcuffed, I got arrested on trumped-up charges or false accusations of cheating."

He does, though, know of other counters who experienced violence. "I know of a guy who won money and then was playing golf with the casino owner, who pulled a gun on him and said: 'Give me all the money you just won from me and I won't kill you.' So he gave him the money."

The bad guy in the film is a casino security boss, played by Lawrence Fishburne. In reality the team's opponents were the Griffin Detective Agency, which specializes in catching card counters.

But Bloch says the real villain was losing. "The most brutal moment is when you lose and they come up to you and say you're no longer welcome to play. You're down and you're out."

When in real difficulty, the team were able to call on the services of a leading defense lawyer, recommended to them by Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard Law professor who helped defend OJ Simpson.

The team first called on his services when their founder left $100,000 in a plastic bag in an MIT classroom and the janitor, fearing it was drug money, gave it to the police,. The lawyer helped recover the money. Dershowitz's nephew later joined the MIT team.

The film has created some controversy because the lead characters are white, while the hero of the book on which it is based, Ben Mezrich's Bringing Down the House, was Asian. But Bloch says that while his team did capitalize on the view of some casino managers that Asians can be erratic gamblers - a perfect cover for the Big Player - his team was mainly white.

Andy Bloch doesn't play much blackjack now. When he enters a casino, the managers steer him straight to the poker tables. When he entered the World Series of Poker Europe in London last autumn, he had to get special dispensation to enter the gaming floor at all.

Bloch says poker and blackjack give him "different kicks". While he has won more money at poker, blackjack may be harder. "I've never been arrested or had to worry about who I am playing poker. You have to hide what you have in your hand - but in blackjack you have to be acting the entire time you're playing."

For six years it was an Oscar-worthy performance of which Kevin Spacey would have been proud.

21 MIT Card Counting Film Author Mezrich Gives Opinion on Movie

Bringing Down the House author Ben Mezrich gave an interview on his thoughts about Kevin Spacey's MIT blackjack movie 21 that appeared on Freakonomics. Overall, I thought his responses were rather candid, and he did what anyone writing a casino cheating or casino crime novel turned into a movie would do: make it glitzy and thrilling, even if the lives of a group of card counters are far from either. One sharp question that came up was the film's use of a Caucasian star, Jim Sturgess, to play the main character Jeff Ma, who is in fact Asian. Are the producers going to be accused of playing the race card instead of the ace of spades?

Here's what Mezrich had to say on the film 21.

Q: When you wrote Bringing Down The House, how much of a priority was keeping your account true to real life?

A: When I sat down to write B.D.T.H., my goal was to keep the book as true to the real story as possible, while doing my best to conceal the characters’ identities (at their request). The M.I.T. blackjack team that I wrote about played over the course of a number of years, in a variety of situations; to get deep into the real story, I interviewed many players, casino operatives, private eyes, etc.

In my narrative nonfiction, my goal is to tell the story in a dramatic, thrilling style — to tell the true story in a way that’s very readable, and hopefully fun.

Q: Some of the characters in the book who were Asian were changed to white in the movie. How do you feel about this?

A: That whole issue has been blown way out of proportion on the Web.

In reality, the main character was Jeff Ma, who was Chinese. He asked me to change his identity so he was not recognizable. Jeff was also a consultant on the film 21, was on set for much of the shoot, and was thrilled with the casting of Jim Sturgess to play him.

As for the rest of the team I wrote about, half were white, two were Asian, and one was of mixed race. The makeup of the characters in the book and the movie reflects this.

Q: What changes in the movie are you most happy with and why? Were you unhappy with any changes?

A: I thought 21 stayed true to the feel and excitement of the book. I really enjoyed the movie, though, of course, it strays from the narrative I wrote.

I think Kevin Spacey is awesome in the movie, and I think Vegas and certainly blackjack never looked so good.

Q: What is fueling America’s casino craze?

A:Vegas is fun, plain and simple. It’s an escape, something every 21-year-old kid dreams about — which wasn’t true 10 years ago.

I think you have to separate out gambling and Vegas; even though Vegas is built on gambling, I think what most people dream about when they dream about Vegas isn’t the gambling, but the fantasy aspect of it all.

As for the casino craze — I’m actually a little frightened by the idea of casinos all over the country. Though of course it’s happening because it’s an easy fix for short-term economic problems.

Q: What makes a movie like 21 appealing to its target audience and were you aiming at the same audience when you wrote the book?

A: 21 tells an amazing story; it’s also a glossy fantasy aimed at anyone who’s ever dreamed about beating Vegas and winning millions.

I think the book aimed for the same thing — the idea that a bunch of super-smart kids could take on something so huge and supposedly unbeatable. It’s David vs. Goliath, Robin Hood, etc. But it also happens to be real.