mickeyrosa.com

One surprise I found the first time I went to a casino is how badly most people play.  By and large, people go completely unprepared.  Well, not quite — they’ll probably bring some money, or read their horoscope.

Of course, for most people this won’t change.  But those who want to learn to beat the game with a minimum of fuss don’t have much help.  Can you learn to play the piano, ride a bike, or swim by reading a book alone?  I doubt it!  You just gotta practice.  Counting cards is like that.

So how do you practice on your own?  I have this crazy idea of a computer program that can help.  You download it to your cellphone at the airport on the way to Vegas.   You play it at the gate, on the plane, and in the taxi.  Within a few hours, by the time you reach your hotel, you’re good enough to play a winning game.  And you’ll know it.

The program probes your weaknesses.  It tells you how much your mistakes cost; gives you rules to remember; highlights the spot on the chart that applies.  It tells you audibly (big mistake, close, right, you should know that).   Unlike a human coach, it sets up hands that test specific skills.  If you make a mistake or even take extra time to make a decision, it generates more exercises for decisions like that.  No wasted time.  It can tell you whether you’re a winning or losing player.

Is this possible?

My name is John Chang.  I am the basis for Ben Mezrich’s characters Mickey Rosa (from Bringing Down the House) and Victor Cassius (from Busting Vegas).  Kevin Spacey plays Mickey Rosa in the 21 movie, premiering March 28, 2008.

You might wonder, are the books true?  Put yourself in Mezrich’s place. He wants to sell books. If he makes up a few lurid details, well, who’s going to object? So, let’s beat up one of the players. In fact, let’s make him swallow a chip. Yeah. Oh, and let’s hire a stripper to cash out for us. Then “interviews” with strippers become “business expenses”.  And if the technical details are a little fuzzy, who cares? No one is going to know the difference.

How about the 21 trailer?  How accurate is that?  Ben Campbell — good characterization. Being introduced to the team was something like that for at least some players.  Professor Rosa, on the other hand, would be a fish out of water at MIT.  And Laurence Fishburne’s character is wholly invented.  No one ever got beat up in some boiler room in the bowels of the casino, and Griffin agents do not know how to count cards.  The stuff at the end about how it all goes wrong is wildly off.

Maybe some former teammates or colleagues will contribute their viewpoints or analyses at one point or another.  In the meantime, what questions do you have?   Which stories in the books do you find the most interesting?  The most unbelievable?  What technical details do you care about or question?

Read more: 

• Breaking Vegas documentary
• Blackjack Forum interview
• Wikipedia entry on the MIT blackjack team
• MIT Thesis
• MIT Admissions (scroll to bottom)
• GSN’s World Series of Blackjack
• The Hot Shoe
• Taiwan TV
• Blackjack Hall of Fame (under On the Boulevard) 
• The Real People Behind the Characters in 21