“Variable Change” is bullshit.  I know because Andy Bloch told me.  Why was I discussing high-level statistics with Andy Bloch?  Well, it’s not usually a topic Andy and I talk about.  We usually stick to conversations like “Hey Andy, on this break could we grab you for 5 minutes for an interview?” or “Andy, do you want a bottle of water for while you’re on the radio show?”

On this day, however, math would come up a lot in our conversation – along with the Astroturf at M.I.T., strip clubs, stealing bibles from hotel rooms, and mustaches.  On this day, I was going to see the new movie 21 (based loosely on the book ‘Bringing Down the House’, which is about the M.I.T. Blackjack Team, of which Andy was a member), and I was going with Andy Bloch.

A few weeks ago when I saw the previews for 21, I knew I would probably only enjoy it if I somehow knew what was real

and what was fictional.  Seeing as I’m far too lazy to do all that research myself, I came up with the idea to go see the movie with Andy, ask him questions throughout the movie, bother all the people around us (btw, why the f**k are there so many freaking people at a 2:15 showing of 21 on a damn weekday?), take notes and write a piece about it.  PokerRoad also decided to send Amanda and the video team to do an interview with Andy before and after the movie, so look for that coming up soon.

Ok, so yeah, Variable Change is bullshit.  In one of the first scenes, we meet the main character Ben, who demonstrates to his teacher (Kevin Spacey), and to the audience, how smart he is by knowing the solution to the “Monty Hall Problem” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem).  In the problem, you are asked to randomly pick a door out of three.  One contains a car, the other two a goat.  You choose a door, and the host opens one of the doors you DID NOT choose and reveals a goat.  Is it now in your interest to switch your choice?  Ben answers yes and gives a

brilliant speech about how with your first choice you were 33.3% to get the car, now you are 50% if you switch.  Kevin Spacey (as well as the audience… supposedly) is wowed by his answer, which later prompts Spacey to recruit him for the blackjack team.  However, according to Andy, without knowing or even being able to estimate the “strategy” of the host, then “Variable Change is bullshit.”

A common phrase we hear in the movie (even as early as the opening credits), that becomes almost a running theme, is “Winner winner, chicken dinner!”  All the blackjack team

members use it, as well as many of the dealers (mostly Asian).  Andy says he never heard that phrase mentioned once in his time on the team, be it from a team member, a dealer, or anyone Asian.  He says the first time he heard the phrase was actually from Chris Ferguson in a poker game years later.  I asked what they said when they won, since it wasn’t the chicken thing.  “Usually nothing.”  Ok, I kinda like the chicken thing more, sorry Andy.

In the movie, as in the real blackjack team, you had people sit at the tables, play the minimum, and keep the count. 

Then, these players would shoot signals to the “big player” if the shoe was hot, warm, cold, etc.  Most of the signals they used, Andy said, were pretty similar to the ones he remembers, BUT there was one signal that happened about 12 times in the movie, and Andy couldn’t help but laugh every time.  To signal the big player to sit down, the person would lean back in their chair, and cross their arms behind their backs.  Andy said that was so ridiculously obvious that they would never have used anything like it.  In fact, he said that he got to read some of the Griffin Reports (the agency that investigated the team) and even the signals Andy’s team used (which were FAR less obvious than the one Andy laughs at in the movies) were called “obvious and laughable” in the reports.  So, the hands-crossed-behind-the-back signal would have been busted in four seconds.  Andy said they also rotated the signals on different trips – what meant “hot shoe” on one trip might be “we need to talk” on another.

Towards the middle of the movie, there is an argument in a bar about whether or not you split eights against a ten. 

Professor Spacey finally ends the argument, saying that you don't split them.  However, in correct basic strategy, you DO split eights almost always, and especially against a ten.  The only time you don't split is if the count gets very high.  Then you never split eights but you DO always split tens (the opposite of basic strategy).

The only time you don’t split is if the count gets very high.  Then you never split eights but you DO always split tens (the opposite of basic strategy).
When they are about three months into their trips to Vegas, the girl from Blue Crush asks Ben how much money he has saved up.  He says $315,000.  Andy first told me that it would take around three YEARS to make that much.  Then later, when Ben lifts the ceiling tile in his dorm room (where he hides his money) they show wads of $100 bills piled in his ceiling, which Andy estimated to be closer to $1-1.5 million, and definitely more than $315,000.  Andy also said that most of the players would keep their money in a safe-deposit box, because depositing and withdrawing $100,000 from a bank multiple times starts to look suspicious. 

In the movie, they use code words to convey the count to the “big player” sitting down.  Sometimes they were whispered away from the table, or sometimes the signaler would use the word in a sentence when the “big player” sat (ie. “sweet” =+16), so the signaler might say “Wow, this drink is sweet!”, the “big player” would know the count, and keep it on his own from then on.  Andy said there were in fact words, almost all exactly the same as the ones used in the movie. 

However, there are multiple scenes where Professor Spacey is doing rapid-fire flashcard sessions with the team, almost in a drill sergeant type manner.  Andy says there were never any flashcard sessions of any kind, and meetings were always relaxed and mostly fun.  “So how did you learn the words?” I asked him.  “I just went home and learned them.”  Oh, ok, that works.  Andy still knew what words corresponded with what number counts, and was calling them out in the theatre during the flashcard sessions faster than the actors.

Ben and his team are shown getting comped all sorts of things – from limo rides, to free clothes, to HUMONGOUS 5-star suites.  Andy says that part is absolutely true.  They were constantly in amazing suites and they were always bringing expensive bottles of champagne home with them (since there was a team rule not to drink until they were totally done playing for the trip).  Another thing the team does in the movie that Andy’s team also did was to immediately ransack the room and take whatever they could, including drinks, snacks, artwork (one of Andy’s teammates took a huge Code of Arms off the wall once).  Andy said they probably wouldn’t be taking bibles or stealing all the little candies from the maid’s cart like the one team member in the movie did.

OK, so here are a few other little tidbits that Andy either confirmed or debunked:

-  The Astroturf at M.I.T. was never as freshly painted as in the movie, nor does Andy remember it having huge M.I.T. logos on it

- The gym you see the boys playing basketball in is not at M.I.T.

- Random people DID occasionally wander into their practice room thinking it was a class (like the Asian “Is this Chemistry?” girl in the movie)

- In the movie, they demonstrate on a restaurant table all the positions of the team.  The signalers were represented by salt and pepper shakers.  The “big player” was the mustard, and there were a few others.  I asked Andy if he was ever the mustard – “I was every condiment at one point.”

- Ben, on the plane to his first Vegas trip, is dealing out the cards to himself and practicing the count.  Andy says he remembers doing that himself, as well as other team members.

- The team’s default meeting position is a strip club called “Fox.”  First of all, no such club exists.  Second, Andy said they would NEVER meet in a strip club, because that’s the very last place you want to be with a ton of cash on you.

- In one game Ben sits in, he is told the count is +15 and there are multiple players at the table.  Ben plays one hand, but Andy said that’s a situation in which you would always play two hands.

- Ben is seen tipping the cashier $100.  Andy laughed and said “You NEVER tip the cashier $100.”

- After two team members get in a fight in the casino, Captain Spacey says that they have to cash out quickly because the casino would be changing its chips.  Andy’s team did lose $10,000 once after a casino changed out its chips following a Tyson fight and wouldn’t take the team’s two $5,000 chips.

- In the movie, someone from the team calls and rats out the team members to the casino.  Andy said people did try to rat them out a few times, but it was usually ex-girlfriends or other random people.  He said someone from the team would NEVER rat out the team.

- The team in the movie is very secretive to friends and family about what they do.  Andy says his team pretty much told all their friends, and most of them told their families.  Often they tried to get their friends on the team or even just took them along on trips.

- Andy never wore a fake mustache … back in those days he had an actual mustache, so that would have been a bad disguise.

- And finally, this one is from me.  On television, Penn Gillette looks to be around 6’5.  In real life, he is clearly 6’6.  (Penn joined us for the movie.  Penn enjoyed the movie.  He said Teller couldn’t join us because he was home playing “World of Warcraft”).

I got to meet a TV star that I like, got to see a movie with someone who actually experienced it, and got my ticket comped.  So what am I going to remember most about that day?

Variable Change is bullshit.