mit blackjack team

ive been curious about team play for awhile, and just finished reading the book about the mit teams. ive heard much of it is exaggerated. is that true? it sounded pretty crazy, some of the barring stories and whatnot. also, it seemed only the winning sessions would always be discussed. the inevitable losing sessions didnt appear to receive adequate mention.
id be curious to anyone who is currently or in the past been associated with a bj team. how did you guys go about finding trustworthy people and skilled players- it seems itd be best to go in with people you know well and can trust. also, how much bankroll would be sufficient to be received on a big money team. the mit guy, kevin, in the book, seems to have been recruited without a bankroll of his own, and was just playing with other investors' money. is that common, or are players always expected to bring a substantial piece of the action into the bankroll?
does anyone know any of the guys/gals from the mit team in the book? can you vouch for any of their experiences? id appreciate any insights about the mit team or team play in general.

Consider this. Two players combine $10,000 bank rolls. Now you play at different tables. You can each bet to a $20,000 bank. Now your playing twice as many hands with your $20,000 bank. Since your SD per hand is the same, your ROR does not increase by doing this. You and your team mate are winning twice as much per hour as you would solo, but have not increased your risk.

Poker players can do the same thing. Of course, unlike BJ, you can play at the same table and increase your win rate even more.

Bert

ive been curious about team play for awhile, and just finished reading the book about the mit teams. ive heard much of it is exaggerated. is that true?

It is written in that style authors use that indicates when you ask them if it is true they will go on about pioneering a genre between the boundaries of fact and fiction ie, no, it isn't all true. At the same time the MIT team(/s) is well known to have done some interesting things over the years, and the winnings spoken of are far from fantastic, indeed rather mundame considering the ROI some other teams operating in that period received.

it sounded pretty crazy, some of the barring stories and whatnot. also, it seemed only the winning sessions would always be discussed. the inevitable losing sessions didnt appear to receive adequate mention.

Heh heh heh, gambler's selective memory.

also, how much bankroll would be sufficient to be received on a big money team. the mit guy, kevin, in the book, seems to have been recruited without a bankroll of his own, and was just playing with other investors' money. is that common, or are players always expected to bring a substantial piece of the action into the bankroll?

Recruitment with no bankroll is fairly common. If you mug up on theory and practice, and hang out in the right places, without trying to hustle any one, you may well receive such an offer.

does anyone know any of the guys/gals from the mit team in the book? can you vouch for any of their experiences? id appreciate any insights about the mit team or team play in general.

Paths crossed a few times in the casinos but don't know any of them personally.

John,
Please tell me more about this recruitment w/o bankroll, as it is of particular interest to me, since Im just starting to get more serious about bj. ive played for five years recreationally, and have progressed from hilo to a strong level 3 system that i have mastered. I would consider moving to vegas to pursue team play if the right offer became available. thing is, though, i don't know very many counters, and of those I do know I would not play seriously with any of them since they are not good enough yet.

how do you find the right people? you mentioned hanging out in the right places...where are these places? i don't want to ever risk being lured into the opposition's crowd by associating w/ the wrong people. please elaborate on this for me, john. Thanks.

last question- how much would a spotter/counter on a team (estimate/average sized team financially) make if they contributed little or no bankroll. how does this work out?

you can start by hanging out on reputable bj boards, such as green chip here instead of the free pages. post some worthwhile stuff and gert your name and handle known and respected, and you might get approached by some team people.

i think the time for that opportunity has passed.

the games are getting worse and the casino much smarter

find a good career and stick with it and play bj as a side job.

I don't quite understand why a successful counter would want to play on a team and share his profits, unless the team had such a sizable BR (mid 6 to 7 figure) that it allowed the players to bet substantially more than they could as individuals with a virtually non existant ROR and with enough skilled members to cummulatively rack the hours up, as is the case with DD' and Turtle. However, most of the team formations I read about here involve 2 or 3 players with a combined BR of 20k or less which is barely a session BR for a lone player. Within these lower bankrolled formations such an arraingement may be somewhat profitable to the investors and to some team members who in the long run become subsidized by the winning participants of the team, I would think that after awhile any "shining star" of the team would at some point tire of giving up part of his consistent winnings and then go out on his own.

I suppose each players perspective on this topic will largely depend upon his own past track record and his comfort level of risk tolerance. With that in mind, I would be leary of anyone actively looking to join a team and ask myself why?

May all the dealers blackjacks occur while you're in the bathroom!!

Card.

A respected pro on greenchip recently referred to Mezrich's stories as "half-baked"

Here are some words of wisdom: 99% of blackjack team play is a joke, a sham or both. When you join a team, you really know very little about the integrity or skill of the other players. If you've mastered a level 3 count, you are probably a stronger blackjack player than the vast majority of Green Chippers, so going there to join a team just doesn't seem like a great idea. The best way to make some money on a card counting team is to join an established, heavily-bankrolled, professional operation like the Greeks or Highland but doing that is far easier said than done. I suppose you have to know someone to be able to get in.

If you try to team up with a bunch of internet personalities, one of three things is likely to happen:

1 ) You'll wind up with a con man on your team and your edge over the house will never overcome his edge over the team.

2) One or more weak or altogether incompetent players will drag the team's bankroll down into the toilet.

3) You'll have a surveillance agent posing as a player trying to lure you into an alleged team operation and you'll end up with that guy having and possibly distributing your picture.

Now, there are some people here with decent reputations, such as bigplayer and DD' whom you could attempt to court on the Green Chip pages but, I'd say that your best bet is to stick it out solo and try to get your BR to the point that you can make a few hundred bucks per hour. In time, you will come to meet other players and get to know the lay of the land. Then you can make an informed decision about what team play ideas you want to try. One rule of thumb is that if you cannot make it on your own, you'll never make it in a team. A lot of weak players turn to team play as a way to help themselves out but, ultimately, that will just fail. However, if you are a strong player who is solo-capable then you can flourish even more on a team, assuming everyone else on the team is the same.

Of course, another alternative is that you could actually train some people you know and trust to count cards. You could then form a team of your own with people who are not going to rip you off. Such a thing may have to start off small, but it could certainly build if the team has trust and skill. Coupon hustling and promotion hunting are a great way to build up a small team BR as can be agressive, tag-team wonging of good shoe games.

...where I was in the same casino at the same time as MIT members. Some of the detail's don't tally.

But if you are a stickler for the truth, no I don't have cast-iron evidence of the fact that the book is liberal with the truth, which would involve following MIT around and taking detailed notes for a few years, but I do have a finely-honed bullshit detector. Claiming the book is fact struck me as slightly less credible than Tolkien's claim to have discovered rather than created the history of middle-earth.

This is a true and funny (I think so anyway)story about the MIT blackjack team. One of the team managers left a backpack full of $200,000 in cash in one of MITs computer labs (they were using this room for a team meeting). A janitor found the backpack and turned it in to lost and found. Someone in lost and found, in looking through the backpack to try to identify the owner found the $200,000 and notified the police who then notified the IRS, FBI and DEA. The team manager had to pay about $20,000 in legal fees to get the cash back and was grilled by the IRS, DEA and FBI as to where the money came from and what was it for.

How in the world do you "forget" $200,000 in cash?

Regards,
Steve