Smart Baccarat

I made it a point to see 21 last night, and I found it to be a bit of a bore. I guess it wasn't so much that it didn't follow the book, or even the over emphasis on the evil professor (played by Kevin Spacey).

Fundamentally, my issue is that the MIT team is just not that interesting. I promised myself I would "try" to not knit pick a number of scenes that were unrealistic in this flick. This involves such things as the lack of table limits (were those $25,000 checks I saw on the main casino floor at Planet Hollywood), or the fact that they were going to change the chips over after a minor snafu in the casino (not like the real event when MGM had to replace their high denomination chips after the infamous Tyson fight and ensuing riot). Also, they managed to not really show the "grind" involved waiting to jump into the positive situations. Quite frankly, I would have figured things would have been a bit more exciting, considering you hardly ever saw much waiting around --- or distressing positive counts that do not yield a positive cash result (i.e. variance). Don't get me wrong Bringing Down the House was a pretty good read, but I always found Ken Uston's team (Al Francesco et al) and their story to be a bit more intriguing.

That's right, the MIT Team did not develop the BP (Big Player) strategy, that brilliance was the work of Al Francesco

The scene: a Lake Tahoe casino. The cast of characters: Al Francesco, Al's brother, Al's sister, and Al's sister's husband. The Francesco family was hanging around the casino, waiting for their dinner reservation. Al's brother, a card counter himself, killed the time by playing small-stakes blackjack with bets of $1 to $5. Al was standing nearby, chatting casually with his brother-in-law. When he saw his brother make a $5 bet, Al would throw in another $100. When he saw his brother make a $1 bet, Al would hold onto his money. After half-an-hour, when the family went to go eat dinner, the pit boss begged Al to stay and keep plying blackjack.


The significance of the event was immediately apparent to Al Francesco. From the pit boss's point of view, Al had appeared as an unsophisticated tourist, barely paying attention to the game, with plenty of money to throw around, who had simply gotten lucky on a few hands. Thus was born the persona of The Big Player.

Al would go on to finding and training the best blackjack player EVER --- aka "the Roadrunner," "the Phantom," the "Mad Bomber," and "the Wandering Jew." That's right --- Ken Uston.

In 1971, Al started playing with teams of seven: six counters and one Big Player. Al recruited the team members and taught them basic strategy and Lawrence Revere's Advanced Point Count system. When they were ready to play, the counters would sit at different blackjack tables, each one counting the cards and making small bets. When the count was favorable, the counter would signal the Big Player, who would come over to the table and bet big until the count turned against him, and then walk away. Like Al Francesco in Lake Tahoe, the Big Player never appeared to be anything other than a wealthy, unsophisticated tourist who happened to get lucky. In this way, Al Francesco's teams won millions of dollars over the course of a few years.

One of the blackjack players recruited and trained by Al Francesco was Ken Uston. To the dismay of Al and the other team members, Uston revealed their secrets to the world in his 1977 book The Big Player. The publication of Uston's book effectively spelled the end for Francesco's teams. Many of the team members hated Uston after that, but Francesco refused to carry a grudge.

Virtually all of the most successful blackjack teams that came after The Big Player was published—the Hyland team, the MIT team, the Czech team, the Greeks—used Al’s BP concept to disguise their attacks, and that approach is still being employed profitably by teams today.

Anyone interested in blackjack team play should get themselves a copy of Ken Uston's book, The Big Player. One of the most amazing stories in "The Big Player" was when Uston won $27,000 in 45 minutes at the Freemont in downtown Las Vegas. The incredible thing was that the "maximum" bet at the Freemont was $500. At one point, Uston was playing twelve hands simultaneously -- and managed to win all twelve for a total win of $6,000.

What I personally find incredible, with respect to the Francesco/Uston Teams, is that they made made millions in the early 1970's. Another fascinating read involves how Uston and his team took Atlantic City by storm in 1979 (winning $145,000 in nine days), as well as the legal battles fought by Uston, to prevent counters from being barred. "One Third of a Shoe" is perhaps one of the best gambling reads ever, though, it is rarely mentioned and it is difficult to locate copies. (of course, I have multiple copies of all of Uston's books in my personal gaming library) These efforts eventually allowed for the "open environment" in Atlantic City, and to this day, card counters cannot be barred from AC casinos.

Another more recent chronicle of card counting, You've Got Heat is a great book (in journal format) of a card counter's multiple trips to Vegas from 1999 to 2003. What is fantastic about this book, is that it follows the ongoing journey trip to trip. At the end of each trip (chapter) the author gives you his starting and ending bankrolls (and net win/loss) for the trip. A bit different than the team player (and at a much lower bankroll) it is still very interesting to see the highs and lows of advantage gambling.

One final good (recent) read on the subject is Dave Stann's book Hollywood Blackjack. This one time starving actor's very frank accounts of his journey playing Blackjack is pretty entertaining. It starts with "Chapter 1 - Fuck the Stardust." Stann gives a pretty good historical account of the game, and also spends some time discussing tournament strategy and the Ultimate Blackjack Tour.

At the end of the day, I have to say that a bit of emphasis on Blackjack is refreshing in the current poker-centric world. I'm sure that the casinos will be happy to host a new group of folks trying to beat the house. I have always said that the fact that blackjack was beatable (even though "unlikely" beatable for the vast majority of folks) was probably the best advertising a casino could ever wish for, with regard to attracting players to their properties.

Labels: al francesco, atlantic city, big player, blackjack, ken uston, las vegas, mit blackjack team