21
There's been a lot of publicity lately about the new film, 21, a fictionalized version of one of the MIT card-counting teams from the 90's. Like this article in the Globe yesterday about a female member of the team, who "came out" recently to her family and friends after establishing a successful career as a corporate lawyer.
This is particularly interesting to me because I knew "Mr. M", one of the original founders of the MIT Blackjack Team, in the early 1980's. (There's a good history of those early days in Wikipedia.) Mr. M was JP, one of the members of the programming team that I supervised at my first management job at Computer Corporation of America. We all knew about his sideline - in fact, he often used our conference room after hours for card counting training and practice sessions. One time I was offered a prospectus (I may still have a copy of it somewhere), invested a small amount, and made a tidy profit.
My favorite story is the day I walked into my office and found a clean-shaven stranger sitting there waiting for me. I had no idea who the person was until he spoke and I recognized his voice. JP had cut his long hair and scraggly beard in an attempt to change his appearance to evade the casino detectives. He was so thrilled that I hadn't recognized him, because he figured that if he could fool someone he worked with every day, it would probably work to fool the detectives.
The movie, of course, makes things a bit more colorful than they really were, with chases and love scenes that didn't actually happen. But that's Hollywood.
What a cool story you have! I read "Bringing Down the House" and loved it. I recommended it to lots of people. I can't wait to see the film.
Posted by: Rhea | March 29, 2008 at 08:58 AM
One scene from the movie was shot at the clothing store on Mt. Auburn Street, right next to where I work.
Posted by: Gary McGath | March 29, 2008 at 06:19 PM