The MIT Blackjack Team are a group of ex-students and students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard Business School, Harvard University and other leading colleges. The founding member is Bill Kaplan.
This diverse Blackjack team were well known for their card counting techniques and more sophisticated strategies to beat casinos at Blackjack globally. They operated successfully form 1979 through to early 2000.
How it Began
In late November of 1979, a professional Blackjack player contacted one of the students in the card-counting group by the name of JP Massar who became known as Mr M. He proposed that they target Atlantic City Casinos where it was illegal to ban card counting.
In 1980 JP Massar heard about Bill Kaplan, a Harvard MBA graduate who had run a successful Blackjack team in Vegas for three years. He then set out to bring him on board. After observing the team, he decided to join. However, he made it clear that it had to operate as a serious business. This meant having a formal counting and betting system, strict training and detailed tracking of all casino play. The new MIT Blackjack team started on the 1 August 1980.
It was a successful team, and investors achieved an annualized return above 250%. Bill Kaplan eventually had to fall back and stop managing the team, as he could no longer show his face in any casino. He then decided to concentrate on his growing Real Estate and Development Company.
Conclusion
The MIT Blackjack team dissolved and players went their separate ways forming different teams. The original team may be gone, but never forgotten. Moreover, there were movies loosely based on their conquests like the 2008 film “21”, and Bill Kaplan actually appears in a cameo in the background of this movie.
Introduction
Patrik Antonius, the Black Lotus or The Finn, as he is nicknamed, was born in Finland on the 13th December 1980. He is a Finnish professional poker player and has a few other achievements to his name. He is also a former tennis player, coach and a model for Vantaa Finland.
Patrik Antonius Discovers Poker
Patrik had never set out to become a professional poker player as he had a promising tennis career that he was pursuing. However, due to a severe back injury, his life led him to the green felt becoming a successful poker player. He stumbled upon Poker at 17, and as soon as he turned 18, he found his way into a local casino with his game of choice being Pot-Limit Omaha.
In 2003 Patrik discovered online Poker, a moment that truly defined his poker career. Moreover, he deposited $200 into his online account and has never looked back. He turned that $200 into $20 000 within a couple of months. His most significant cash came in 2012 when he finished as the runner up to Phil Ivey in the $250 000 Aussie Millions Challenge earning $1.2 million which was his second 7 figure score.
HighStakes DB stated that between 2008-2013 Patrik accumulated winnings over $11 million on Full Tilt and PokerStars playing a FinddaGrind. He won in the region of $6 million between 2007-2016. Furthermore, Antonius holds the record for the most prominent online poker pot win in poker history.
Conclusion
Patrik Antonius has no WSOP bracelets, but it’s because he focuses most of his energy on good cash games globally. Anyone who has seen him in action when playing High Stakes Poker or Poker After Dark knows he has the ability. His opponents know what they are up against when The Finn takes a seat.
Rounders is a movie that stars Matt Damon as a genuinely gifted Poker player and New Attorney. It’s about compulsive gambling and how the hero gambles away his tuition money, his law degree, his girlfriend and almost his life. Yet amidst all of this, he seems to be a happy gambler.
As a Poker movie, it is entertaining and knowledgeable and takes place within the pro poker underground of New York and Atlantic City. The ensemble of players are known to one another, and Mike McDermott (Damon) ventures into this world of cutthroats where he meets the poker genius of the Russian American mob who tries to reform McDermott. However, he lands up taking him down a destructive path of compulsive gambling which the movie depicts in a humorous light.
About Rounders
Rounders is all about the places McDermott & Worm visit and the dangerous people they encounter while trying to win a lot of money. The movie buys into the seedy glamour of Poker, almost romanticizing a game that consists of exhausted players who risk everything they own to enjoy those sudden bursts of adrenalin.
The best scenes in Rounders is where they contrast the personalities of Mike and Worm. Mike wants to win by playing a good game of Poker, whereas Worm wants to hustle. He is, however, a card mechanic who takes outrageous chances and his intoxicating personality leads them both into trouble. The one defining moment is when they find themselves in a high stakes game with many State Troopers in the room.
Conclusion
John Dahl directed Rounders. It’s mostly a movie based on a Sport which in this case is Poker and depicts the talented hero winning and facing disaster time and time again. However, he gets back up and continues playing until he has nothing left to lose.