The Blackjack Ball is one of my favorite events of the year. Blackjack professionals, whether still practicing or not, come together at an undisclosed location in Las Vegas to share information, swap lies, and compare skills with one another. Hosted by wit and raconteur Max Rubin, the entry fee is a chilled bottle of premium champagne — preferably comped.
In addition to blackjack professionals, certain others are invited as well — including several attorneys and one radio co-host. Each invited guest may bring along another guest
— but each guest is vetted to make sure none is a casino employee of any kind. I didn’t bring Bonnie this year because gambling isn’t her thing — but it’s a fun-enough event that I’ll encourage her to be my guest at a future gathering.
Each year the group inducts one new member into the Blackjack Hall of Fame with every invited guest allowed to cast a vote. I recognized most of the names on the ballot and had met about half of them, but one of those names, Bob Nersesian, jumped out at me. Bob is the attorney many blackjack players turn to when they get into trouble. He’s successfully taken on casinos and Gaming Control Boards, and one of his lawsuits forced Griffin Investigations into bankruptcy. Additionally, and of special importance to me, Bob has been on Gambling with an Edge a half-dozen times and his repeat appearances have helped to make our show so well regarded by many gamblers. My vote was for Nersesian.
Bob runs a law firm with his wife, Thea Sankiewicz, who was also present at the ball. Richard Munchkin and I have been trying to get Thea on the show as a guest for two years now. I think we may finally be getting close. She’s at least considering being on a show with her husband where we have proposed the following format: We present a problem scenario which the two of them debate and discuss for four or five minutes. Then we go on to another scenario and let them at it again. And then another.
Thea was pretending that her vote was for sale. She told Bob that she wanted a pair of nice earrings if she voted for him. I told him that I too was willing to accept a pair of earrings for my vote. Others joined in the teasing — with someone trying to verify if these were diamond earrings we were talking about. I assumed that all of us messing with Nersesian like this were planning on voting for him. (Actually it just occurred to me that “Messin’ with Nersesian” might make for a great sit-com title!)
While we all ate and drank, the votes were tallied. To my delight, Bob Nersesian was the winner and is now a member of the Blackjack Hall of Fame which is officially sponsored by Barona Casino. As do all inductees, he now will get full RFB treatment at Barona anytime he likes, but he can’t play there. (In Nersesian’s case, letting him play there is probably not very risky for the casino. But a rule is a rule and Max Rubin wasn’t willing to allow any exceptions.)
Now it was time for the competition. Every year Max constructs 21 questions for all the attendees and the five highest scores move on to the semi-finals. One person gets knocked out in the semis and the last four earn the money.
Or at least the people who own them earn the money.
There’s a Calcutta auction where players bid on who’s going to win. Anthony Curtis has been second place four or five times and was seeded first. He went for around $1,500 all by himself. I was grouped with Henry Tamburin, editor of Blackjack Insider. Last year I scored the most on the written test and Henry was the bubble boy, losing in a playoff to Anthony Curtis, but I still didn’t fancy our chances. $700 was bid for us. Henry bought back $200 and I bought back $100 — but I wasn’t thinking that this was my smartest bet. Munchkin was the buyer of Henry and me. He had more faith in me than I did!
I enjoyed last year’s test immensely. Whether the questions were true/false or multiple choice, most of my guesses turned out to be correct! I scored more than anybody else, thanks to this successful guessing. I felt like a genius! This year all of my guesses turned out wrong. Instead of scoring 15 like I did last year, I scored 9. As you might expect, I didn’t enjoy the test very much at all this year! No more Mr. Genius.
Before they announced the correct answers, I suggested to Bob Nersesian that 12.5 was my “over-under” score for how many correct answers it would take to win. He declined to take either side of that one but suggested that 7 right answers would make it to the semi-finals. I told him I was willing to bet against that one. I said he could pick the amount but he had to keep it to $3,000 or less because that was all I had on me. (I was lying. I had less than $1,000 in my pocket.) We settled on $10.
Somehow, a player named David Y scored 17 answers correctly. This was an impossible score. Nobody else scored 16, 15, 14, or even 13. It was a blow-out victory. Another guy I had never heard of, nick-named Smoke, got 12 correct. And to the surprise of everyone, Thea Sankiewicz also scored 12 correct. Two well-known players who happened to have been guests on the radio show (blackjack hall of famer and singer/songwriter Darryl Purpose and MIT blackjack player, Poker star, and rock/paper/scissors world champion Andy Bloch) scored 11 correct and completed the group who would compete for the money.
My score of 9 sounds pretty close to 11, but it probably wasn’t. There were likely four or more players with a score of 10 and ten or more with a score of 9. Missing by a mile was in many ways easier than missing in a playoff.
Next week, I’ll tell you about how the final table went down. And congratulations again to the law firm of Nersesian and Sankiewicz!