{"id":341,"date":"2011-12-20T20:35:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-20T20:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gwae.apps-1and1.com\/darryl-purpose-interview"},"modified":"2016-06-30T17:49:30","modified_gmt":"2016-06-30T17:49:30","slug":"darryl-purpose-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/darryl-purpose-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Darryl Purpose interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

This interview originally appeared in Blackjack Forum in 2003.<\/p>\n

The Performer<\/b><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Darryl Purpose is a battle-scarred veteran of the Blackjack Wars.\u00a0 He moved to Las Vegas at 19, and learned just enough about counting cards to lose all his money.\u00a0 He says, \u201cI was the kind of counter that made Las Vegas.\u201d\u00a0 He went from sleeping in his car to a job in a boiler room selling pens.\u00a0 He fell into a familiar pattern in Las Vegas\u2014working a job, and blowing his paycheck.\u00a0 At the same time he must have been learning something about blackjack.\u00a0 A year later he was one of the best players on the Ken Uston team, driving down the Las Vegas Strip in a Rolls Royce with thousands of dollars in his pocket.\u00a0 \u201cIsn\u2019t that why we came?\u201d he says with a smile.
\nThe last bet Darryl made as part of a Ken Uston team was in December of 1979, yet he says that reputation haunts him to this day.\u00a0 In Million Dollar Blackjack,<\/i> Ken named Darryl as one of the four best blackjack players in the world, but playing with Ken, \u201cwas not a badge of honor,\u201d says Darryl.\u00a0 \u201cStill, the reason you want to interview me is because I was part of the Ken Uston team.\u201d
\nIt\u2019s true.\u00a0 That is why I wanted to interview Darryl.\u00a0 But then I heard the stories of what happened after 1979.\u00a0 Stories that will take you from Moscow to Sri Lanka.\u00a0 Blackjack tales of the Sicilian Mafia, the Russian Mob, the Japanese Yakuza, and the Tamil Tigers who invented suicide bombing.\u00a0 Matter-of-fact stories of running over to Caesars Palace to play a hole card because he needed a down payment on a house, or winning a million dollars with Thor, a shuffle-tracking computer.\u00a0 For Darryl it was just his job.\u00a0 \u201cMy job was to play until they didn\u2019t allow me, and then take the money home.\u00a0 I really didn\u2019t consider whether it was dangerous.\u201d
\nNow Darryl is retired from blackjack.\u00a0 He hasn\u2019t played a hand in four years.\u00a0 You wouldn\u2019t know that from the Griffin fliers that continue to pop up claiming a Darryl sighting in Reno, or St. Louis, or New Orleans.\u00a0 Darryl now does 150 concerts a year as a touring singer\/songwriter.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen him in concert, and his audience is mesmerized by his tales of traveling the world playing his guitar, and yes, blackjack.\u00a0 He\u2019s quite funny in concert, and the songs are excellent.\u00a0 US Air in-flight magazine, Attache<\/i>, featured Darryl in the August 2003 issue.\u00a0\u00a0 They said, \u201cTake Darryl Purpose for example\u2014he has the voice of James Taylor, the brains of Bob Dylan, and the soul of Willie Nelson.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n

You can purchase his CDs or check out his concert calendar at darrylpurpose.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/a>\u00a0RWM: How did you first get interested in blackjack?<\/p>\n

Darryl:\u00a0 My mother put a copy of Beat the Dealer<\/i> in my Christmas stocking when I was 16.\u00a0 I was interested in cards and games, and I had a natural talent for math, so it appealed to me.\u00a0 I\u2019ve since forgiven her.<\/p>\n

RWM: You couldn\u2019t play at that age.<\/p>\n

Darryl:\u00a0 Right. I was a little bit lost when I got out of high school, but I signed up for college.\u00a0 I was a classical guitar major.\u00a0 My left hand started to hurt for some reason, and they put a splint on it.\u00a0 I had only one hand to use, so I practiced finger picking.\u00a0 Then my right hand went.\u00a0 So there I was a classical guitar major at Cal State Northridge, with splints on both hands.\u00a0 I dropped out of school, got in my \u201962 Chevy, and headed to Vegas.\u00a0 I had $50, a couple of shirts, and my guitar.<\/p>\n

RWM: Were you 21?<\/p>\n

Darryl:\u00a0 I was 19.\u00a0 I spent the $50 to get a room for a week downtown.\u00a0 I wandered around living off the freebies.\u00a0 I was a regular at Centerfold\u2019s free breakfast, from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.\u00a0 I eventually landed a job selling ballpoint pens in a phone room.\u00a0 Of course they didn\u2019t pay you right away.\u00a0 They paid you a commission the following week.\u00a0 I was on the street for a little while.\u00a0 Then I was offered a room with two of the guys who worked there.\u00a0 I lived with a guy who wanted to be Evel Knievel, and another guy who\u2019d come from Wisconsin with photos of the wife and children who died in a traffic accident.\u00a0 Months later we found out that it was all a lie.\u00a0 He was just running away, like so many others that end up in Vegas.<\/p>\n

RWM: When you say, \u201con the street,\u201d do you mean sleeping in your car?<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 I think my first paycheck was $20.\u00a0 The next week was $50, and the next week was $200.\u00a0 I went to the Stardust, and thought I would gamble with $50.\u00a0 I turned it into $500.\u00a0 I thought, \u201cThis is easy.\u201d<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

RWM: You had learned to count already?<\/p>\n

Darryl:\u00a0 I had read Thorp\u2019s book.\u00a0 I was a bad counter like thousands of other people.\u00a0 I thought I knew something about counting, and I thought that maybe it was enough.\u00a0 That night I was the kind of counter that made Las Vegas.\u00a0 From there it was a year and a half of working this phone job, and regularly losing my paycheck.\u00a0 But each time I lost, I tried to learn more about the game.\u00a0 I was so immersed in the game of blackjack, I remember having a recurring dream of being chased around by a giant eight of clubs.\u00a0 I was living week-to-week, and never making any money.\u00a0 Eventually, I became proficient with Hi-Opt 1.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

RWM: Where did you get the Hi-Opt 1?<\/div>\n
\n

Darryl:\u00a0 That came from a guy I worked with in the boiler room.\u00a0 His name was Marcus Dalton.\u00a0 He was the same guy that I heard mention professional teams, and Uston\u2019s team specifically.\u00a0 The only useful technical information that was available at that time was Revere\u2019s book, and anyone who was serious about blackjack was using the Revere Advanced Point Count.\u00a0 I was about to learn it when I found out about the Hi-Opt.\u00a0 Lance Humble had written a paper; it was no more than a few pages, but it had all you needed, including the count, the decision numbers, and the tests that Julian Braun had run to show that it was almost as powerful as the Revere Advanced Point Count.<\/p>\n

RWM: What about the High-Low?<\/p>\n

Darryl: I don\u2019t know when Stanford Wong\u2019s book came out.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t read it until years later, but by that time I was already playing professionally.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t interested in learning about a count that wasn\u2019t as powerful as the one I was using.\u00a0 I was learning about how to get the money from people who\u2019d done it in casinos, and from being in the casinos myself.\u00a0 Also, the High-Low did not include a side count of aces, and we were playing lots of single-deck so we needed that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[The ace has a dual nature in blackjack.\u00a0 It should be counted as a high card for the sake of betting, but should be counted as a low card for the playing decisions.\u00a0 Counts that include a side count of aces aren\u2019t necessary for multiple decks, because very little of the player advantage comes from varying the play of the hand.]<\/p>\n

RWM: What year did you get the Hi-Opt 1?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Darryl: Probably 1976.<\/p>\n

RWM: How did you go from hearing about professional teams to being a member of one?<\/p>\n

Darryl: I loved playing graveyard downtown during that time.\u00a0 They were generally pretty cool about small stakes counters.\u00a0 Steve Wynn would be on the floor at the Golden Nugget.\u00a0 He could count down a deck himself, and he would talk to you about it.\u00a0 He\u2019d let me go one to four in dollars on the single deck.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

One day I was playing my one to four in dollars at the Horseshoe, and I noticed this guy at my table playing one to four in nickels.\u00a0 He seemed to be counting, but wasn\u2019t matching my betting exactly.\u00a0 At some point we were in an ace-rich deck, and he made a play that told me he didn\u2019t know that we were ace-rich more than ten-rich.\u00a0 Maybe he took insurance.\u00a0 I followed him into the Fremont coffee shop.\u00a0 I said, \u201cDon\u2019t you think you should be counting aces on a single deck?\u201d\u00a0 He said, \u201cI don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about.\u201d\u00a0 I told him, \u201cI\u2019m a card counter too.\u00a0 I count the Hi-Opt 1 with a side of aces.\u201d\u00a0 That player was a guy named Art, and we became friends.\u00a0 He lived in Berkeley at 21 Channing Street.\u00a0 He would say, \u201cMy age is 21.\u00a0 My address is 21.\u00a0 And my profession is 21.\u201d<\/div>\n
Art and I formed a little team with a $2,000 bankroll.\u00a0 We ran around playing single-deck betting up to $20.\u00a0 I was losing, and Art was winning, but overall we were down.\u00a0 It was all Art\u2019s money, but it was not fun.<\/div>\n
You know the problem with blackjack?\u00a0 It is that the bankrolls that are no fun drag on forever.\u00a0 The good bankrolls are over quickly.\u00a0 That just came to me now.\u00a0 You spend most of your career down.<\/div>\n
\n

Although I had only heard of professional teams, Art had met a guy in the Bay Area who was one of the big players on the Ken Uston team.\u00a0\u00a0 One day Art told me that the best BP from the Ken Uston team was living in the same apartment complex as me.\u00a0 It was a crummy little complex called Enchanted Gardens.\u00a0 I went around the corner, and knocked on this guy\u2019s door.\u00a0 I said, \u201cHi, I\u2019m Darryl.\u00a0 I\u2019m your neighbor, and I play blackjack.\u201d\u00a0 His name was Ron Karr.\u00a0 He was a nice guy, and he invited me in.\u00a0 I was asking him about cheating, because we were losing and didn\u2019t understand why.\u00a0 He gave me advice, and I went on my way.\u00a0 A week later I knocked on the door a second time.\u00a0 Of course I had some questions, and he offered me a job.\u00a0 He offered me $25 per shift to count down decks, and call in the big player.\u00a0 I pulled Art into that also.\u00a0 So we counted down decks for players on Ron\u2019s team.\u00a0 I called my mother, and said \u201cMom, I\u2019m a professional blackjack player.\u201d<\/p>\n

RWM: Ron was not playing with Ken at this point?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Darryl: No, he had split from Ken.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t take too many plays to be barred for the first time.\u00a0 It was at the Marina in Vegas.\u00a0 [The Marina was at located where the MGM sits today.]\u00a0 We had just started, and this pit boss came up and pointed at me.\u00a0 He said, \u201cYou,\u201d then he pointed at Art, \u201cAnd you,\u201d and he pointed to the BP, \u201cAnd you.\u00a0 If you guys don\u2019t want to end up in the desert, you get out of here right now, and don\u2019t come back.\u201d\u00a0 That was exciting, so I called my Mom again and said, \u201cMom, it works.\u201d<\/div>\n
At some point during that time I quit my job selling pens, and that was the last real job I had.\u00a0 What was happening with this team at the time was, they were trying to make a little money while they worked on a shuffle-tracking computer.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t know about the computer, but the development was going slowly and badly.\u00a0 So at one point one of the players wanted to put up $10,000 to form a counting team to bet up to $100.\u00a0 He invited me and Art to be part of that.\u00a0 There were six of us.\u00a0\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t even 21 yet, and I remember thinking, \u201cbet $100!\u201d\u00a0 My apartment was $200 a month, and I had been making $200 a week before taxes.\u00a0 The idea of walking into a casino and betting $100 blew me away.\u00a0 I was very nervous.\u00a0 We were going to play single-deck, one to four in quarters.\u00a0 I guess I got over the nervousness pretty fast.\u00a0 We won some money, and they raised the top bet to $200.\u00a0 That was too much.\u00a0 I thought I would have to quit, and go back to Los Angeles.\u00a0 I was just too nervous, but somehow I got over it.\u00a0 That team ended winning about $60,000 which was a great win back then, especially considering we started with a $10,000 bank.\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019d won about $25,000 of that.<\/div>\n
In your book, Gambling Wizards,<\/i> Tommy Hyland points out that while there were a few books on counting cards, there wasn\u2019t any real instruction on how to actually do it\u2014how to walk into a casino and get the money.\u00a0 This was even more true when I was starting.<\/div>\n
\n

At some point we got invited to this big meeting with Ron.\u00a0 It was all very dramatic, and they revealed that they were working on a shuffle-tracking computer.\u00a0 Art and I were invited to be part of that team.\u00a0 The way they were going to split the money was different from all the investor\/player things we had done before.\u00a0 It had always been very simple and clear.\u00a0 Half the money went to the investors, and half went to the players.\u00a0 That is how it was in my career for a long time.\u00a0 What this team was suggesting was that everyone was assigned a percentage based on their importance to the team, and how long they had been involved.\u00a0 Down at the bottom of the list were Art and me who would each get a small percentage of the win.\u00a0 It was a generous offer.\u00a0 We were nobody.\u00a0 Why would they even want to include us?<\/p>\n

RWM: But you were going to have to put in hours.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Darryl: To earn the percentage?\u00a0 No, it was going to be divided largely according to longevity on the team, and time and talent spent on R&D.\u00a0 Art and I were good counters, but we were 20 and 21 at that point.\u00a0 At the end of this meeting one of the players said, \u201cYou have another option.\u00a0 I happen to know that Ken Uston\u2019s team is looking for players.\u00a0 You can try out for them, or you can stay here with the shuffle-tracking computer team.\u201d\u00a0 True to our personalities, Art picked the computer team, and I picked the Ken Uston team.\u00a0 I think I was always meant for the stage.\u00a0 With apologies to all the blackjack players out there, I was totally star-struck at the idea of being on the Uston team.\u00a0 I wanted the glory of being on that stage.\u00a0 I know when this gets printed I\u2019ll never have another job in blackjack, but I think that\u2019s okay with me.<\/div>\n
\n

RWM: Did that computer ever come into existence?<\/p>\n

Darryl: No.\u00a0 So I made the right decision as it turned out.<\/p>\n

RWM: So, now you must go meet \u201cthe great Ken Uston.\u201d<\/p>\n

Darryl: Exactly.\u00a0 He was already the world\u2019s most famous blackjack player.\u00a0 Of course that was because none of the real blackjack players want to be famous.\u00a0 That didn\u2019t matter to me.\u00a0 I was totally in awe of him.\u00a0 It was like hearing that Stevie Wonder needed a player in his band, and getting an audition.\u00a0 I counted really well at the time.\u00a0 I quickly made my place on the team because I tested so well.<\/p>\n

RWM: Tell me about the first meeting.<\/p>\n

Darryl: I might have just met his partner Bill first.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know about the best blackjack player in the world, but if I had to pick one guy who could get the money from a casino, Bill might be that guy.\u00a0 Just a few years before this, Bill had won a casino in France.\u00a0 [This is the same \u201cBill\u201d that Al Francesco spoke so highly of in his interview.]<\/p>\n

RMW: He won a casino?<\/p>\n

Darryl: Yeah, the owner just didn\u2019t believe that counting cards worked, and he let Bill play.\u00a0 Finally, he signed the casino over to Bill.\u00a0 Ken was more of a figurehead, and Bill was running the team.\u00a0 They were operating out of the Jockey Club, and the stories of Ken and the Jockey Club were mythic.\u00a0 All the debauchery and excellent card playing combined in this mysterious scene full of shag carpeting.\u00a0 I got to the Jockey Club, and it was just as advertised.<\/p>\n

RWM: Debauchery and card playing?<\/p>\n

Darryl: Drugs, women, and really good card counting.\u00a0 It was all new to me.\u00a0 I was so young, and green, not just in blackjack but in life experience.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

RWM: Drugs and gambling sound like a dangerous mix.<\/p>\n

Darryl: Although there were a lot of drugs and alcohol around, we had strict rules about not mixing them with playing.\u00a0 I never drank, and didn\u2019t do many drugs either.\u00a0 But when I was taking the money off I would often order a gin and tonic, take it to the bathroom and pour it out in the sink, and replace it with water.\u00a0 In Atlantic City just before the second no-barring period we thought we should go a step further.\u00a0 We brought in a play-caller for me, so I could actually drink.\u00a0 I ordered and drank four gin and tonics before the first one hit me.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember what happened, but I hear I was a very funny drunk.<\/p>\n

RWM: Do you remember what your test was?<\/p>\n

Darryl:\u00a0 It\u2019s not clear in my mind, but I\u2019m sure it was counting down shoes.\u00a0 Also, they would flash hands at you on a slide projector, and you had to tell them the index numbers.\u00a0 Then they would deal hands to you, and check the cards left at the end of the shoe.\u00a0 They were looking for people to call plays for a big player.\u00a0\u00a0 That began my training for calling plays.\u00a0 I\u2019ve probably called more plays than I have played myself.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think I called plays for Ken as a BP because he was already too hot.\u00a0 Ken and Bill were running the team, but we had other BPs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The BPs were always people who looked like they should be betting a lot of money at the blackjack tables.\u00a0 Trying to look like high rollers as young twenty-somethings was comical at best.\u00a0 We tried to dress up, but we weren\u2019t very good at it.\u00a0 We\u2019d buy an expensive pair of shoes, but there was always something a little off.\u00a0 We wished we were older, or Chinese or something.\u00a0 The BPs solved that problem.\u00a0 I even turned out my mother as a BP later in my career.\u00a0 What a relief it was not to have to bet the money myself, and Bill started calling me Chunk because of my proclivity to have the BPs \u201cchunk\u201d the money out there.
\nThe downside of this was that they sent me out on my first plays into incredibly steamy situations with BPs that were already very hot.\u00a0 I was barred right away, and they knew I was part of the Ken Uston team.\u00a0 Within weeks I was completely Griffinized for life.\u00a0 My picture was in most casinos in the world before I\u2019d turned 22.<\/p>\n

RWM: Did you have any hard barrings?<\/p>\n

Darryl: I had a wide variety of barrings.\u00a0 There was a time in Monte Carlo\u2014I took my friend Kim with me.\u00a0 It was our first date.\u00a0\u00a0 She was afraid that we might be pulled up, but I told her, \u201cDon\u2019t worry.\u00a0 They\u2019ll just tell us we\u2019re too strong for them, and ask us not to play.\u201d\u00a0 Sure enough, I sensed that something was coming down, and we tried to get out of the casino.\u00a0 This guy came running up to us, and in a severe French accent said, \u201cExcuse me sir, but we will ask you not to play blackjack here again. You are too strong for us.\u201d\u00a0 He\u2019d used the exact words I had. \u00a0For the rest of that trip Kim was flexing her biceps and saying, \u201cWe\u2019re too strong!\u201d\u00a0 They invited us to stay at the hotel\u2014full comp.\u00a0 Of course I didn\u2019t tell her about the time at the Dunes that I\u2019d been pulled into the back room by the same security guard who beat up Mark Estes at the Hilton.\u00a0 He sat there with a pair of pliers, and we talked about Mark, and old times.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
RWM: Did he threaten you with the pliers?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

Darryl: It was an implied threat.\u00a0 He was sitting at his desk in an office.\u00a0 There was no reason for him to have a pair of pliers.\u00a0 He was trying to talk me out of some money.\u00a0 Eventually I was arrested for disturbing the peace, but they dropped the charges.<\/p>\n

RWM: Did you call your Mom?<\/p>\n

Darryl:\u00a0 No.\u00a0 At that point it wasn\u2019t fun anymore.\u00a0 The difference between playing music and playing blackjack is that when you get good at music, they ask you to come back. When you get good at blackjack…\u00a0 It\u2019s very wearing psychically to constantly be treated as persona non grata.
\nOne time I was calling plays on the single-deck at Caesars.\u00a0 I was betting quarters while the BP was betting thousands on the other side of the table.\u00a0 At some point I heard the pit boss say, \u201cOh, there\u2019s Purpose.\u00a0 He must have lost his bankroll.\u00a0 He\u2019s down to betting quarters.\u201d\u00a0 They never caught on.\u00a0 Caesars at that time had a no-barring policy.\u00a0 They were the classy joint back then.<\/p>\n

RWM: I\u2019ve read that you were the fastest counter on the team.<\/p>\n

Darryl: I got really good at counting down decks.\u00a0 Part of it was smoke and mirrors, and didn\u2019t translate into play on the table.\u00a0 I got to a point where it was really about how quickly you could spread the cards.\u00a0 Someone would say \u201cgo\u201d with a stopwatch, and I\u2019d spread the cards.\u00a0 I\u2019d be looking at many cards at a time.\u00a0 I\u2019d look at the last group of cards and say, \u201cstop,\u201d and fold the deck up in one big motion.\u00a0 What they didn\u2019t know was I was still counting because I had taken a mental picture of the last quarter of the deck.\u00a0 I could regularly count a single-deck in 10 seconds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

RWM: Weren\u2019t there races or contests with substantial money bet?<\/p>\n

Darryl: There was one legendary contest between the West Coasters, and the East Coasters.\u00a0 This was shortly after the Atlantic City no-barring period.\u00a0 We were in Las Vegas.\u00a0 One of the East Coast guys had brought in a ringer.\u00a0 Although this guy never did that well in a casino, he could really count down a deck, especially six decks.\u00a0 We had an all-night session, and we had bet a lot of money on this.\u00a0 I was the reigning deck-counting champion, and Joe was the ringer newbie.<\/p>\n

RWM: When you say you bet a lot of money, are we talking thousands?<\/p>\n

Darryl: Yeah.\u00a0 Of course our pride was more important than the money.\u00a0 We\u2019d been talking about it for weeks, and one morning about 4 a.m. we did it.\u00a0 It was a best two out of three, counting down six decks.\u00a0 We were counting Hi-Opt 1 with a side count of aces. We counted down the exact same shoe, and we didn\u2019t reveal to the person going second how the first person had done.\u00a0 I counted first, and I was slow.\u00a0 I forget the exact time, but it was well over a minute.\u00a0 I also counted 28 aces.\u00a0 Yikes!\u00a0 Craig had bet a lot of money on me, and as Joe was counting down his first shoe, I pulled Craig aside and said, \u201cI got 28 aces.\u201d\u00a0 Craig figured he\u2019s just pissed away a few thousand dollars.\u00a0 Sure enough Joe beat me.<\/p>\n

RWM: Didn\u2019t you have to give a count?<\/p>\n

Darryl: I gave a count, which was right, and I said there were no aces left.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t tell them what I actually counted.\u00a0 I told them what I thought was left.<\/p>\n

RWM: How many cards were they holding out?<\/p>\n

Darryl: It was six decks so they would take out six cards.\u00a0 The second round I count 26 aces, and again my time was really bad.\u00a0 I went to Craig and said, \u201cThere are seven decks there.\u201d\u00a0 Joe was counting the same decks.\u00a0 He was getting the wrong ace count, but he wasn\u2019t admitting it to anyone.\u00a0 Going into the third round I knew there were seven decks.\u00a0 I knew why the times were slow, so I wasn\u2019t trying to push it.\u00a0\u00a0 I won the last round because I had the correct count, and he was off by one because he was rushing so much.\u00a0\u00a0 We finished, and we were celebrating.\u00a0 I turned to Joe and said, \u201cJoe, how many decks are there?\u201d\u00a0 Joe said, \u201cThat\u2019s it!\u00a0 There are seven decks there!\u201d\u00a0 It was quite funny.\u00a0 To this day they think we put that extra deck in there.<\/p>\n

RWM: When you started with Ken, was he still using hidden computers?<\/p>\n

Darryl: I came in right as the computer project using George ended.\u00a0 [George was the first blackjack computer developed by Keith Taft.\u00a0\u00a0 Some of the details of his teaming with Ken Uston were discussed in my interview with Al Francesco]\u00a0 When I first joined we had BPs, and we just called plays for them.\u00a0 They had just come up with this idea where they would have the BP signal his hand to the play-caller by the way he held his cards.\u00a0 Not only were we required to count the cards, tell the BP how much to bet, and bet and play our own hand, but we had to read the signal from the BP, then signal back to him how to play his hand. We were also sometimes reading a first-baser as well.\u00a0 As it turned out, I was the only one on the team who was able to do this without major communication errors.\u00a0 They tossed the idea fairly quickly.<\/p>\n

RWM: Why not have the BP just show you his cards?<\/p>\n

Darryl: There was some heat on that, so they thought signaling was a better idea.\u00a0 Basically, all the counters started making a ton of mistakes.\u00a0 We weren\u2019t winning any money, and they stopped that idea and got rid of all the counters except for me.\u00a0 One of the people fired from that team was Howard Grossman.<\/p>\n

RWM: Howard now sells his services to the casinos as a counter catcher.<\/p>\n

Darryl: He has for a long, long time.\u00a0 I think he pulled me up in casinos for years.\u00a0 He was bitter at Ken, and so he may have been bitter at me as well.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t had a conversation with him in about 25 years.<\/p>\n

RWM: Why was he bitter?<\/p>\n

Darryl: I think he disliked Ken, as a lot of blackjack players did.\u00a0 Certainly anyone who wasn\u2019t willing to overlook Ken\u2019s gratuitous self-aggrandizement ended up clashing with Ken.<\/p>\n

RWM: Why would that make him mad at you?<\/p>\n

Darryl: I don\u2019t know that he was mad at me, but I was an easy target.\u00a0 I had a look that I couldn\u2019t disguise well.\u00a0 The fact that I was a member of the Uston team made me a good catch.\u00a0 He could show off to the casinos by nailing me more so than some guy who didn\u2019t have an association with Ken.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Craig joined in August of \u201878, which was right after this mass firing.\u00a0 Craig and I were partners for most of my blackjack career, and he is the guy I most valued working with.\u00a0 They decided to do things differently, and it was basically a sham business model they came up with.\u00a0 Ken got big players who were willing to put up money.\u00a0 Ken, and his book, The Big<\/i> Player<\/i>, impressed them.\u00a0 He had this team of expert counters.\u00a0 We would call plays for these big players, and then split the money 50-50 at the end of every trip.\u00a0 One of the BPs that won a lot of money rented a Rolls Royce.\u00a0 He gave us the Rolls for the last week of the rental.\u00a0\u00a0 It was 1977; I was 21 years old and driving around Las Vegas in a Rolls Royce with thousands of dollars in my pocket.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that why we came?<\/p>\n

RWM: This is a pretty sweet deal for you guys.\u00a0 You take no loss but get half the win?<\/p>\n

Darryl: My excuse for all this was I was 21 years old.\u00a0 What did I know?\u00a0\u00a0 This was how I split from Ken the first time.\u00a0 There was one BP who lost money on a trip, and he talked Ken into carrying the loss over onto the next trip.\u00a0 Bill was really running the team at that point.\u00a0 Bill went for that for a couple trips, but we ended up stuck.\u00a0 At that point Bill said, \u201cThat\u2019s it.\u00a0 We aren\u2019t going to work with you anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

RWM: Because he didn\u2019t want to make up the loss?<\/p>\n

Darryl: Right.\u00a0 In fact, the deal was that it was per trip and Bill had gone much further than the original deal called for.\u00a0 Of course the deal he had cut in the first place was completely bogus for the BP.\u00a0 [See Beyond Counting<\/i>, pages 59-60.]\u00a0\u00a0 At that point Craig and I said to the BP, \u201cWe\u2019ll make your money back for you.\u00a0 And we\u2019ll make 50% after that.\u201d\u00a0 We got them even and that\u2019s when we first started using a strategy of betting half of what we were up.\u00a0 Many of our plays were first-basers, so you had an edge all the time.\u00a0 We made some good scores that way.\u00a0 [A first-baser is a dealer who reveals his hole card when checking under a ten or ace for blackjack.\u00a0 Casinos stopped checking under tens in the mid \u201880s because of advantage players exploiting this weakness.]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Craig and I decided to buy a condo from a friend.\u00a0 We had to come up with $20,000 as a down payment.\u00a0 We needed the money on a Monday, and come Saturday night we had about $1,500 each.\u00a0 We hadn\u2019t really played on our own.\u00a0 We had only worked with teams.\u00a0 \u201cWhere can we get $20,000?\u201d\u00a0 It occurred to both of us, \u201cLet\u2019s go play a first-baser at Caesars.\u201d\u00a0 There was a problem because Craig had been calling plays there a lot, and one of us had to BP.\u00a0 Craig went out and got a dark wig, and a pair of glasses.\u00a0 He came over to a friend\u2019s house where I was staying.\u00a0 He knocked on the door, and our friend let him in.\u00a0 I said, \u201cHi, I\u2019m Darryl.\u201d\u00a0 I did not recognize him.\u00a0 We went out and won the down payment.<\/div>\n
Later Craig and I were running our own teams, and doing more sophisticated things than we\u2019d been doing with Ken.\u00a0 We realized that it was only a matter of time before one of us would break the record for the largest single session win by a professional blackjack player.\u00a0 As far as we knew, the record belonged to Bill.\u00a0 He was being called into shoes at the Dessert Inn on one of Ken\u2019s old teams, and he won $67,000.\u00a0 Although we considered ourselves all about getting the money, we weren\u2019t above a goofy thing like wanting to set a new record.\u00a0 Val had set up on a first-baser downtown at the Sundowner.\u00a0 He called Craig into the game, and before he\u2019d played five hands they pulled the dealer.\u00a0 Craig decided he needed to lay down some cover, so it wasn\u2019t obvious that he wanted to play only against the one dealer.\u00a0 He ordered a scotch and soda, downed it, then ordered another.\u00a0 He would bet two hands of $2,000 until he lost two hands in a row.\u00a0 Six scotch and sodas later, with no first-baser, no count, and no edge, he walked away with $78,000, breaking the record for the largest win by any BJ player we knew.
\nAt one point we brought Art in to BP for us.\u00a0 Art had gone back to school at this point.\u00a0 When we were working with these BPs our policy was to bet $200 and half of what we were winning.\u00a0 We wanted to do this now with our own money.\u00a0 In the past it was the BP\u2019s money.\u00a0 So Craig, Pat, Art and I went to play first-basers for a weekend at the MGM in Reno.\u00a0 Art was going to BP, and the other three of us were going to read.\u00a0 Each play required two readers, because the dealer would work 20 minutes at one table, 20 minutes at a second table, and then take a 20-minute break.\u00a0 We needed a reader camped at each table, and Art would jump back and forth following the dealer.\u00a0 [The \u201creader\u201d is the person who spots the hole card, and then relays that information to the BP.]\u00a0 We each put in $2,500 so we had a $10,000 bank.\u00a0 Until this point Art was very systematic, scientific, and conservative about the whole thing.\u00a0 We had to remind him that we wanted to really bet it up. \u00a0Going into the very last play we were even.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t going to be reading the last session, but I went by the game to see how it was going.\u00a0 Art was betting five hands of the limit, which was $1,000.\u00a0 He won $40,000 on that play.\u00a0 I think this was the weekend where Art really found himself, because he later went on to set new standards for betting with both hands.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: When did you get back together with Ken?<\/div>\n
Darryl: Ken called and told me about the first no-barring period in Atlantic City.\u00a0 I\u2019m really drawn to colorful people, and Ken had a lot of charm.\u00a0 He called and said, \u201cCome to Atlantic City.\u00a0 There\u2019s a game here.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 I went and joined the team.\u00a0 This was the team he wrote about in Two Books on Blackjack<\/i>.<\/div>\n
I was out there for two weeks.\u00a0 I think we met in the Philadelphia airport.\u00a0 I met Ron, my neighbor from the Enchanted Gardens, and Mark Estes.\u00a0 Mark was a professional bowler, and was most notable in the blackjack world for being beaten up by a security guard at the Las Vegas Hilton in 1977.\u00a0 That was a big deal because they hadn\u2019t gotten physical with card counters (that we knew of) before that.\u00a0 We were all college dropouts who were good at math.\u00a0 We were not tough guys in any way. [Mark Estes successfully sued the Hilton.]<\/div>\n
We went to Atlantic City together from the airport.\u00a0 We stayed in a crummy little $23 per night motel.\u00a0 I was 22 years old and sharing a hotel room with Ken Uston and Ron Karr.\u00a0 These guys were like the Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio of my life.\u00a0 I was on a rollaway, and they had their own beds.\u00a0 I was very much in awe of these guys.<\/div>\n
\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ken was trying to come up with $25,000 as a bankroll.\u00a0\u00a0 The world\u2019s most famous blackjack player, and here he was trying to scrounge together a bankroll.<\/p>\n

RWM: Why was there no bankroll?<\/p>\n

Darryl: I didn\u2019t have any money.\u00a0 Mark and Ron didn\u2019t have any money.\u00a0 In the book Ken claims his money was all invested in this and that.\u00a0 The fact was that I never put any of the talent that I had to squeeze every last hundredth of a percentage point out of a blackjack game, into my personal finances.\u00a0 I made a lot of money, and pissed it away.\u00a0\u00a0 Craig and I once figured out that we were each spending $30,000 a year on eating in restaurants.\u00a0\u00a0 When I got into music I had less than nothing to lose.\u00a0 Unfortunately I didn\u2019t learn how to handle my personal finances until I was a folk singer.\u00a0 Now I have a credit card and an IRA.<\/p>\n

RWM: Was it just the four of you, or were there more on the team?<\/p>\n

Darryl: There were others.\u00a0 There was a guy in Philadelphia who had told Ken the no-barring policy was coming.\u00a0 He had a full-time job in Philadelphia, and was a part-time counter.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ken needed to believe that our team members were better than anyone else was.\u00a0 A lot of the team still used the Revere Advanced Point Count.\u00a0 It was a three-level count, and everyone believed that using this stronger count was a lot better than any one-level count could be.\u00a0 There was an elite sense of what it took to win at card counting.\u00a0 Over the years this was revealed to be false.\u00a0 Now everybody uses the simplest count, the High-Low.\u00a0 Anyway, this guy wasn\u2019t testing that well, and someone had seen him make some mistakes.\u00a0 We were having a meeting in the hotel room, and considering whether or not to let him play on the team.\u00a0 Ken and Ron decided they needed to talk in private, so they went into the closet.\u00a0 Then they called me in, and then Mark went in the closet.\u00a0 At some point the entire team was in the closet, and he was in the room with the entire bankroll spread out on the bed in cash.\u00a0 We all started laughing, and that was bad.\u00a0 We\u2019re discussing his fate and he hears us all laughing.\u00a0 [In Two Books on Blackjack<\/i> Uston relates this story of the closet on page 42.\u00a0 He calls the player \u201cTy.\u201d]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

RWM: Did he end up staying, or being voted out?<\/p>\n

Darryl: He was voted off that bank, but then we made a bankroll and he was allowed to play on the next one.\u00a0 He had some restrictions on his earnings.\u00a0 I forget exactly, but I think it was based on him winning.\u00a0 Eventually he was brought back in, and did win some money.\u00a0 All along he was allowed to invest in the bankroll.<\/p>\n

RWM: Sure, you guys needed the cash.<\/p>\n

Darryl: Well, at some point Ken hooked up with Peter.\u00a0 I may have been the one to introduce them.\u00a0 I had met Peter in Las Vegas through the Czechs, and I had run into Peter in Europe in 1978.\u00a0 Now there was a match made in hell.\u00a0 Those guys had polar opposite ways of doing everything.\u00a0 I was caught in the middle. [Cathy Hulbert talks about this bankroll in Atlantic City in the book Gambling Wizards<\/i>.]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 By the way, I read what Cathy said about this bank in Gambling Wizards<\/i>.\u00a0 I think that while it\u2019s true that Ken didn\u2019t want her to play because she was a woman, it was probably more true that he was concerned about the power balance.\u00a0 He needed to have control or he couldn\u2019t be successful.\u00a0 It was a bit of a shell game he was pulling on everybody in terms of being the best blackjack player, etc.\u00a0 It was just not real.\u00a0 We had some power structure on the team that was somewhat democracy, and some dictatorship, but it was a manipulated dictatorship.\u00a0\u00a0 I think if Cathy were a player, to the extent we were democratic, Cathy would have had a voice.\u00a0 Then Peter and Cathy\u2019s voices together, well \u2026 Peter\u2019s voice alone really threatened Ken.\u00a0 They had incredible clashes.<\/p>\n

RWM: What were the arguments over?<\/p>\n

Darryl: Anything.\u00a0 Peter liked to do things by the book.\u00a0 When you went to dinner with Peter he would break the bill down to the penny.\u00a0 He thought nothing of getting change for that nickel.\u00a0 He insisted on it.\u00a0 That couldn\u2019t have been farther from the way Ken did things.\u00a0 They both wanted to be in control, but they couldn\u2019t.\u00a0 They both saw an advantage to working together to build a larger bankroll, and bet more money.\u00a0 I wonder what was in it for Peter really?\u00a0 For Ken it really was about not having any cash.<\/p>\n

RWM: In Two Books on Blackjack<\/i> there was a big rivalry with the Czech team.\u00a0 Was there real competition there?<\/p>\n

Darryl: Oh yeah.\u00a0 It was a friendly rivalry for the most part.\u00a0 In Two Books on Blackjack<\/i> he talks about a four o\u2019clock meeting that he called with the heads of all the teams.\u00a0 That may be true, but there were a lot of other things going on that didn\u2019t involve him in such a pivotal way.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t mention any of those other things.\u00a0 The thing I loved about the Czechs at that time was, whenever someone made some large bet, the dealers would call out, \u201cChecks play.\u201d\u00a0 It was hilarious.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It was on this bank that I won my first 15 sessions, which pretty much puts to rest all the argument of, who is the best blackjack player in the world.\u00a0 [laughing]<\/p>\n

RWM: You said this bank lasted two weeks.<\/p>\n

Darryl: Yeah.<\/p>\n

RWM: What was your payday?\u00a0 Did you make a bunch of money?<\/p>\n

Darryl: It says in the book I made $11,000.\u00a0 I can\u2019t argue with that since I don\u2019t remember.<\/p>\n

RWM: After Atlantic City did you and Ken play hole cards?<\/p>\n

Darryl: I don\u2019t think Ken ever got into hole cards.<\/p>\n

RWM: He talks about it in his book.<\/p>\n

Darryl: Bill had played some front loaders, but Ken didn\u2019t really get into it.\u00a0 He also didn\u2019t believe in shuffle tracking. You start to believe that you\u2019re something special, and you get closed to new ideas.\u00a0 I think that\u2019s what was going on with Ken.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been talking to a screenwriter in Hollywood who is interested in doing a screenplay, partly on blackjack, and partly on the story of my life.\u00a0 It has made me reread Two Books on Blackjack<\/i>, and I just read Million Dollar Blackjack<\/i> for the first time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

One of the most amazing things I discovered in reading these books is that, the fact that I played with the Ken Uston team, and that I was a friend of his, has colored my entire blackjack existence.\u00a0 The last time I placed a bet as a member of a Ken Uston team was December of 1979.\u00a0 Yet it is a huge part of my blackjack identity.<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ken and I were friends, as much as someone could be a friend with Ken.\u00a0 He was alternately inspirational or maddening, but always interesting to hang out with.\u00a0 He was in a constant battle with chemical dependency.\u00a0 When you dug beneath the hype, he was a likable, vulnerable, and terribly unhappy guy.\u00a0 One of my most vivid memories is of seeing him in Reno the day after a security guard had sent him to the hospital with broken bones in his face.\u00a0 Boy he looked bad.\u00a0 Later he wondered whether having his face rearranged like that was going to be a problem when he got older.\u00a0 But he died of a heroin overdose in Paris a few years later, so I guess he needn\u2019t have worried.\u00a0 I did care about him, but I also spent most of my life trying to live down the heat I got being on his team.\u00a0 I wanted to prove that I could do better than Ken\u2019s teams.\u00a0 And in fact we did a lot of innovative and interesting things after I placed my last bet as a member of his team. Still, the reason you want to interview me is because I was part of the Ken Uston team. Ken Uston is still the world\u2019s most famous blackjack player.<\/div>\n
\u00a0What most people think is history is not what happened.\u00a0 Reading these books it is so clear.\u00a0 I had never read Million Dollar Blackjack<\/i>, even though I knew I was in the book.\u00a0 At the time I was trying to distance myself from Ken for a lot of reasons.\u00a0 I started reading it, and he was saying that blackjack is the only game where you use your skill to change the odds.\u00a0 Then he goes on to explain some other concepts in a way that is very clear, especially for a non-player.\u00a0 I\u2019m thinking, \u201cYeah, this is really solid.\u00a0 I guess this is a good blackjack book.\u201d\u00a0 But the best lies have a large element of truth to them.\u00a0 He starts talking about the history of blackjack, and he mentions the paper in 1956.\u00a0 Then he starts talking about Revere, and the Advanced Point Count, and I was thinking, \u201cWow, this is really comprehensive.\u201d\u00a0 Then boom, he leaves out Stanford Wong, and the High-Low completely, and inserts Stanley Roberts into the history of blackjack counts, and how they developed.\u00a0 I was amazed.\u00a0\u00a0 It was so well written it almost fooled me.\u00a0 He left out the 1959 Dubner paper, and he left out Wong\u2019s book.\u00a0 As far as I know, most professional blackjack players consider themselves counters of the \u201cWong High-Low.\u201d<\/div>\n
Before that I was reading the story of what he calls Team Six.\u00a0 This was the second no-barring period in Atlantic City in December 1979, and the few months leading up to it. At that time I was living with Ken in a small studio apartment on the boardwalk in Atlantic City.\u00a0 This place was no bigger than most people\u2019s kitchens.\u00a0 It had two Murphy beds, and we ran a team out of this place, and lived there for months.\u00a0 In the book he was talking about the Casino Commission, and all the work that he was doing to try to make everyone happy\u2014as if it mattered.\u00a0 Nobody was interested in a game where skilled players could play alongside bad players, and everyone including the casinos would be happy.\u00a0 In the book he\u2019s trying to create this, and it very much colors the whole story.\u00a0 I read about the team, and I read about how we had these big wins in the beginning.\u00a0 I remembered it so well.\u00a0 With the early surrender we had a slight edge off the top.\u00a0 We were betting half Kelly.\u00a0 Our bankroll got so big that we were able to bet table max, $1,000, off the top.\u00a0 Then he starts talking about how the casinos were over-reporting counters\u2019 wins, and how all that played out.\u00a0 Then he said that we thought about under-reporting our wins, but then decided against it.\u00a0 He goes on to say that we lost most of our money, and people began to drift away even before the barrings were allowed again.\u00a0 The game wasn\u2019t that good anymore because they were dealing only half a shoe.\u00a0 He says we ended up breaking even.\u00a0 I was reading this thinking, \u201cGod, I thought we won a lot of money.\u201d\u00a0 Then I realized\u2014he made all that up!\u00a0 Of course we won a lot of money.\u00a0 I think we won almost a million dollars.<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I think Ken learned some lessons from Two Books on Blackjack<\/i>, because Million Dollar Blackjack <\/i>is much better written.\u00a0 The self-aggrandizement in Two Books on Blackjack<\/i> is so on his sleeve.\u00a0 It makes it a horribly written book, and I cringed when I read it.\u00a0 At one point I thought I couldn\u2019t finish it.\u00a0 He\u2019s certainly no Arnold Snyder.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

RWM: After the first Atlantic City trip, did you go back to Vegas?<\/p>\n

Darryl:\u00a0 I went back to playing with Craig in Vegas.\u00a0 I was only gone for two weeks.\u00a0 I think we went to Aruba in April of that year.\u00a0 They had early surrender, and it was another counter convention.\u00a0 It\u2019s the first time I really got into shuffle tracking.\u00a0 I guess I got the concept from the failed computer team, but that\u2019s the first time I remember putting it into action.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

We were holding out our chips because we didn\u2019t want them to know how much we had won.\u00a0 At some point they changed the chips, and announced that if you didn\u2019t cash the old chips in the next 24 hours you wouldn\u2019t be able to.\u00a0 The heat was coming down.\u00a0 Craig was the guinea pig to go cash out the chips.\u00a0 He got the cash, and came back to the room.\u00a0 I was in the bathtub.\u00a0 He said, \u201cDarryl, we have to go now.\u201d\u00a0 He just told me this story recently.\u00a0 He said I got out of the bathtub, did not dry off, and threw on my clothes.\u00a0 We grabbed my guitar and our suitcases, and took the elevator down to the basement.\u00a0 We walked out to the beach, down the beach half a mile, and caught a taxi to the airport.\u00a0 Two months later I ran into a guy who was there when that happened.\u00a0 He said, \u201cWhere were you guys?\u00a0 The security guards were looking all over the island for you.\u201d<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: I remember hearing that Ken threw people off the team for attempting to shuffle track.<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 That was the second trip to Atlantic City.\u00a0 We had a player named Q who had some radical ideas about tracking new decks.\u00a0 In retrospect he may have been on to something.\u00a0 Ken never really came around to shuffle tracking that I know of.\u00a0 Art was a slow convert as well.\u00a0 Even Bill would talk about cutting the big cards before the joker or the little cards to the top of the shoe, but was uncomfortable with cutting the big cards to the top and betting it. They just didn\u2019t believe it was the same as counting down a deck, and knowing exactly what was left.<\/div>\n
\n

In Million Dollar Blackjack<\/i> there was one style of play that was notable for its inclusion, and one notable for its absence.\u00a0 Front loading was notable for its inclusion.\u00a0 Nobody had really talked about it to the extent that Ken did in that book.\u00a0 That made a lot of people unhappy.\u00a0 The thing he left out was shuffle tracking, mainly because he completely missed the boat.\u00a0 Although he tried to make friends later for that, saying, \u201cI didn\u2019t put shuffle tracking into the book.\u201d\u00a0 Like, \u201cI can be trusted.\u201d\u00a0 Thanks, Ken.<\/p>\n

RWM: How long before the phone call came to go back to Atlantic City?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Darryl: August \u201979.\u00a0 That was when I had the little apartment with him on the boardwalk.\u00a0 We played some blackjack, trained some people, and ran the team out of there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

RWM: How long were you there this time?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 I would say from August to December.\u00a0 It was during this time that I made a bet with Ken.\u00a0 I was trying to lose weight, and he was trying to stop drinking.\u00a0 I bet I could go longer without eating than he could without drinking alcohol.\u00a0 The first one to break the fast would lose.\u00a0 Given that you need food to live, you can see how difficult Ken\u2019s problem was\u2014that we would consider this to be an even proposition.<\/div>\n
RWM: Who won?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 I did.\u00a0 I think he lasted four or five days.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: Was this the same group of guys on this team, minus Peter?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 No, it was a different set of guys.\u00a0 We invited everyone out.\u00a0 I invited my uncle. We trained a guy named Jack from Cherry Hill, New Jersey.\u00a0 He made enough money to go back and buy the pool hall he had been playing in his whole life.\u00a0 I think Ron was there, but Mark wasn\u2019t.\u00a0 Craig and Matt came.\u00a0 We remembered how we won like pigs in January.\u00a0 We were going to be ready for December 1st.\u00a0\u00a0 When December 1st came we had a large group of experienced guys, and a good-sized bankroll.\u00a0 It was at least $100,000, which was good sized for that time.\u00a0 We won a ton of money.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: Do you remember how much?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

Darryl: I think almost a million, but Ken lied in the book so we may never know.\u00a0 I think it lasted nine days.<\/p>\n

RWM: I heard that although you won a ton of money, you somehow managed to lose three cars.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Darryl: You know, you work hard, you give up your early twenties to be one of the very best blackjack players in the world, and what do they remember you for?<\/p>\n

RWM: Is it true?<\/p>\n

Darryl:\u00a0 Well, it was over a five-month period.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
RWM: Oh, well if you are losing less than one car a month, that isn\u2019t bad.\u00a0 How exactly did that happen?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 Remembering how that happened would require the same brain cells that would have prevented it from happening.\u00a0 I do remember one situation.\u00a0 There were two casinos open at the time.\u00a0 Caesars had opened in addition to Resorts International.\u00a0 These were the only casinos in the United States outside Nevada.\u00a0 I had a safety deposit box at Resorts, but I wanted to play at Caesars.\u00a0 I pulled up to the door because it didn\u2019t look like there was any place to park.\u00a0 It was really cold there, so I just left the car running with the heater on.\u00a0 I went in to get my money, and I thought as I went in that I would go check the game.\u00a0 I went around, and sure enough there was an empty table in the high limit pit.\u00a0 The high limit pit generally had fewer decks and a better game.\u00a0 I sat down to play, and ended up staying there for eight hours.\u00a0 I went out and got a taxi back to the apartment, which was team headquarters.\u00a0 At some point someone said, \u201cWhere is the car?\u201d\u00a0 I didn\u2019t even think about it.\u00a0 Then someone said, \u201cDidn\u2019t you take the car this morning, Darryl?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cOh, that\u2019s right.\u201d\u00a0 It turned out the valet had it.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: Were all three of the cars recovered?\u00a0 The three you lost?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 I don\u2019t think I lost any cars for good.\u00a0 That would be irresponsible.\u00a0 [laughing]<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: When the no-barring policy ended, they went to the three-step barring policy.\u00a0 After the third step people were getting arrested for trespassing.\u00a0 Did you suffer many of these arrests?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

Darryl:\u00a0 No.\u00a0 I think I left before that.\u00a0 At some point I came back to Caesars, and for one of the very few times in my life I gambled.\u00a0 I decided to blow $500.\u00a0 I went to the craps table, and bet $100 on the pass line and took odds.\u00a0 I turned the $500 into $1,000 and went to the baccarat table.\u00a0 I bet $500 per hand, and kept betting more as I won.\u00a0 They all knew that I was Darryl Purpose, professional card counter.\u00a0 They also knew that professional card counters don\u2019t play baccarat or any other game unless they have an edge.\u00a0 It drove them nuts.\u00a0 I won 13 consecutive hands in baccarat.\u00a0 My last hand I lost some large bet and said, \u201cThank you very much,\u201d and walked with $20,000.<\/p>\n

RWM: They are probably still studying those tapes trying to figure out what you were doing.<\/p>\n

Darryl: They probably are.\u00a0 But they had never barred me.\u00a0 Some time later I was back in the club.\u00a0 They asked me to leave, and I said, \u201cNo, you can\u2019t ask me to leave.\u00a0 The rules say you must first ask the person not to play blackjack.\u00a0 If they play, then you can ask them to leave.\u201d\u00a0 We disagreed over this, and they carried me out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
RWM: You\u2019re a big guy.\u00a0 How many of them did it take to carry you out?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 One on each limb.\u00a0 It was a passive resistance on my part.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: Sort of like lying down at the Nevada nuclear test site?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 Exactly.\u00a0 It was all training for my future anti-war activism.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: You lay down, and they picked you up and carried you through the casino.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 I didn\u2019t lie down.\u00a0 I was standing.\u00a0 Two guys grabbed my arms, and two guys picked up my feet.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: Was anyone saying anything as they carried you through the casino?\u00a0 Or was this just a normal day in Atlantic City?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 You know how oblivious people are in the casino.\u00a0 It would take a lot more than that to get a gambler\u2019s attention.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: What did they do once they got you out the door?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 They dropped me on the sidewalk.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: You were injured from this, right?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 Yeah, I hurt my shoulder.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

RWM: You did sue, and win.\u00a0 How much was the settlement, or are you barred from saying?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Darryl:\u00a0 I did win, but I can\u2019t say.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: You\u2019re a singer\/songwriter now, and music was a big part of Ken\u2019s life.\u00a0 Did you play music together?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 No.\u00a0 It\u2019s funny, before he wrote Two Books on Blackjack<\/i> he asked me what he should say about what I was going to do with my life.\u00a0 The book says something like, Darryl went back to living in Los Angeles, bought a small house there, and is doing shows in some small clubs around the L.A. area.\u00a0\u00a0 I read that and was thinking, \u201cGod, I started performing way back then.\u00a0 I guess so, but I sure don\u2019t remember that.\u201d\u00a0 Days later I remembered I had asked him to put that in there because if some casino people or Griffin agents figured out that Jack Baker in the book was Darryl Purpose, I didn\u2019t want them to know I was still playing blackjack.\u00a0 It\u2019s funny how that foreshadowed what actually happened.\u00a0 Some years later, in the early \u201990s I did move to LA and start playing at small clubs.\u00a0 Then about 1996 I recorded a CD and began to tour nationally.<\/div>\n
I remember telling Ken that I wasn\u2019t a big fan of jazz, but appreciated the skill of some players.\u00a0 In the book that became, \u201cDarryl likes to hear Ken play, but admits that jazz is much more difficult to play than other music.\u201d\u00a0 We never did any music together.\u00a0 I\u2019m a rock-and-roll guy, and he was a jazz guy.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: What kind of testing did you guys have for that team in Atlantic City?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

Darryl: Oh, basic stuff.\u00a0 We had them count down single decks, and six-deck shoes.\u00a0 Single decks we wanted them to count in fifteen seconds.\u00a0 Alan Woods said in Gambling Wizards<\/i> that he thought some approximation of card counting was fine.\u00a0 We were the opposite of that, sticklers for detail and precision\u2014sometimes to a fault.\u00a0 I understood that counting down a single deck didn\u2019t necessarily translate into good table play.\u00a0 I would deal to them and count along, and ask them questions about how they were playing.\u00a0 I wanted to make sure they could have a comfortable, intelligent conversation about their play.\u00a0 They would have to make bets according to a prescribed bet plan.\u00a0 If I found it interesting to do so I would ask them how much they would bet if there was another deck in the discard tray, or what running count they would need to make a given play.\u00a0 I knew that not only could they make the right play, but also that they could easily calculate whatever the right play was at any time.\u00a0 They might make a play, and I would ask how close a call that was.\u00a0 They would describe the way they thought about calculating the true count.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

RWM: How was Ken regarded as a player?<\/p>\n

Darryl: Ken was mostly a figurehead on the team, the guy who could inspire people to get together and make some money.\u00a0 In the early months in Nevada, Bill was really running the team.\u00a0 On the second trip to Atlantic City, I was the one training people.\u00a0 Ken was a sharp guy, and a fine blackjack player.\u00a0 But his skill was getting other people to figure out the nuts and bolts of things.\u00a0 About a year after we played together he was involved in some bank, and I got a call from him asking me about betting levels and element of ruin.\u00a0 I told him he should read his book.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

RWM: Did Ken win money on the A.C. banks?\u00a0 How was his personal winning record?<\/p>\n

Darryl: Yeah, as he carefully points out in Two Books On Blackjack<\/i>, he had the highest per-hour win on that trip, although I won the most money.\u00a0 The second trip, I\u2019m not sure what his record was.\u00a0 I\u2019d guess it was a small win, because if it were a big win, he would have talked about it a lot, and if it were a loss we would have talked about it.\u00a0 Pretty good bet\u2014small win.<\/p>\n

RWM: I read a magazine article that called you the best blackjack player in the world.<\/p>\n

Darryl: [laughs] Yeah, well, when we were playing we really scoffed at those labels.\u00a0 What was important was getting the money.\u00a0 Let Ken be the best blackjack player in the world; that was fine with us.\u00a0 When I got into performing full-time my publicist and I were ruminating about what could be said about a guy who really had few accolades musically.\u00a0 It occurred to me that there was a time in my mid-twenties, a time when we pretty much knew all of the professional blackjack players in the world.\u00a0 It was a very small community, and at least a handful of them had told me they thought I was the best among them.\u00a0 So we tried saying in press releases, \u201cOnce known among his peers as the best blackjack player in the world.\u201d\u00a0 It got me some gigs, and it was essentially true.\u00a0 Unfortunately some editors changed the wording slightly to \u201cex-world champion blackjack player,\u201d and \u201cThe best blackjack player in the world,\u201d as if there were some kind of competition that I\u2019d won.<\/p>\n

RWM: You\u2019ve been on big teams, and small ones.\u00a0 How do you compensate people on teams?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Darryl:\u00a0 It was very simple in the beginning.\u00a0 Half the money went to the investors in proportion to the amount they invested, and half went to the players.\u00a0 Some people thought the player\u2019s share should be divided based on how many hours were played.\u00a0 I liked figuring in a win portion.\u00a0 [That is a portion going to the players who had actually won it.]\u00a0 I may have been naive putting together deals.\u00a0 Cathy Hulbert told me once that my reputation was that of a guy who set up some great money-making situations, and then made bad deals for myself in terms of cutting up the win.\u00a0 If everybody were giving his best effort, you didn\u2019t have to worry about those things.\u00a0 Most of the bankrolls I\u2019ve been involved in were like that.\u00a0 The few that weren\u2019t, where people tried to take advantage of each other, were huge disappointments and eye openers for me.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: If you were to go back to blackjack, do you prefer working with a few people or a big team?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl: It\u2019s been about four years since I\u2019ve played a hand of blackjack, and I\u2019d be fine if I never had to play another hand again.\u00a0 But to answer your question, unquestionably a small group of people would be best.\u00a0 It would need to be a small group of guys who had known each other for a long time.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: How did you get involved with Thor?\u00a0 [Thor was a shuffle-tracking computer invented by Keith Taft.]<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 Oh, one of the sleaziest guys I\u2019ve ever known.\u00a0 [laughing]\u00a0 Do you know who I\u2019m talking about?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: Well, the name Rats Cohen has come up in a number of interviews.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 That\u2019s him.\u00a0 We paid Cohen a lot of money for Thor.\u00a0 We also bought technical support.\u00a0 I learned first, and then Craig learned.<\/div>\n
At that time I was living on the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, California.\u00a0 We had a house on the beach.\u00a0 Ken lived there for a short time, and he brought Harry Reasoner over.\u00a0 He was doing a piece for \u201c60 Minutes\u201d about Ken.\u00a0 It was a big bachelor pad with five bedrooms.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: Tell me about learning to use Thor.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 The computer used a binary code system. \u00a0We had two switches on each foot, one up, one down.\u00a0 On the left foot the up switch represented one, and down was two.\u00a0 On the right foot up was four, and down was eight.\u00a0 Before we started we would tell the machine what the rules were for that particular game, what kind of shuffle they were doing, and how many decks.\u00a0 Then we entered the exact value of the cards, and the order that they went into the discard rack.\u00a0 When it was time to shuffle, the dealer would take the unplayed cards, and we had to tell the computer where they were placed.\u00a0 If they were placed in the middle, we had to tell the computer where in the middle.\u00a0 Then we would tell the computer that the dealer took, say, 51% of the cards and put them on the right.\u00a0 Then the dealer would grab cards from each pile, and we would tell the computer the dealer grabbed 29 cards from the left side, and 34 cards from the right side.\u00a0 Now he is grabbing 24 from the left, and 27 from the right.\u00a0 Most of the shuffles were this way at that time\u2014we called it the \u201cHilton shuffle.\u201d\u00a0 At the end you would have four segments of about one and a half decks.\u00a0 The computer would have a good idea what cards were in each of those segments.\u00a0 The computer would give you the option of cutting the best segment to the front of the shoe, or the worst segment to the back.\u00a0 For cover you would cut the best section to the front so you could bet big off the top.\u00a0 For the best overall game you cut the worst section to the back.\u00a0 Then it would tell you how much to bet, and how to play each hand.\u00a0 It would occasionally make some bizarre plays.<\/div>\n
There was another non-random shuffle computer out at that time which was far simpler.\u00a0 It just used the High-Low, and in hindsight I would have used that if I had the option.\u00a0 The people using this other machine played only basic strategy.\u00a0 They never varied their play except for insurance.\u00a0 You were betting big off the top all the time, and you didn\u2019t have to spread that much to have a good edge.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: How long did it take you to learn to use Thor?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure, but I was really focused and a quick learner.\u00a0 Many hours were spent on practicing the estimation of the number of cards in each grab, and cutting the deck exactly where the computer was telling you.<\/div>\n
\n

My first experiment with it was in Europe.\u00a0 Cathy Hulbert was an investor in that bank, and I think she was the one who suggested that somebody should go along with me.\u00a0 My friend Nick thought that sounded like a good job, and that was the first of many trips we took together.\u00a0 We later went to Poland, the Caribbean, Korea, Cannes and some other places.\u00a0 He\u2019s one of my favorite people, and probably the sharpest guy I know still out there playing.<\/p>\n

RWM: What happened when you got to Europe?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 A lot of things happened there.\u00a0 I practiced, and got better at using the machine.\u00a0 We started out in Germany and Belgium, but really couldn\u2019t play there because the machine couldn\u2019t handle those shuffles.\u00a0 Then we went to England.\u00a0 In England the casinos are private clubs.\u00a0 You had to join, and then wait 48 hours before you could enter.\u00a0 We joined a bunch of clubs in London, and while we were waiting our 48 hours, we decided to go north of London to a town called Leicester.\u00a0 We signed up for the two casinos in Leicester, but then still had to wait 48 hours.\u00a0 There was a tiny town near Leicester called Enderby.\u00a0 We read in the local paper that they were having a folk festival, so I grabbed my guitar, and off we went.\u00a0 I played at the festival, which was held in a large garage.\u00a0 My UK debut.\u00a0 [laughing]\u00a0 Now I\u2019ve got a bit of a following in England, but I don\u2019t think any of them remember that Enderby performance.<\/div>\n
It was the middle of February, and snowing.\u00a0 This wasn\u2019t your typical tourist destination.\u00a0 There was a sock factory in Leicester, so we decided if we got pulled up we would tell them we were business men, and there to go to the sock factory.\u00a0 That was pretty silly, but we did some silly things in those days.\u00a0 We bought a book on walks around central England, and I think we may have taken a walk.\u00a0 We went to a play at the Haymarket Theater in Leicester.\u00a0 It was rare that we got time off like this on blackjack trips.\u00a0 For some reason we decided to kill the two days in Leicester rather than London.\u00a0 What was that about?\u00a0 Can I have those two days back?<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When you sign up for these casinos, some of them require you to show a passport, and some don\u2019t.\u00a0 Our policy was, if they didn\u2019t ask for the passport we would give a fake name.\u00a0 In the first casino we went to in Leicester they didn\u2019t ask for a passport, so we gave a fake name.\u00a0 At the second casino, named Annabelle\u2019s, they did ask for passports, so we used our real names.<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Finally we started playing at Annabelle\u2019s.\u00a0 The shuffle was very simple, and Nick was sequencing aces while I operated Thor.\u00a0 Everyone in the place was betting two pounds, and I was betting three hands of the maximum.\u00a0 We won about 10,000 pounds.\u00a0\u00a0 Unbeknownst to us, the owner of Annabelle\u2019s called the other casino and asked if two Americans named X and Y had been in there.\u00a0 The owner of the other casino told him that two Americans had signed up but under different names.\u00a0 Anyway, after we were up 10,000 pounds they changed the shuffle, and we quit.\u00a0 They told us they didn\u2019t have enough money to cash the chips.\u00a0 That was a first.\u00a0 They wanted to give us a check.\u00a0 \u201cA check?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 We were from Vegas.\u00a0 We had never heard of such a thing.\u00a0 They told us they would go to the bank the next day, and we could come back and get cash in the morning.<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The next morning we had a big discussion about what to do with the computer.\u00a0 Should we hide it, or should I wear it in and see if we could play?\u00a0 We decided I should strap up, and consider playing depending on how I was received at the casino.\u00a0\u00a0 We got to the casino, and I went to cash the chips while Nick went to check if the game was good.\u00a0\u00a0 The game wasn\u2019t good anymore, and when Nick came to the cashier to find me, I was gone.\u00a0 They directed him up some stairs to a bar that was closed.\u00a0 When he came up, he found me talking to Scotland Yard.<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now, we had talked about the possibility of being pulled up.\u00a0 Our plan was, if this happened we would ask for a lawyer and not say anything.\u00a0 They separated us, to question us, and somehow we both knew that we should break that agreement, and talk to them.\u00a0\u00a0 They kept saying, \u201cYou\u2019re a professional gambler.\u201d\u00a0 I kept telling them I was in real estate.\u00a0 He asked for my business phone number.\u00a0 I gave him a fake business card, and he actually picked up the phone and started dialing this number I gave him.\u00a0 Then he hung up.\u00a0 Several times they were so close to nailing us, although I don\u2019t know what nailing us would have meant for us.\u00a0 They wanted us to admit we were professional gamblers, which we never did.\u00a0 They knew we were professional gamblers\u2014so what?\u00a0 Nick kept saying, \u201cAre you accusing us of doing something wrong?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 The police would say, \u201cNo, we just want to know you are who you say you are.\u201d\u00a0 They knew we had given different names at the other casino.\u00a0 We gave them our passports.<\/div>\n
Eventually they said they wanted to look at our hotel room.\u00a0 So here we are, being escorted to our hotel by Scotland Yard\u2019s finest.\u00a0 They started looking through everything.\u00a0 They looked under the towels, and took the mattress off the bed.\u00a0 They looked in my guitar case.\u00a0 The only thing we were worried about was a briefcase sitting on the end of the bed.\u00a0 In the briefcase were extra toe switches, a soldering iron, lithium batteries, membership cards in dozens of names for casinos in London, Belgium, Netherlands, and Germany.\u00a0 We were trying not to look at the briefcase, and we also were trying not to not<\/u> look at the briefcase.\u00a0 This whole time we had been talking to them, and we were winning them over.\u00a0 They knew this was a roust.\u00a0\u00a0 We thought they were going to pass up the briefcase entirely.\u00a0 The last thing, he lifted the lid of the briefcase and said, \u201cWell, I guess that\u2019s it then.\u201d\u00a0 He didn\u2019t look down into the briefcase.\u00a0 He opened it, and didn\u2019t look.\u00a0 In the end, my ankles were the only things that weren\u2019t searched.\u00a0 They searched the car, the hotel room, my guitar case, but never searched us.\u00a0 Then they drove us back to the casino, and the casino cashed our chips.\u00a0 We got the cash, packed our bags, and headed for the next ferry out of Dover.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: Did you go back to Vegas?<\/div>\n
Darryl: Yes.\u00a0 When I got back I went to great lengths to change the way I looked.\u00a0 I lost weight; I dyed and curled my hair.\u00a0 I got some brown contact lenses.\u00a0 I was too young to grow facial hair, so I had a little goatee I put on with spirit gum.\u00a0 I bought it from a makeup guy in Hollywood.\u00a0 I started wearing three-piece suits, which I had never done before.\u00a0 I used makeup, and I got clear glasses.\u00a0 I had a mole removed, and had veneers put on my teeth.\u00a0 Then I legally changed my name.\u00a0 I was remaking myself, and Darryl Purpose was history.<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Thor didn\u2019t have any discretion.\u00a0 If it felt you could gain half a percent by hitting a hard 18, or doubling on hard 13 it would tell you to do it.\u00a0 There were some really interesting plays.\u00a0 In practice sessions, when it told us to hit a hard 17 we spread the deck, and there would be a bunch of threes and fours.<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Here\u2019s a great story.\u00a0 With Thor we built our own shoes.\u00a0 We\u2019d buy shoes with a thick rubber sole, and cut a hole in the padding in the front of the shoe.\u00a0 We became craftsmen\u2014we had our tools, our glue, and Exacto knives.\u00a0 Craig was working on his shoes in Las Vegas.\u00a0 He had an Exacto knife, and was cutting into the shoe.\u00a0 He was straining to cut through the thick rubber sole when suddenly there was a loud thwack, and the knife was sticking right into the center of his chest.\u00a0 It had hit his sternum.<\/div>\n
The funny thing was that Val and Pat didn\u2019t want to drive him to the hospital, because they were about to go out on a hole-card play.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t want to miss getting the seat.\u00a0 He said, \u201cI can\u2019t drive.\u00a0 I have to hold something over my chest so I don\u2019t bleed to death.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 They were miffed, but they did drop him off at the emergency room.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: Did you play in the islands with the computer?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl: Yes.\u00a0 I went to St. Martin with a buxom blonde named Sabrina.\u00a0 It was just a free vacation for her, and good cover for me.\u00a0 I looked more like a tourist.\u00a0 We stayed in one room, and Craig was in the room next door.\u00a0 Every evening, I would excuse myself to go talk about strategy in Craig\u2019s room.\u00a0 What I was really doing was suiting up with Thor.\u00a0 Craig kept Thor and all the equipment so if they searched my room, they wouldn\u2019t find anything.<\/div>\n
We would play every night from eight o\u2019clock until two or three in the morning.\u00a0 Craig would sit at the next table, ready to run to authorities or do something, I\u2019m not sure what, if I were to be pulled up.
\nMy story was that I was a songwriter, and that I wrote commercials.\u00a0 I would bring my guitar down to the casino.\u00a0 There was a bar adjacent to the casino, and the waves would lap up on the sand.\u00a0 There was no wall.\u00a0 The bar was right on the beach.\u00a0 I have pictures of Sabrina and me, and the casino owner and his wife at that bar.\u00a0 I was playing guitar for them.\u00a0 None of them had any idea I was wired with this blackjack computer.<\/div>\n
I lost and lost on that trip.\u00a0 I had gone down there with $40,000, and it was gone.\u00a0 The owner said, \u201cI\u2019ll loan you $5,000.\u201d\u00a0 Craig and I called back home and said, \u201cThese guys also own a casino in Sicily. \u00a0Check it out and see if you can find out if they have any reputation for anything bad.\u201d\u00a0 The word came back that they did have a bad reputation, and there were rumors that they were involved with the Sicilian Mafia.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure about the chronology, or the reasoning, but for some reason we decided to take the $5,000, and try to get our money back.<\/div>\n
It was the last day of play.\u00a0 I was flying out at five the next morning, and I started to win.\u00a0 Then I started winning more.\u00a0 As it got later there weren\u2019t many other people in the casino, so they closed it down.\u00a0 This meant that Craig, my bodyguard who was always at the next table, was no longer there.\u00a0 There was no one else in the casino.\u00a0 There was the dealer, the pit boss, and the owner of the casino had taken a seat at the table on my left.\u00a0 The casino manager was sitting at the table also, and he\u2019s on my right.\u00a0 Sabrina and I were sitting in the middle of the table between them, and I couldn\u2019t lose a hand.\u00a0 I really wanted to quit, but I thought, if I quit they were really going to be pissed.\u00a0 I was afraid to quit.\u00a0 This was odd, because I had been through a lot of things without being scared, but this scared me.\u00a0\u00a0 I ended up getting all my money back plus about $20,000.\u00a0 They knew about my morning flight, and at some point in the wee hours I just stopped and said, \u201cGentlemen, I have to go.\u201d\u00a0 They were very deliberate. They slowly put my chips in racks, walked them and me to the cage, and counted out my money.\u00a0 We were on our way.\u00a0 I went back the next year, but the game wasn\u2019t good anymore.\u00a0 Sabrina was still there.\u00a0 She\u2019d never left the island, and she never knew about Thor.<\/div>\n
I then flew to Aruba.\u00a0 I was going through customs, and they singled me out.\u00a0 They took all my stuff over to a table.\u00a0 Now, Thor was put away pretty well.\u00a0 It was stuffed in the shoes, and socks were on top of that.\u00a0 The shoes were inside a shoe bag.\u00a0 They came across some spare batteries in my suitcase.\u00a0 They were lithium batteries, and they kind of looked homemade.\u00a0 They would never fly in 2003.\u00a0 Even at that time they looked funny.\u00a0 The customs officer asked what they were.\u00a0 I told them they were batteries.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWhat are you going to use these for?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cYou know, batteries.\u00a0 You can use them for anything, like a radio \u2026 or a computer.\u201d\u00a0 As things unfolded they were looking really closely at everything in my suitcase.\u00a0 More and more employees came over to watch this.\u00a0 As each new person came, I got more concerned until there were ten or twelve people there.<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 While they were searching my bags, I realized I had two roaches in my pocket.\u00a0 As they got closer to the computer, and more people came over, at some point they said, \u201cDo you have any money?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cOh yeah.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cHow much?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWell, forty thousand.\u201d\u00a0 All I was worried about were these two roaches.\u00a0 Now, why I would even consider flying from island to island with marijuana in my pocket \u2026 what was I thinking?\u00a0 In my pocket was my passport, keys, and money from different islands.\u00a0 As all this was going on I fish around in my pocket, and find one of the roaches between my fingers.\u00a0 I slowly pull my hand out of my pocket, and pop the roach in my mouth, and eat it.\u00a0 Right in front of them.\u00a0 I put my hand right back in my pocket, and go searching for the other roach.\u00a0 As they are getting more excited over finding the computer, and interrogating me more, I find and eat the second roach. I relaxed after that.\u00a0 The worst that could happen now was that I would lose my $40,000, right?<\/div>\n
They took me to a back room.\u00a0 They spread the money over the table and counted it.\u00a0 It was like the worst movie interrogation room you can imagine.\u00a0 They found the computer, and I was just telling them, \u201cIt\u2019s a computer.\u00a0 You can operate it in your shoes.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 I was explaining it all without mentioning blackjack.\u00a0 At some point the police said, \u201cWe found one of these before.\u00a0 Someone was using it to play blackjack.\u201d\u00a0 I said, \u201cWell, yeah, you could play blackjack with it.\u201d\u00a0 I was thinking that I would be really happy if I could get out of this for $5,000.\u00a0 Finally they said, \u201cGo to your hotel.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to take the machine, and decide whether we\u2019re going to press charges.\u201d\u00a0 But they gave me all the money.<\/div>\n
I waited a couple of days.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t play any blackjack of course.\u00a0 I rented a little motorcycle, and drove around the island for a couple of days.\u00a0 Finally they called me and said, \u201cWe\u2019re not going to press charges, and we\u2019re not going to give you your machine back.\u00a0 But we\u2019ll go with you to the post office, and let you mail it home.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s what they did.<\/div>\n
\n

That reminds me of the time when Pat and I went to pick up Craig at the Reno airport.\u00a0 They used to let you go meet the arriving passengers at the gate.\u00a0 We had just come from a practice play, and were suited up.\u00a0 I went through security first, and I removed my batteries and put them on the conveyer belt.\u00a0 I thought I could get through with the computer and the battery holder strapped to my leg, but the alarm went off as I went through.\u00a0 The security guy and I looked at each other.\u00a0 I raised my pant leg, pointed to the empty battery holder and said, \u201cIt\u2019s a battery holder,\u201d as if, doesn\u2019t everyone have one of these?\u00a0 He waved me through.\u00a0 Pat saw all this, and took of his entire unit and put it on the conveyer belt.\u00a0 As he passed by, the security guy said, \u201cOh, you must be with that other guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

RWM: Did you use disguises?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Darryl: Yeah, but not always successfully.\u00a0 I shaved my head once.\u00a0 That was 1980 when it was really odd to shave your head.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t been in Las Vegas for eight months.\u00a0 I walked into the Holiday Inn, bought in for $20, and bet $1.\u00a0 I was going to call plays, and before the BP got to the table I got the tap on the shoulder.\u00a0 \u201cDarryl, we don\u2019t want you playing here.\u201d<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: Didn\u2019t you have a disguise where you became black?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

Darryl: I wanted to look foreign.\u00a0 I was using skin tint, and a lot of people thought I was Mulatto.\u00a0 I went to Atlantic City to the Claridge.\u00a0 I had a black three-piece suit, a man\u2019s full-length mink, and my Mulatto look.\u00a0 I had a beautiful young woman on my arm, and I had a black doctor\u2019s bag with $100,000 in cash in it.\u00a0 I went in and dumped the cash out on the table and said, \u201cI came to play.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 I won $150,000 in one session.\u00a0 At that time it was the largest session win of any of the professional blackjack players we knew.\u00a0 They gave me a limo stocked with Dom Perignon to take us to New York.\u00a0 We went to a Broadway show, and had dinner, all paid for by the casino.\u00a0 Makes for a fun story, but it was stuff I really didn\u2019t care much about.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

RWM: That was your biggest win ever?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 Yeah.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: Do you remember your biggest loss?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

Darryl:\u00a0 $80,000 at the MGM in Las Vegas, also with Thor.\u00a0 It was graveyard.\u00a0 Graveyard was always kind of surreal.\u00a0 Walking out of the MGM busted as the sun was rising\u2014It didn\u2019t feel good.\u00a0 There was a very short shift boss named Vic Wakeman.\u00a0 He gave us a lot of heat, and I hated losing on his shift.\u00a0 We used to call him the \u201ceye in the rug.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

RWM: How did Thor end?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl: At some point the combined effect of the two teams put heat on the move.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if any other teams were using Thor, but there was another non-random shuffle computer.\u00a0 The casinos were looking for players with their feet flat on the floor.\u00a0 It was time to move on.\u00a0 I talked to Craig recently, and he said we won a million dollars with Thor.\u00a0 I thought it was more like a half million, but he thinks it was a million.<\/div>\n
Then the Great Peace March happened.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: What was that?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl: I wasn\u2019t a particularly political guy at that time, but I did read the paper, and I heard about this plan for 5,000 people to walk from Los Angeles to Washington, DC to speak out against the nuclear arms race.\u00a0 Madonna was doing commercials for the group, and Sting was going to do the going away celebration at the Rose Bowl.\u00a0 There were portable shower trucks, and laundry trucks.\u00a0 Club Med for peace.\u00a0 That\u2019s what I signed up for.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t what it was advertised to be.\u00a0 Instead of Sting at the Rose Bowl, it was Mister Mister at City Hall.\u00a0 We could not procure the site insurance the organizers thought they needed to go through with the walk.\u00a0 We walked anyway\u2014fifteen miles the first day through east LA, where my mother had told me never to go.\u00a0 We got to our first campground, which was a parking lot at Cal State LA.\u00a0 There were 1,200 people at that point.\u00a0 That night one of the volunteers from the organizers came to me and said, \u201cStay vigilant.\u00a0 You guys are pretty much on your own.\u201d\u00a0 That was a little scary, but we continued to walk.<\/div>\n
We got to within 25 miles of Barstow, and the organizer flew in on a helicopter, and told us to all go home.\u00a0 There was no more money.\u00a0 We looked at the helicopter, and knew where the money had gone.\u00a0 People drifted away, but there were a few hundred left who decided to walk anyway, without the support of the organization.\u00a0 People did what they could to make it work.\u00a0 People who could cook did that.\u00a0 People who knew how to remove distributor caps on major support vehicles so they wouldn\u2019t be repossessed\u2014they did that. The musicians formed a band, and started writing songs about why we were walking.\u00a0 It was the first time other than playing for friends and family that I\u2019d ever performed.\u00a0 We played at rallies, clubs, benefits, schools, and raised money for the march.\u00a0 Early on the march went right through Las Vegas\u2014I walked down the Las Vegas Strip, a peace marcher with my guitar around my neck, looking at all those casinos I had been thrown out of months earlier.\u00a0 For many of us, we made the march into something much bigger than the original organizers had planned.\u00a0 We walked into Washington, DC, on schedule, eight months later.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

RWM: Did you go back to blackjack after the march?<\/p>\n

Darryl: No, not right away.\u00a0 Although we got a lot of support from people as we walked, some folks said, \u201cYou can\u2019t do that in Russia.\u201d\u00a0 So the next year we did it in Russia\u2014from Leningrad to Moscow.\u00a0 Allan Afeldt, who organized the walk, wanted to have a musical event to celebrate the completion of the walk.\u00a0 The only problem was, there had never been an outdoor stadium rock concert in the Soviet Union before.\u00a0 Rock-and-Roll was still illegal there.\u00a0 But Gorbachev was talking about Glasnost, and things there were changing.\u00a0 Allan called the cable channel Showtime and asked, \u201cIf I get Bill Graham to produce it, will you put up $500,000?\u201d\u00a0 He also called Bill Graham and said, \u201cIf I get Showtime to put up a $500,000, will you produce this concert?\u201d\u00a0 They both said yes, so our band got to play with Santana, Bonnie Rait, & James Taylor in the first outdoor rock concert in the history of the Soviet Union.\u00a0 I did make three blackjack trips to Korea that year [1987] to support the band.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

RWM: Did you play blackjack while you were in Russia?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl: There was no blackjack in Russia at that time.\u00a0 I did go back to Russia to play blackjack later.\u00a0 On the peace march I met a Lithuanian cameraman.\u00a0 I trained him to count cards, and he went to Russia with me.\u00a0 It was the Wild West there.\u00a0 This was maybe 1993.\u00a0 My friend was at a bar in the casino, and the guy next to him turned and said, \u201cYou\u2019re going to give me all your money.\u201d\u00a0 He said, \u201cWhat do you mean?\u00a0 There are pit bosses right over there.\u201d The guy said, \u201cThe pit bosses are with me.\u00a0 You\u2019re going to give me all your money.\u201d\u00a0 My friend paused, the guy turned his back, and my friend took off running.\u00a0 He hit the door and kept going.\u00a0 My hero.\u00a0 The amazing thing about this is that we did not stop our trip at that point.\u00a0 We kept playing.\u00a0 It took a little morning chase through the streets of Moscow by the Russian Mafia to actually convince us to leave.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: How did that happen?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl: I had finished my play at a casino late one night.\u00a0 I dropped my Russian friend off at her apartment.\u00a0 I came back to the taxi, and the taxi driver said, \u201cWho are those guys?\u201d\u00a0 I said, \u201cWhat guys?\u201d\u00a0 He said, \u201cThey came and asked me about you.\u00a0 They\u2019re following us.\u201d\u00a0 It was about five in the morning, and I looked back and I couldn\u2019t see them.\u00a0 I said, \u201cLose them.\u201d\u00a0 He drove on and he said, \u201cI can\u2019t lose them.\u00a0 They\u2019re good drivers.\u201d\u00a0 I said, \u201cWho are they?\u201d\u00a0 He said, \u201cThe Russian Mafia.\u201d\u00a0 I said, \u201cWell, drive faster.\u00a0 Go to the embassy, or the police station.\u201d\u00a0 He said, \u201cYou don\u2019t understand.\u201d\u00a0 He was going faster, and faster, and they were going faster.\u00a0 I put my money under the seat.\u00a0 At some point my driver stopped, and they pulled up along side us, about ten feet away.\u00a0 They started to talk in Russian.\u00a0 At some point I heard my driver say, \u201cPlease, I don\u2019t want any trouble with my family.\u201d\u00a0 They talked some more and my driver turned to me and said, \u201cThey just want to talk to you.\u201d\u00a0 It was a small sedan with four big, burly guys.\u00a0 One of them got out, and started over to my car.\u00a0 Just as he was reaching for the handle of my taxi I screamed at the driver, \u201cGO!\u201d\u00a0 Somehow the driver found it in himself to put his foot on the gas, and we were off again.<\/div>\n
The scariest thing about this was the driving itself.\u00a0 We were going 60 miles an hour through Moscow in a car that was held together by wire and glue.\u00a0 At one point we reached a big intersection, and another car was coming at us head on.\u00a0 There were screeching tires, and everyone came to a stop in the middle of this big intersection.\u00a0 It was me in a taxi, the Russian Mafia, and a police car.\u00a0 We\u2019re all at a stop sort of facing each other.\u00a0 I thought, \u201cWhew, we made it.\u201d\u00a0 I just blinked, and the police car was gone.\u00a0 They just took off.\u00a0 We were back on the road, and back to this 60 mile an hour chase.\u00a0 At some point I said, \u201cGo back to the casino.\u201d\u00a0 He drove to the casino, and either they didn\u2019t want to do their dirty work near the casino, or maybe by then it was getting light, and there were too many people out.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know, but when we got to the casino they had disappeared.\u00a0 That was the last time I played in Russia.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: In retrospect, do you think you did a lot of dangerous things in your blackjack career?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 At the time I was very focused, and I wanted to be good at what I did.\u00a0 I was good.\u00a0 I did my job, and I didn\u2019t really consider that it was dangerous.\u00a0 Looking back I see that I was doing ridiculously dangerous things.\u00a0 At the time it was just about doing my job.\u00a0 Or maybe, it was that this would make a good story.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: Or this would make you some money?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 There was some of that I suppose, but not as much as you\u2019d think.\u00a0 It was more of a workman-like attitude of getting the job done.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

RWM: Have you ever been cheated?<\/p>\n

Darryl: In Istanbul I played against a short shoe. The count was plus twenty-something when the cut card came out after the first shoe.\u00a0 It was a trackable shuffle, so I cut the little cards to the back.\u00a0 The count came out twenty-something again.\u00a0 I backed my bet down to the minimum and watched this for a couple more shoes, then left.\u00a0 Oddly, I\u2019d won about 20 top bets in those first two shoes before I realized the deck was short.<\/p>\n

RWM: What about in the US?<\/p>\n

Darryl: Very early in my career I was playing $50 to $200 on a single deck in Lake Tahoe.\u00a0 I found a dealer named Pat at the South Tahoe Nugget who dealt a particularly great game.\u00a0 I played against him for forty minutes, and went through about $2,000.\u00a0 Later, I was talking to him at the bar.\u00a0 I told him my name was Scott Jackson, and I was a musician.\u00a0 He told me that his girlfriend was a singer, and invited me to his house for dinner.\u00a0 I took him up on it.\u00a0 His girlfriend cooked dinner, and the three of us hung out.\u00a0 At some point I didn\u2019t feel like pretending to be someone I wasn\u2019t, and I told him my real name was Darryl, and that I was a card counter.\u00a0 He went into his bedroom, and came out with a piece of paper.\u00a0 I recognized it as Lance Humble\u2019s Hi-Opt 1.\u00a0 He started quizzing me about my numbers.\u00a0 I not only knew the numbers on the paper he had, but the revisions put out by Julian Braun later.\u00a0 So he got that I was real card counter.\u00a0 I ended up spending the night, and the next morning, after breakfast, he came to me with a deck of cards in his hand.\u00a0 He said, \u201cYou were honest with me, and I\u2019m going to be honest with you.\u201d\u00a0 He placed a ten and a six face up on the table.\u00a0 He had me turn them over, and tuck them under some chips.\u00a0 He reached over with his deck-hand, and when he turned them over it was a blackjack.\u00a0 He repeated this a few times.\u00a0 We became friends, and played blackjack together for some years.\u00a0 He is the same \u201cPat\u201d I\u2019ve been mentioning throughout the interview.\u00a0 I just sang at his wedding last year.\u00a0 To this day he says that he didn\u2019t cheat me that day at the Nugget.\u00a0 I believe him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

RWM: One of your songs is called \u201cDangerous Game.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s about an experience in Sri Lanka.\u00a0 What made you go there?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl: At that point I was pretty steamy in Nevada, and I was hard to disguise, so I ended up playing in a lot of obscure places.\u00a0 We had heard that Sri Lanka had a significant advantage off the top.\u00a0 I forget the exact rules, but it probably involved early surrender, and 21 pushes versus blackjack.\u00a0 It had all the standard rules, plus a few things that were pretty weird.\u00a0 It had maybe a \u00bd to 1% advantage off the top.\u00a0 I went with Art, and it is such an odd place, even for a globetrotting blackjack player.<\/div>\n
On the way to Colombo in the plane I opened a tourist book about Sri Lanka.\u00a0 I used to like to learn at least a little bit about the people, and the country where we were going.\u00a0 It said in the book that one of the odd things about the people in Colombo is that when they want to say, \u201cyes,\u201d they shake their head from side to side, the way we say \u201cno.\u201d\u00a0 I thought that was the strangest thing, so I turned to the guy next to me on the plane.\u00a0 He was from Colombo, and I said, \u201cIt says in here that when you want to say yes you shake your head from side to side.\u00a0 Is that true?\u201d\u00a0 He shook his head from side to side, and I thought, \u201cOf course not.\u00a0 That\u2019s ridiculous.\u201d\u00a0 It took me a couple days to catch on.\u00a0 I\u2019d go up to a taxi and say, \u201cCan you take me to the casino?\u201d\u00a0 He would shake his head from side to side, and I\u2019d go look for another taxi.<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When we first got there it was Buddha\u2019s birthday, so all the casinos were closed for two days.\u00a0 We decided to have a little vacation in Kandy, which is one of the spiritual centers for Buddhists.\u00a0 It was a beautiful country, but at that time there were two civil wars going on.\u00a0 The Tamil Tigers, who invented suicide bombings, were battling from the north.\u00a0 It was fierce, and ugly, and bodies were turning up every day.\u00a0 At the Colombo Hilton where we were staying, they had about 15% occupancy.\u00a0 There is a picture of me at the Colombo Hilton pool, and I am the only person there.\u00a0 I\u2019m reading a newspaper, and the headline says, \u201cParties to Replace Slain Candidates.\u201d\u00a0 We would read the paper every morning just to check if the place we ate lunch was still open\u2014that it hadn\u2019t been bombed.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: Were there many people in the casino?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 The casinos were very small, maybe three or four tables at the most.\u00a0 There were other players, but not many.<\/div>\n
After a few days at one casino I got the tap on the shoulder.\u00a0 The casino owner invited me to the back room.\u00a0 The owner was part Dutch, and part Indian.\u00a0 He spoke English very well.\u00a0 He accused me of being a professional blackjack player.\u00a0 In his mind that was the equivalent of cheating.\u00a0 He kept repeating, \u201cIt\u2019s a very dangerous game you\u2019re playing.\u201d\u00a0 At the time I felt like I was just doing my job.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t particularly afraid.\u00a0 My job was to play until they didn\u2019t allow me to, and take the money home.\u00a0 He was basically telling me to leave without my chips.\u00a0 I had between $5,000 and $10,000.\u00a0 My attitude was, \u201cNo way.\u00a0 I\u2019m not leaving without the chips.\u201d\u00a0 Then he wanted me to give up half the chips.\u00a0 Again, I was, \u201cNo way.\u201d\u00a0 We had this 45-minute conversation, and I ended up giving him $200, and keeping the rest.\u00a0 I declined his offer of a ride back to the hotel.\u00a0 I got on the phone, and called Art.\u00a0 I let him know the situation I was in, and asked him to come get me.\u00a0 He asked me, \u201cDo you think they might kill you?\u201d\u00a0 I answered, \u201cYes, that\u2019s a possibility.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 He sent a taxi to pick me up.\u00a0 We got on the next plane out of there, and never went back.<\/div>\n
\n

RWM: Did you play in Korea?<\/p>\n

Darryl: On the way to Sri Lanka we were in Korea.\u00a0 Somehow we ended up playing blackjack at the Disabled American Veterans Club.\u00a0 There were no disabled people, no Americans, and no veterans.\u00a0 As I understand it, this place was a front for a Yakuza-run casino, and meeting place.\u00a0 Art and I went in there and lost, and lost, and lost.\u00a0 It was a $300 limit, and we got stuck $20,000.\u00a0 We had a video camera with us.\u00a0 It\u2019s the only time I\u2019ve ever had video inside a casino, and Art and I were the only players.\u00a0 I was on one table, and he was on another.\u00a0 We lost all this money, and then went to Sri Lanka.\u00a0 After Sri Lanka we came back to Korea to win our money back.\u00a0 One day we just could not lose a hand.\u00a0 We started cashing out a few thousand at a time.\u00a0 That worked for a while, but then all of a sudden they didn\u2019t have any more money.\u00a0 They owed us $14,000.\u00a0 Art and I left being owed this money.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
RWM: Did you take the chips, or a check?\u00a0 Or was it, \u201cWe\u2019ll pay you the next time we see you.\u201d<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 It was exactly that\u2014we\u2019ll pay you next time.\u00a0 What were we going to do?\u00a0 We insisted on the money; they insisted they didn\u2019t have it.\u00a0 Art and I had a reverse auction to decide who would stay and collect the money from the Yakuza.\u00a0 It started off with Art saying he would stay for $1,000 per day plus expenses.\u00a0 This would be paid by our bankroll.\u00a0 I said I would stay for $500 per day plus expenses.\u00a0 I think it was bid down to me staying for $300 a day plus expenses.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: It sounds like this was more about the inconvenience of staying in Korea for three days, than fear of the Yakuza.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 That is a really good point, and absolutely true.\u00a0 I went back on Monday, and they gave some story about their bank, and said I should come back on Wednesday.\u00a0 I went back on Wednesday, and this time it was, \u201cCall us tomorrow.\u201d\u00a0 I called on Thursday, and they still didn\u2019t have it.\u00a0 I made a couple of trips down there.\u00a0 One of them ended with the casino manager grabbing me, and ripping the buttons off my shirt.\u00a0 I was just trying to be a bully as best I knew how, which is not very well.\u00a0 My job was to collect the money they owed us.\u00a0 Fair is square, right?<\/div>\n
I came back the next day, and was asking for their superiors.\u00a0 They wanted to deal with me in the front room, and have me go away.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t going to let that happen.\u00a0 I started opening doors.\u00a0 I ended up bursting into some Yakuza meeting.\u00a0 There were all these Japanese guys sitting around a conference table, and I started talking in English about how I wanted my money.\u00a0\u00a0 I did leave there alive that day.<\/div>\n
A couple of days passed, and they called me and said, \u201cWe\u2019ve got your money.\u00a0 Come on down.\u201d\u00a0 Right, like I\u2019m going to go down there, and they\u2019re just going to give me the money.\u00a0 Before I went I called another blackjack player named Jake.\u00a0 He was the only guy I knew in Seoul at the time.\u00a0 I told him what was going on, and that I was a little worried.\u00a0 I said, \u201cIf you don\u2019t hear from me in an hour, do whatever you can.\u00a0 Call the embassy, or the police, or whatever.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I went out and got in a taxi.\u00a0 I got into one of those remarkable Seoul traffic jams.\u00a0 They have billions of these tiny little cars.\u00a0 They have wide streets with no lanes, and everyone is trying to go their own way.\u00a0 Everybody uses their horns.\u00a0 We\u2019re sitting for 10, 15, 20 minutes in this sea of cars.\u00a0 It occurred to me that I wouldn\u2019t be able to call Jake within the hour.\u00a0 In the distance I saw this chain-link fence with barbed wire on the top.\u00a0 It was an American Army base.\u00a0 I told the driver, \u201cI\u2019ll be right back.\u201d\u00a0 I got out of the cab, and maneuvered through all the other stopped cars, and I found a little hole in the chain-link fence where the guard was standing.\u00a0 I said, \u201cI\u2019m an American citizen, and this is an emergency.\u00a0 I need to make a phone call.\u201d\u00a0 He said, \u201cRight this way, sir.\u201d\u00a0 I remember that was one of the first times in my life where\u2014I had always been the young person dealing with adults, but here was this 19-year-old soldier treating me like the American businessman.\u00a0 I got to the phone and called Jake.\u00a0 I said, \u201cGive me another hour.\u201d\u00a0 He said, \u201cOkay, I was starting to wonder.\u201d\u00a0 The end of the story was, I got there and they gave me all the money.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: One of the people I interviewed said, \u201cHow did we ever play blackjack before there were cell phones?\u201d<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 How did we live before cell phones?\u00a0 A lot of people got lost going from one play to another.\u00a0 There are some interesting stories about that.\u00a0 There was a guy who didn\u2019t know about the Sahara in Vegas, but did know about the Sahara in Lake Tahoe.\u00a0 He got the signal to go to the backup club, which was the Sahara, and he went to the airport and hopped a plane for Tahoe.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: You\u2019ve told me now about being chased by the Russian mob, sitting in St. Martin with the Sicilian Mafia, and collecting money from the Japanese Yakuza.\u00a0 At some point did you ever stop and say, \u201cThis is dangerous, and I don\u2019t want to do this anymore.\u201d\u00a0 Are you still ready to hop a plane, and play in Iraq?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl: I was ready to hop a plane to play in Iraq until \u2026 I started playing music full-time in 1996.\u00a0 Sometime in maybe 1999 I got a call from Art who wanted me to go to what I considered the most dangerous place I could play blackjack.\u00a0 He offered me quite a lot of money, and I said no.\u00a0 I thought it was too dangerous.<\/div>\n
For me the game was to accomplish something, and to get really good at something.\u00a0 I\u2019d already done it.\u00a0 I got to the top of the blackjack world.\u00a0 It just wasn\u2019t interesting to me anymore.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t about the money.\u00a0 It was about picking an endeavor, and trying to be the best.\u00a0 Even though at that time I was driving hundreds of miles to play guitar and sing, sometimes just for tips.\u00a0 That was more interesting to me than going to a dangerous place, and being paid a lot of money to gamble.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM:\u00a0 That was definitely true of many of the people in Gambling Wizards<\/i>.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t about the money.<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You mentioned that you were Griffinized in your first weeks of playing.\u00a0 Have they been a problem for you?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 A few years ago I had a connection who had access to Griffin fliers.\u00a0 Sure enough, there were fliers that said I was playing in Reno, and St. Louis, and none of it was true.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: Let\u2019s talk about your music.\u00a0 You\u2019ve won some song-writing competitions?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl: I\u2019d always wanted to play music, but it just seemed too much of a risk.\u00a0 I mean, what were the chances that I would be able to make a living as a recording artist?\u00a0 To be able to go around the country playing songs I\u2019d written for people at concerts?\u00a0 Then, about seven years ago I was on a losing bankroll.\u00a0 One of the guys who lost money asked me to do a favor for him.\u00a0 He wanted me to buy a large cashier\u2019s check using a fake ID.\u00a0 I got into some trouble, and that is what pushed me into doing music full-time.\u00a0 For one thing, my probation officer wouldn\u2019t allow me to travel to gamble.\u00a0 So, I decided I was a national touring singer\/songwriter.\u00a0 Some of those earlier music tours were booked with blackjack in mind.\u00a0 I would want to go to New Mexico to play blackjack, so I booked a tour and told my probation officer I was going to play a concert. That was true, but I was also going to play blackjack.<\/div>\n
When I first started thinking about how to get started with a music career, taking these songs I had written around the country, I thought I would enter my songs in some of the song-writing contests associated with the major folk festivals.\u00a0 For the couple of years I did that I won first place in every contest I was accepted in.\u00a0 It gave me a sense that maybe I did have something worthwhile to offer, something that was going to connect with people.\u00a0 It gave me a little notoriety in the acoustic music world.<\/div>\n
Now my life is concerts.\u00a0 I do 150 concerts a year all over the country.\u00a0 I\u2019m enjoying it a lot.\u00a0 The music has gotten better every year, and I\u2019m making a living at it.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
RWM: Wow.\u00a0 You\u2019re traveling all over the United States to do these concerts.\u00a0 You can scout casinos everywhere.\u00a0 Where are the secret games?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Darryl:\u00a0 [laughing] I\u2019m not saying.<\/div>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This interview originally appeared in Blackjack Forum in 2003. The Performer \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Darryl Purpose is a battle-scarred veteran of the Blackjack Wars.\u00a0 He moved to Las Vegas at 19, and learned just enough about counting cards to lose all his money.\u00a0 He says, \u201cI was the kind of counter that made Las Vegas.\u201d\u00a0 He went […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[381,374,373,376,383,54,396,384,56,380,389,372,382,386,85,369,385,392,395,98,371,379,112,116,394,388,387,257,391,349,168,377,378,390,263,397,370,368],"yoast_head":"\nDarryl Purpose interview - Gambling With An Edge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/darryl-purpose-interview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Darryl Purpose interview - Gambling With An Edge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This interview originally appeared in Blackjack Forum in 2003. The Performer \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Darryl Purpose is a battle-scarred veteran of the Blackjack Wars.\u00a0 He moved to Las Vegas at 19, and learned just enough about counting cards to lose all his money.\u00a0 He says, \u201cI was the kind of counter that made Las Vegas.\u201d\u00a0 He went […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/darryl-purpose-interview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Gambling With An Edge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/lasvegasadvisor\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-12-20T20:35:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-06-30T17:49:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@lvaadmin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@lva_tweet\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"92 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/\",\"name\":\"Gambling With An Edge\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/darryl-purpose-interview\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/darryl-purpose-interview\/\",\"name\":\"Darryl Purpose interview - 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