There is pretty tight security surrounding the event — both because there is a significant amount of money in the pockets of the attendees, but also because there are only so many seats. If extra people get admitted, somebody is going to have to stand up. Some guy named Phil Ivey and his date crashed the party. Seems this guy plays a little poker. These gate-crashers were allowed to stay and, in fact, found seats right up front.<\/p>\n
Guest speaker was Professor Edward O. Thorp, whose seminal Beat the Dealer<\/em> was the book that allowed the career of \u201cblackjack professional\u201d to exist and whose equally seminal Beat the Market<\/em> basically created the profession of Wall Street quants. Each gambling professional at the ball received an autographed copy of A Man for All Markets<\/em>, Thorp\u2019s newly released autobiography. Professor Thorp referred to himself as a pebble thrown into a lake, whose ripples became a tidal wave. A video of Dr. Thorp\u2019s speech was posted by Richard Munchkin on January 31 at gamblingwithanedge.com.<\/p>\n There was a musical duet by Megan Riordan, who happens to be Max Rubin\u2019s daughter and starred in the Dublin production of Once: The Musical<\/em> and Blackjack Hall of Fame member Darryl Purpose. I wasn\u2019t familiar with the haunting and lovely Academy Award winning song, \u201cFalling Slowly,\u201d but Bonnie and I had worn dance shoes \u201cin case\u201d such a moment occurred. We had scoped out the best nearby dance floor (off to the side so it wouldn\u2019t interfere with the performance) and we danced our quiet two step while Megan and Darryl did their rendition. It added to our night without subtracting from anybody else\u2019s.<\/p>\n One feature of the Blackjack Ball each year is the induction of a new member into the Blackjack Hall of Fame. This year\u2019s winner, Don Johnson, arguably the most famous blackjack player in the world after his well-publicized $15 million win in Atlantic City, is both highly qualified and very popular. It could be argued that he stacked the ballot box, so to speak. Both this year and last, Johnson donated HUGE bottles of champagne to the ball for the winners. This year\u2019s winner of the blackjack ball competition, who I will keep secret for a few more paragraphs (but you have heard of him), says the bottle was the Nebuchadnezzar size, containing 15 liters of the bubbly.<\/p>\n The ball is primarily about like-minded folks who don\u2019t get to see each other that often, getting together and partying. They have a skills competition, preceded by an \u201cimpossible\u201d test to get the final table number of contestants down to five. I call it impossible, but there is significant correlation between who ends up at the final table every year. This year Anthony Curtis made it there for something like the seventh time out of the 21 balls and two guys who were on the MIT Blackjack team (John Chang and Andy Bloch) also made it back to the final table. I made it to the final five one year — kind of like a Slumdog Millionaire situation where I just happened to know the questions asked that year. This year it took 12 correct answers out of 21 and I only got nine correct. That might sound close, but there were probably 40 others in the competition with nine, 10, or 11 correct. I was definitely an also ran.<\/p>\n Although I have been known to submit questions to Max for the ball, and I was really proud of my question this year, Max decided not to run it. There was one video poker question submitted by somebody else. I\u2019m glad I got it correct because it would be embarrassing for me to miss the only video poker question. Let\u2019s see how you\u2019d do:<\/p>\n At the Casino Snoqualmie, you are playing Double Double Bonus and are dealt 9TJQA, all of the same suit. Choose your best play from these five choices:<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m pretty sure all of my readers know the right play in Nevada would be \u201cc.\u201d Going for the royal is much the better play when the game is dealt fairly. But if you know that Snoqualmie is in the State of Washington and games there are rigged by the state, you have a chance to come up with the correct answer of \u201ce.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n One of the rules of the quiz was that you had to take it in ink and if there were any double answers, blanks, or scratch-outs, you were automatically disqualified. I was grading the test sheet of someone whom I didn\u2019t know before the ball, a young man who calls himself Loco. He got 12 correct, which would put him at the final table, but there was a scratch-out. The scratch-out, however, was at least contributed to by Max misreading the question.<\/p>\n Max had a question regarding who said, \u201cSentence first — verdict afterwards.\u201d Was it Joseph Stalin, the Queen of Hearts, or Attorney General nominee Jeffrey Sessions in his confirmation hearing? Unfortunately, Max said Robert Sessions, not Jeffrey Sessions. Loco, who guessed it was Sessions (as did I — we were both wrong because the correct answer comes from Lewis Carroll\u2019s Alice in Wonderland<\/em>) wrote down \u201cRobert Sessions\u201d and then crossed out the \u201cRobert\u201d when Max corrected the question.<\/p>\n There was no debate that Loco missed that question — but should he be disqualified for Max\u2019s unintentional misreading? Other than briefly meeting Loco an hour previously, I didn\u2019t know him from Adam and had not bet on any player winning. Still, I thought that applying the \u201cno scratch out\u201d rule in this case wasn\u2019t fair and took it up front for Max and his assistants to make an official ruling. It was decided to not penalize Loco for this scratch out and he was in the final five, along with the three players I\u2019ve already named and a player named David Spence. I had seen David at an earlier ball but had never met him.<\/p>\n There were four questions at the final table, each question eliminating one player. The first player out doesn\u2019t get any of the prize pool, but the approximately $14,400 pool is shared among the other four, as $7,200, $3,600, $2,160, and $1,440. That prize pool was generated by everybody anteing $20 at the door and then bidding on who they thought was going to win. My apologies to Munchkin, who has \u201cowned\u201d me for a couple of balls and has yet to receive any return on his investment.<\/p>\n The first and last questions were both, \u201cHow fast can you count cards accurately?\u201d For the first test, each player was given a well-shuffled single deck and was asked what counting system he used. If he used the Hi-Lo system, the cards 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 are considered low; cards 7, 8, and 9 are considered neutral; and T, J, Q, K, A are considered high. Some players used this, some didn\u2019t, but whatever count you used had to be announced up front. Max then removed one card from each deck and set it face down on the felt in front of the deck.<\/p>\n Players were told to turn the deck over and start counting — slamming the deck down on the table when they were finished. When asked in order from slowest to fastest, the player needed to tell whether the card removed by Max was high, low, or neutral. First guy wrong was out. If everybody got it correct, the slowest guy was out. From fastest to slowest, the order of finish was John Chang, Anthony Curtis, David Spence, Andy Bloch, and Loco. All players correctly identified the missing card, so Loco was eliminated.<\/p>\n The second test was that you were given 10 seconds to estimate and write down the number of cards in a discard tray. Max put out 135 cards. Anthony estimated 136. David 131, and both Andy and John 124. They basically cut cards to see who stayed on, but with a twist for blackjack professionals. Max let them examine a well-shuffled single deck for about 15 seconds. Max then lightly riffled the cards once and let them use a cut card to cut to, hopefully, a high card. John cut to a deuce, effectively eliminating himself. Although Andy could have also cut a deuce, ending up in a tie which would require a re-cut, Andy cut to a ten and John was out.<\/p>\n The third test was to cut exactly 22 cards from the bottom of a single deck in less than ten seconds. Anthony missed by one, David by two, and Andy by three. So, Andy was eliminated and we were down to two players, David Spence and Anthony Curtis. Since I\u2019ve already told you that you\u2019ve heard of the winner, and David is not that well known to my readers, the actual winner won\u2019t be a big surprise. But there was some drama still to unfold.<\/p>\n The last test was similar to the first, except this time it was a double deck and also, it only mattered what the faster counter said. That is, if the faster guy answered correctly, he was the 2017 Grosjean Cup for the World\u2019s Best Blackjack Player winner. If he answered incorrectly, the slower guy was in.<\/p>\n I was standing at Max\u2019s right shoulder throughout the competition — taking notes for this column and an upcoming radio show. As David and Anthony raced through the double decks, it appeared to be very close. As they slammed down their cards at the end signifying they were through, for me it was actually too close to call. Instant replay would have been useful! Max wasn\u2019t sure either so he asked the crowd. The consensus was that David was first. Anthony didn\u2019t dispute this, so it became official that David was the faster one.<\/p>\n Unfortunately for David, he miscounted. He said it was a neutral card removed (7, 8, or 9) and it turned out to be low. So, Anthony Curtis was our winner! I told Anthony that it didn\u2019t affect whether he won or not, and he wasn\u2019t required to answer, but did he think the removed card was high, low, or neutral?<\/p>\n Anthony had the confidence to announce that the removed card was low. We turned it over. We\u2019ll tell you whether he was correct or not on the February 9, 2017 podcast of Gambling with an Edge<\/em>, which will be all about the Blackjack Ball. Richard and I will be joined by Max, Anthony, and newest Blackjack Hall of Fame member Don Johnson. Should be fun!<\/p>\n Recently, at some mysterious location in greater Las Vegas, almost 100 of the world\u2019s best blackjack players and other gaming professionals, along with dates for some of the guests, met for the Twenty-First Annual Blackjack Ball. I\u2019m always grateful that host Max Rubin allows one video poker pro to attend, and this year Bonnie was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"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":[686],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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