James Grosjean

Posted on July 14, 2021 by James Grosjean — 6 Comments

Colin Jones (S1 E5): Dark Matter

As early as page 11 of The 21^st-Century Card Counter, Colin Jones mentions the monolithic truth of the universe: “the team’s performance was consistently lower than the math predicted.” Such has been the experience of every team in the history of AP, and every solo card counter, too.

When teams look at their spreadsheets and see the stark gap between AV (Actual Value) and EV (Expected Value), they have a puzzled look like this is some great mystery. The only mystery is why rookie teams ignore the answer that I’m about to explain for the nth time. [PRO TIP FTW: use “nth” the next time you play Hangman.]

Posted on July 8, 2021 by James Grosjean — 32 Comments

What is “Blackjack”?

Episode 5 of Colin Jones will air on its regular schedule next time, but this recent comment on the GWAE Facebook page deserves (maybe) an immediate reply:

Marketing the 6:5 variant as just straight blackjack is as preposterous as a casino marketing the house table game “Casino poker” “3card Poker” with a house edge dealt in the pit as just Poker. Beyond the question of proper “notice” of 6:5 odds in the case from this post, the concept of getting paid 3:2 on a natural 21 is so central to the game, hence the name Blackjack, that casinos should not be allowed to market the 6:5 variant as Blackjack. They should have to name it something else like the previous used Spanish 21 for another variant of the game. This would also resolve the concerns in the posted case.

Posted on July 2, 2021 by James Grosjean — 4 Comments

Colin Jones (S1 E4): In the Beginning …

In The 21^st-Century Card Counter, Colin Jones describes how he started out: [p. 6] “I convinced Grace to let me take a third of everything we had in the bank—$2000—to the casino. If I lost it, I’d be done.” Those two sentences sum up two of the biggest challenges facing a new counter or AP. Achieving social acceptance or support from family, friends, and square work colleagues, and starting with a minuscule bankroll make success incredibly difficult. What business would you dare to start with only $2000? Would you open a yogurt shop with that? Could you set up a B2B online marketplace with that? A high-end driving/limo service?

With only $2000, what would happen if you go to Vegas to become a card counter? You’d be better off getting yourself castrated, going down to Fremont Street, and collecting $10 from every tourist who wants to kick you in the crotch. But fools rush in where angels dare to tread, so CJ took the crazy path of trying to become a card counter.

Posted on June 26, 2021 by James Grosjean — 18 Comments

Colin Jones (S1 E3): What is “Real”?

When I read gambling books, I usually dog-ear pages of interest. With Colin Jones’s book, The 21^st-Century Card Counter, I had to change my approach. It made no sense to dog-ear every page, so I just started circling passages and writing notes in the margins. In lieu of a traditional book review evaluating the book, I decided to treat the book like a textbook, and go through its talking points in an N-part series. Here we go!

[p. 5] “This ‘card counting’ thing haunted me. Was it real?” That’s the question I’ve faced and debated publicly for two decades. CJ’s perspective at the time was a bit different from mine. He was wondering if you could really make money, or a living, doing it. I ask the logical follow-up: Even if you could, why would you want to? By the end of the book, the hero CJ answers his own question (yes, card-counting is “real”), but evolves to answer my follow-up (answer: “I wouldn’t”).

Posted on June 21, 2021 by James Grosjean — 5 Comments

Colin Jones (S1 E2): The Devil is Mr. Jones

For the amount of vitriol directed at Colin Jones online, you’d think the man eats babies. In reality, he’s guilty of a far greater sin—he wrote a card-counting book, The 21^st-Century Card Counter. That book is one pillar of a viral card-counting enterprise also supported by the documentary movie Holy Rollers, the website blackjackapprenticeship.com (BJA), and the in-person boot camps offered from time to time. Before I continue with the multi-part book review I began in my last post, let me address the mild controversy surrounding the book’s author, Mr. Jones (“Jones”? Really?).

As a disclaimer, let me say that other than reading CJ’s book, I have no connection whatsoever to the BJA empire. I’ve never attended a boot camp, and I know CJ only from meeting him a few times at Max Rubin’s annual Blackjack Ball. I won’t bother to start with the perfunctory, empty statement, “He’s a really nice guy,” because that definition of “nice” carries no weight with me. I’ve known friendly talkers who would buy you coffee or pick you up from the airport, but still abuse you and steal six or seven figures from you, so what does “nice” really mean, anyway? But since you asked about CJ, yeah, he’s a really nice guy.

Posted on June 14, 2021 by James Grosjean — 14 Comments

Colin Jones (S1 E1): You Had Me at “Zippered Pockets”

People online think that I have great disdain for card counters. That isn’t true, per se. I have disdain for posers, and it just so happens that almost everyone who brags on YouTube about counting cards, or who claims online to be a “blackjack expert,” is a poser. My respect for the late “MathProf” (Dr. Michael Canjar) went up greatly when I saw him wearing his cargo pants, anonymously blasting 2x$800 on the double-deck at the Atlantis in Reno. One of my teammates had an interesting encounter in the wild with the late Peter Griffin. When someone is out there, putting cold, hard cash on the felt, and consequently growing the chip inventory on the kitchen table, that’s instant credibility in my eyes.

As Tommy Hyland wrote in the Foreword to Colin Jones’s The 21^st-Century Card Counter, “the guy walks the walk.” I haven’t encountered Colin in the wild (yet), but I know Tommy is right on this one. It’s easy to talk the talk online, on Green Chip, or the Discord, and sound uber-smart, and knowledgeable about counting and all kinds of advanced plays, but the talk rings hollow if you try to get it past an actual practitioner. I can’t read 10 posts on any online forum without getting the urge to rant, but I resist that urge and refocus my chi.

Posted on March 28, 2021 by James Grosjean — 28 Comments

Coronavirus V: The Blackjack Call

The Blackjack Ball, an annual get-together of professional gamblers, was historically hosted by Max Rubin over New Year’s, when the big card-counting teams would create their own fireworks all over Vegas. It was great fun while it lasted. But New Year’s became a victim of its own success. Vegas is so crowded on holiday weekends that getting a room, a parking spot, or a seat at a blackjack table is almost impossible, and certainly more trouble than it’s worth. And, the big-team model went extinct. The Uston team is no more (though some of its original players are still out there). The Czech team isn’t even a distant memory. The MIT team lives on only in the movies. Do any of the Greeks even play anymore? Hyland’s old gang is mostly doing other stuff. The Holy Rollers are now a decentralized swarm of counting zombies.

With no more counting teams to accommodate, The Blackjack Ball these days is scheduled to avoid the chaos of New Year’s. But the pandemic brought a whole new type of chaos. While the casinos probably would have loved to see a hundred of the world’s top APs (who are mostly 50+ years old) wiped out by a single superspreader event, it was not in the cards for 2021.

Posted on January 3, 2021 by James Grosjean — 14 Comments

2020: Rise of the Machines

by James Grosjean

Count me among the Netflix drones who loved The Queen’s Gambit (2020), but I’ve always been a chess enthusiast. During my college years, I probably ate a thousand chocolate croissants while watching the quirky, magnificent Murray Turnbull (aka “The Chess Master”) take on all comers in the town square—“$2, refund if you win or draw.” It was my honor to capture a photo of the great Karpov framed by the stained glass of Memorial Hall when he did a 40-board simul on campus. I was part of the student press when Kasparov made his then-controversial statement that a computer would be grand champion before a woman would be.

Posted on July 3, 2020 by James Grosjean — 9 Comments

In the Wild

In this ongoing series I’m going to share anecdotes and observations from the casinos, usually for entertainment purposes only. I’m limited in what I can share in real time, so I might expand the column to guest contributors or non-casino material in the future. If you leave a comment, please reference the post number.

#2. [Posted 20200703]. Three years ago at a Midwest casino, I saw the worst-played hand ever. In Mississippi Stud, the guy had pocket JJ with a $10 bet on the Ante. On 3rd Street, he called $10. On 4th Street, he called $10. On 5th Street [go ahead and guess!] … he folded. I just shrugged my shoulders. You can’t save everyone.

Posted on June 20, 2020 by James Grosjean — 17 Comments

Coronavirus IV: Rats!

I am Charlie Brown to The Rat’s Lucy van Pelt. When The Rat guest-blogged that the re-opening of casinos could bring a uniquely juicy opportunity for APs, I was skeptical. I told Anthony Curtis, “So surveillance has a little more work, but that doesn’t turn a sweatshop into a candy store.” I made a verbose blog post saying the same thing, dismissing masked avengers as a fantasy, based on my decades battling casinos as a real-world AP on the front lines (I’m not expecting APs to be called “heroes” anytime soon). Despite the bombast, there was a tiny piece of me—maybe 1%—that thought: “Maybe I’m wrong this time [winking-with-tongue-out emoji here, ok?]. Could past experience be irrelevant in this bizarre, coronavirus world?”

Nah. (And yes, I adjectivized “coronavirus”—that just happened.) To be fair, the casino conditions are changing, and will affect APs in different ways. From my point of view, scouting has now confirmed that overall conditions are garbage compared to the pre-lockdown world, and I feel like a gullible fool for hoping I could kick the football (https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevin-wax/charlie-brown-lucy-and-the-football-50-years-of-funny/). While my previous blog post was speculative, I can now reiterate using actual observations, consolidated from scouts in diverse locales in the US.

Author: James Grosjean