Friday, May 16, 2008

Blackjack

I just watch the film "21" which is inspired by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Blackjack Team with their skill in card counting. It was really amazing knowing that MIT students are so ingenious..Indeed, it is the most prestigious university in the entire world.
The synopsis is (from: Wikipedia):
Ben Campbell is a young, highly intelligent, student at M.I.T. in Boston who strives to succeed. Wanting a scholarship to transfer to the Harvard School of Medicine with the desire to become a doctor, Ben learns that he cannot afford the $300,000 for the four to five years of school since he comes from a working-class background. But one evening, Ben is introduced by his unorthodox math professor Mickey Rosa into a small but secretive club of five students, Jill, Choi, Kianna, and Jimmy whom are being trained by Professor at the skill of card counting at blackjack. Intrigued by the desire to make money, Ben joins his new friends on secret weekend trips to Las Vegas where, using their skills of code talk and hand signals, they make hundreds of thousands of dollars in winning blackjack at casino after casino. Ben only wants to make enough money for the tuition to Harvard and then back out. But as fellow card counter, Jill Taylor, predicts, Ben becomes corrupted by greed and his arrogance at winning which lets his emotions get in the way, and it also puts Professor Rosa, as well as the group, on the radar of a brutal casino security enforcer, Cole Williams, who holds a personal grudge of some kind against Rosa which threatens to undo everything the students have learned and earned.

It was really inspiring me to learn more about Blackjack, although I find it is impossible to count cards in the real casino. Can it be considered a crime?? I don't think so.. This is the power of human brain that even a sophisticated biometrics software can't detect..lol
And still an interesting topic of this film is the Monty Hall problem, which is quite tricky but challenging!