2008/04/23
Labels: card-counting, casino, blackjack, movies, gambling, casinos, movie
Went to see the movie "21". It's about a really bright M.I.T. student named Ben Campbell (real life name 'James Ma') who wants to get into Harvard Medical school, but can't afford it. Kevin Spacey plays an M.I.T. mathematics professor who notices that Ben is a really bright student, and invites him to an after school black jack card counting club. Eventually Ben agrees to join the team, and although at first he says he is only in the game long enough to earn the $300,000 he needs for Harvard, he gets hooked on the lifestyle. Later he loses his cool, makes an emotional play that loses $200,000 and he lands on Spacey's bad side.
The movie realistically describes what card counters must learn to play. This particular group plays by having spotters at several tables always making minimum bets and counting cards until the table goes hot.
Also in the movie is a couple of guys working in "Loss Prevention", one of whom owned a big casino that had been taken years ago for "seven figures" by Spacey, and caused the guy now doing loss prevention to lose his casino. He's waiting for the chance to meet up again with Spacey, who had never been seen again since that night. The loss prevention guy plays just as much of a villain as Spacey, and is lamenting with his partner how they are being replaced by the casinos going to "facial recognition" software.
I had thought that the movie would be based on the book "Million Dollar Blackjack" by Ken Uston. Ken Uston (January 12, 1935 - September 19, 1987) was a famous blackjack player, strategist, and author, credited with popularizing the concept of team play. In his book he talks about how he and a group of other M.I.T. students took the casinos for large sums of money. They even pioneered things like shoe based computers that would calculate the odds.
I think a movie based on the team's actual events could have been even more interesting.
I was having trouble figuring out what to title this blog post until just a couple of minutes ago.
For the longest time, all the political news has been Obama... Hillary... Hillary.... Obama... Hillary... Obamma... Obama.... Obama....
On and on. Seems to me like the democrats have an interesting strategy going to keep up this fight as long as possible so as to monopolize all the media attention. If it takes 45 minutes of the news hour to cover all the comments about their shennanigans, there is no time left to cover anything about John McCain.
So I decided to see if my theory was correct. I went to dinner at 7pm, and I spent an hour watching Anderson Cooper's 360 whatever on CNN. During that time, sure enough, I heard more "Obama this", and "Hillary that", than anyone should have to go through during their dinner hour.
McCain's name was mentioned just twice, and as quickly as possible. It was mentioned that a poll said if Hillary wins the nomination, then 25% of democrats will vote for McCain, and just 53% of democrats will vote for Hillary. The "senior political consultant" (they were all of at least that rank it seemed) was aghast, and moved on as quickly as possible from that bar chart.
More posts tonight:
- Comparison of Presidential Candidate Positions
- John McCain - On Immigration, Washington is Failing The American People
- How is McCain doing on his fundraising?
- Did you know that political candidates want to report to the government who you are working for if you send them money?
- CNN acts like John McCain is as forgotten as Ross Perot
- Blog - Close look at John McCain on the Housing Crisis
Labels: clinton, john, presidential, mccain, politics, privacy, hillary-clinton, presidential-race, traffic-ticket, hillary, race, employment
Both Hillary Clinton and John McCain have some interesting disclaimers on their campaign contribution websites.
I had a kick a while back at this commentary on the terms and conditions on Hillary Clinton's contribution website.
- ... By submitting your contribution, you agree that (you are an idiot, and) the first $2,300 of your contribution is designated for the primary, and any additional amount up to $2,300 is designated for the general election. (Please give us a chunk of money all in one go right now, even if Hillary doesn't make it to the general election.) ... individuals are strictly prohibited from reimbursing another person for making a contribution to Hillary Clinton for President. (Unless your name is Ed Jew, or any number of other people creating scandals by reimbursing previous contributions to Hillary.)_
For the privacy minded, McCain's website has an interesting statement on it, one I didn't notice on Hillary's site:
- Federal law requires us to report the name, address, occupation, and employer of any contributor who gives more than $200 in an election cycle.
I wonder about the privacy implications of that. I wonder why that disclaimer isn't on Hillary's website.... Is she just going to violate your privacy by not telling you what information she is passing along about you? Is McCain just more honest than Hillary? Does McCain care more about following the campaign finance laws than Hillary Clinton?
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More posts tonight:
- Comparison of Presidential Candidate Positions
- John McCain - On Immigration, Washington is Failing The American People
- How is McCain doing on his fundraising?
- Did you know that political candidates want to report to the government who you are working for if you send them money?
- CNN acts like John McCain is as forgotten as Ross Perot
- Blog - Close look at John McCain on the Housing Crisis
Just to double check, I visited http://www.johnmccain.com to make sure John McCain is still in the race.
Let's see.. His website has a cool video showing, "The American President that Americans Have Been Waiting For".... Hmmm, no nastiness.
What's he been doing? 6 news articles for today:
- 04.23 It's Time For Action Tour: Day Three
- 04.23 Remarks By John McCain On Day Three Of The It's Time For Action Tour
- 04.23 What They're Saying About The "It's Time For Action Tour" Day Two
- 04.23 McCain Makes Three Stops In Youngstown
- 04.23 McCain Makes Inroads In Rust Belt
- 04.23 Statement By John McCain On The 100th Anniversary Of The U.S. Army Reserve
Upcoming events calendar:
- 04/24/2008 - April 24 - It's Time For Action Tour, New Orleans - Ninth Ward, New Orleans, LA
- 04/25/2008 - Oklahoma City Finance Reception - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
- 04/27/2008 - Miami Finance Reception - Miami, Florida
- 04/29/2008 - Tampa Finance Luncheon - Tampa, Florida
- 04/30/2008 - Lehigh Valley Finance Luncheon - Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
John McCain isn't kicking back. Seems like a lot of newsworthy stuff.
But CNN sure doesn't have any time for any of it.
For the privacy minded, McCain's website has an interesting statement on it, one I didn't notice on Hillary's site:
- Federal law requires us to report the name, address, occupation, and employer of any contributor who gives more than $200 in an election cycle.
Doesn't that suck! It's one thing to report who I am as part of his campaign contribution accounting, but to also report my occupation, and employer? Where is the privacy? Do I have to sign the pledge under penalty of perjury? What are they going to do with that extra information?
Going to have to think about how much I want to contribute, whether my desire to see him succeed exceeds my desire for privacy of information....
Here's the California related news for John McCain:
- Boston Globe: McCain Counsels Cooperation in the World
- Washington Post: McCain Details His Foreign Policy
- San Diego Union-Tribune: McCain Makes Visit to County
- John McCain Addresses the Housing Crisis
- San Diego Union-Tribune: McCain Swings through San Diego County
- Media Advisory: John McCain Returns To California
If it wasn't so funny to see the media so focused on Obama/Clinton, it would have been nauseating.
But I wonder how much I will like McCain if I take a closer look at him.
Let's take a closer look at one of the entries: "John McCain Addresses the Housing Crisis"
More posts tonight:
- Comparison of Presidential Candidate Positions
- John McCain - On Immigration, Washington is Failing The American People
- How is McCain doing on his fundraising?
- Did you know that political candidates want to report to the government who you are working for if you send them money?
- CNN acts like John McCain is as forgotten as Ross Perot
- Blog - Close look at John McCain on the Housing Crisis
But I wonder how much I will like McCain if I take a closer look at him.
Let's take a closer look at one of the entries: "John McCain Addresses the Housing Crisis"
- John McCain Addresses the Orange County Hispanic Small Business Roundtable - March 25, 2008
- Thank you for joining me here today. I just returned from a trip overseas that included assessing the state of affairs in Iraq, the Middle East, and Europe. I will have more to say on those important issues in the days and weeks to come.
Did we hear about this in the news? According to Michael Savage, Obama told foreign press (French news) that one of the first things he wants to do after becoming president is to meet with the leaders of Muslim countries and ask them why they don't like this, and what can we do so they will like us better....
- While I was traveling overseas, our financial markets experienced another round of upheaval. This market turmoil leaves many Americans feeling both concerned and angry. People see the value of their homes fall at the same time that the price of gasoline and food is rising. Already tight household budgets are getting tighter. A lot of Americans read the headlines about credit crunches and liquidity crises and ask: "How did we get here?" In the end, the motivation and behaviors that caused the current crisis are not terribly complicated, even though the alphabet soup of financial instruments is complex. The past decade witnessed the largest increase in home ownership in the past 50 years. Home ownership is part of the American dream, and we want as many Americans as possible to be able to afford their own home. But in the process of a huge, and largely positive, upturn in home construction and ownership, a housing bubble was created.
OK, so far, a realistic assessment. Wonder if he was like many intelligent people in California prior to 2006 that were claiming "there is no housing bubble".
- A bubble occurs when prices are driven up too quickly, speculators move into markets, and these players begin to suspend the normal rules of risk and assume that prices can only move up - but never down. We've seen this kind of bubble before – in the late 1990s, we had the technology bubble, when money poured into technology stocks and people assumed that those stock values would rise indefinitely. Between 2001 and 2006, housing prices rose by nearly 15 percent every year. The normal market forces of people buying and selling their homes were overwhelmed by rampant speculation. Our system of market checks and balances did not correct this until the bubble burst.
OK, that's a good definition of bubble. Sadly, renters are paying the price for the speculation of their landlords.
John does a good job of defining the problem. But I found the rest of his message to be a lot weaker. More
It didn't seem to have much about dealing with securing the borders. At first I wondered if he is counting on me considering Hillary Barack Rodham Hussein Clinton Obama such an unpalatable choice, he doesn't need to deal with our borders.
Oh wait, found an article from March, let me take a close look at John McCain - On Immigration, Washington is Failing The American People
More posts tonight:
- Comparison of Presidential Candidate Positions
- John McCain - On Immigration, Washington is Failing The American People
- How is McCain doing on his fundraising?
- Did you know that political candidates want to report to the government who you are working for if you send them money?
- CNN acts like John McCain is as forgotten as Ross Perot
- Blog - Close look at John McCain on the Housing Crisis
