Posted by Dr Fro 2:15 PM

To: Dr. Fro
cc: ARH
From: Vlad
Subject: 21

Watched the 21 movie tonight. I guess the Vegas scenes were cool, but overall I thought the movie bombed and didn't even portray the counting schemes even close to correctly. Tyra suggested that I was taking it too literally.....

Watched Semi-Pro the other night -- AWESOME!


To: Vlad
cc: ARH
From: Dr Fro
Subject: Re: 21


Very few people in gambling circles, very few people who read the book and very few people associated with the actual MIT students thought the movie came any where close to reality. A handful of criticisms:

- the protagonist in real life was Asian. So were almost all of the other counters. They were Anglicized for the movie.
- the card counting schemes are too simplified. You don't just get to a count and bump your bet. That is part of it. The harder part is that the strategy tables change as the count changes. You make different hit/stay/double decisions.
- the story about med school was manufactured for the movie.
- the story arc involving him losing his discipline and all that money was largely manufactured to Hollywood up the movie.
- the riddle told in the classroom (an all time favorite of mine) was not told correctly. The omission of a key fact (that the game show host knows which is the winning door and will never open this door) fundamentally changes the riddle, the answer to the riddle and the lesson to be learned from the riddle. Then they chalk it up to some highbrow sounding theory, when it is actually simple math.

DF

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