The Real 21 Kids

A revealing interview with Mike Aponte and Dave Irvine, two members of the famed MIT Blackjack Team
BY KATIE LINDSAY

THE BOOK WAS CALLED Bringing Down The House, and the movie adaptation, 21, was designed to fill the house.
With the heavily hyped film about the MIT Blackjack Team having hit theaters this spring, blackjack and card counting are hot topics once again, so we caught up with two of the real life team members whose stories have now reached both the printed page and the silver screen. Both Mike Aponte and Dave Irvine took casinos around the world for millions, and just prior to the theatrical release of 21, they took some time to reflect with ALL IN:

ALL IN: What are your thoughts about the movie, 21?
Dave Irvine: I think it’s great. I think it was an entertaining story as we lived it, it was an entertaining story as we read about it, and I think it will be an entertaining story as we watch it on the big screen.
Mike Aponte: To be honest, I guess I have kind of mixed feelings. Obviously it is very personal; since college, the only profession I have ever had was blackjack. At the same time, I realize that it is the Hollywood version and it’s not meant to be a documentary. I think in the end it’s a pretty cool thing, and not many people can say they have had their life made into a major motion picture.

First the book, now the movie; how did this come about?
MA: It all started pretty unexpectedly. [Author] Ben Mezrich talked to one member of the team for Bringing Down The House, and that’s what got the ball rolling. The book was unexpectedly a bestseller and extremely popular, so they acquired the movie rights.
DI: When we all found out that he had talked to Ben, at first we were like Whoa, what is he doing letting the cat out of the bag? Once we thought about it a little bit, we saw the opportunity to do the Blackjack Institute [Aponte and Irvine’s training program], and since we weren’t really allowed to play anymore anyway, it actually was a blessing in disguise.
What things really happened that weren’t featured in the book or in the movie?
DI: One of the most fun things was going to Mike Tyson’s return fight. That was pretty cool. I have been to all kinds of professional and amateur sporting events, but going to a Mike Tyson boxing match, it was so electric it was over the top. There must have been like 30 A-list stars there along with a bunch of other celebrities. It was a little surreal, the life we were living. When we first started doing it, I was a little bit giddy, but then you realize this is work and you treat it as a business.
MA: A lot of things weren’t featured, because Mezrich did talk to just one person who hadn’t played as long as some of the other members. Initially, I wasn’t too happy about the book because our profession was always very discreet. Not many people knew about it, so for it to become public like that, my initial reaction was that I wasn’t too happy about it. In the end, though, I feel the positives outweigh the negatives.

If you could change anything about your experiences with blackjack or with the blackjack team, what would you change?
MA: If I could change one thing, it probably would have been being a little more strict. I think eventually one of the things that led to our team splitting up was the fact that the newer players were not as dedicated as our original core group. Looking back, there were some early signs, and if I could go back, I would have just nipped that in the bud hard in the beginning to prevent that from happening.
DI: I agree. Some people that were doing it for a while understood that it was work and you had to put in the time. Some of the people that came on the team later got a little more enthralled in the lifestyle and a little more enthralled in the money instead of thinking that they have to put in the time to make this pay off. It wasn’t a comfortable situation, the money got to be too much, I guess, and I lost some friends over it.

Do you miss playing blackjack?
DI: I miss it a little bit. I miss the excitement of it, I miss going out to Las Vegas and making money.
MA: I do, but I think I missed it more right before the book came out. I went into semi-retirement in 2000, and I thought that was it as far as blackjack. Then the book came out and then I did the World Series of Blackjack and then Dave and I started the Blackjack Institute and we just got involved in all of these really cool projects. I actually put more hours into blackjack now; it’s kind of more like a real job, but in a different capacity.
Do you play poker?
MA: I haven’t taken up poker yet. A lot of people have told me I should, but I just haven’t had the time. In the future I hope to be able to put in the time and effort to at least become a decent poker player. There are definitely some similarities between blackjack and poker in terms of probability and the mindset you need to have to be successful.
DI: I have played poker, but I’m not a poker player. You won’t see me at the Mandalay Bay poker room very often, but I have played a very, very little bit. I think there are some cross skills between blackjack and poker, but poker is a game where there is another layer. Blackjack is all math and it’s all practice. Poker you have math and you have to put in the time to get good at it, but poker has that other layer of reading the player, not the cards, and you don’t have that in blackjack. Certainly, all the technical stuff that is important in poker, a blackjack player would have an advantage because they understand the numbers and they understand what is going on. That stuff came easy to me. But being able to read people would be my downfall.

Katie Lindsay is a Los Angeles based writer who contributes to numerous gaming magazines and Web sites.

Sidebar:
Virtual Virtuosos
On the same day 21 hit movie theaters, Aponte and Irvine’s latest creation hit the Web. Blackjack VT (“Virtual Training”) launched on March 28, providing an online version of their live blackjack seminars. The Internet-based training platform combines virtual presentations from Aponte and Irvine with game play drills that help users practice card counting and betting strategies.