The Real MIT Blackjack Mastermind
Lots of folks are excited about the movie 21, a semi-fictionalized account of the exploits of the MIT blackjack team in the 1990s. That’s clear not just from the film’s box-office-leading performance last weekend, but from the fact that so many people are coming out of the woodwork and identifying themselves as members of the team.
In fact, there’s a bit of a controversy brewing in the comments section of Bob’s piece last week about team member John Chang, one of the models for the Micky Rosa character in Ben Mezrich’s 2002 book Bringing Down the House, upon which the movie is based. Bill Kaplan, who co-founded, trained, and financed the blackjack team, commented that, “While I know John likes to say he’s Mickey Rosa…the fact is he’s a dead ringer for the character Choi.” (Note: the book spelled Rosa’s first name “Micky” but everyone routinely adds an “e.”) And later Kaplan e-mailed Bob the following note:
“The Mickey Rosa character as developed in the book and the movie is fictitious. But as he represents the founder and leader of the team who made everything happen (e.g. supplied/raised the capital; determined the original playing strategy; structured the compensation terms and incentives for investors, players, and management; put the business processes, training rules, checkout procedures, player tracking and supervision, etc. in place; gone out as a player on top), that would be me.”