Jeff Haney on blackjack card counters’ cat-and-mouse game with the casinos

Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2006 | 7:36 a.m.

The most revealing scene in the documentary "The Hot Shoe" illustrates the vast philosophical divide between card counters and those in the casino industry trying to stop them.

An executive with a company that uses computer technology to identify counters maintains that skilled players should not be allowed to win money at blackjack.

Why? Well, because the casinos have bills to pay: utilities, payroll, taxes.

To the interviewer, of course, the executive might as well be a visitor from another solar system with that kind of attitude. It's fascinating to watch him struggle and stammer to come up with a logical reply to someone he considers such an oddball.

It's just one compelling moment in "The Hot Shoe," which chronicles the history, science and sometimes hard reality of blackjack card counting.

Researched and produced on a much higher level than those cable TV shows that might touch on card counting, "The Hot Shoe," available on DVD, includes extensive interviews with blackjack authorities such as Ian Anderson, Tommy Hyland, Stanford Wong and Bill Zender.

Much of the documentary focuses on various aspects of the cat-and-mouse game between casinos and counters that has developed since professor Ed Thorp, who's also interviewed, popularized card counting in the 1960s by writing his book "Beat the Dealer."

Other segments feature demonstrations of miniature blackjack computers designed to be concealed - once sold openly but now very illegal in Nevada - and hidden camera footage of high-stakes card counting teams plying their trade in Strip casinos.

The team members also detail the measures they take to avoid being spotted while beating the house at its own game. As they see it, they're not only making money but also fighting the good fight.

As the usually reclusive Arnold Snyder, blackjack's self-styled "Bishop," puts it in the documentary: "There is something very un-American about presenting to the public a game of skill and saying, 'Come in and try to beat us,' and then watching for anyone who looks like they can play skillfully and throwing them out and allowing anyone who does not know how to play, who cannot play skillfully, and who sometimes appear to be inebriated or compulsive, allowing those people to play."

Bad advice

Be wary of some of those ubiquitous free glossy gambling magazines you can pick up in Las Vegas poker rooms.

One (called "High Roller") currently has a feature on single-deck blackjack games that is misleading at best.

It recommends playing single-deck blackjack at casinos such as Treasure Island ("For single-deck blackjack players, Treasure Island is at the top of the list ") or the MGM Grand ("The MGM Grand has set itself apart in single-deck blackjack ").

It neglects to mention that the games in question pay 6-5 on naturals rather than the traditional odds of 3-2, making them utterly useless for any self-respecting blackjack player.

In fact, some gambling experts have argued - convincingly, if not yet successfully - that casinos should be prohibited by state law from even calling those 6-5 games "blackjack."

Then again, a short piece of fiction in the same magazine spells Jack Kerouac's name "Karowack" and implies the author of "On the Road" drove around the country with a dog (perhaps confusing him with Steinbeck and "Travels with Charley"). So what do you expect?

Boot camp

After hearing from many aspiring poker pros who told him they dreamed of traveling and competing on the entire World Poker Tour schedule, Steve Berman created a unique prize structure for a tournament linked to World Poker's Caribbean boot camp, scheduled for Dec. 4 to 8 at Nassau's Crystal Palace casino in the Bahamas.

The winner will be awarded entry into a season's worth of World Poker main events, or 15 tournaments. The prize is worth nearly $160,000, according to Berman, co-founder of World Poker Tour boot camp. Second prize is a $25,000 seat in the World Poker Tour Championship in April at the Bellagio.

Like other World Poker boot camps, the Caribbean event will feature several days of personal instruction from professional poker players along with the tournament. The cost is $3,995 and includes airfare from Florida, hotel accommodations and the tournament buy-in.