21: The Man behind the Movie

by Damian M. Moorman, Dayton2Vegas.com

"21" is the number one movie at the box office this month, bringing in over 70 million dollars in ticket sales in three weeks alone. The movie is about six college students, known as the MIT Blackjack team, who won millions of dollars at Las Vegas casinos after learning how to count cards. "21" is inspired by the New York Times Best Seller Bringing Down the House.

Last week, I was fortunate enough to talk to Andy Bloch, one of the main "players" portrayed in the movie. I interviewed Andy about his early career as a part of the MIT Blackjack team, his views on "21", and his amazing success at the poker table.

In 1994, one of the founders of the MIT Blackjack team recruited Andy while he was attending MIT. Andy took on almost every role during his six years on the team. He started out as a "spotter" and became a "big player" within a few months. The "big player" is the role glorified in "21" as the person who risks the most money at the tables. His most important responsibilities came while he was a manager for the team.

"My responsibilities included keeping records, making sure reports and transfers were done properly, calculating the splits of winnings, training, recruiting, getting the team to come to a consensus, or making decisions when they didn't," said Bloch.

Andy went to the Las Vegas premiere of "21" after being comped a ticket by the real "Mickey Rosa", the character played by Kevin Spacey. He came away with mixed emotions. While he was thrilled to see his extraordinary story come to life on screen, he also wanted to play a bigger role in the production of the film. Andy tried previously to get his own version of the story to the big screen, but his attempt fell short.

"I wrote a script a few years ago, but we didn't feel it was finished. Perhaps if I would have pushed it more, we could have gotten it filmed before '21', but I didn't know if there was anyone in Hollywood that would be willing to go against the movie rights to Bringing Down the House," Bloch commented.

The film has created some controversy much like the book it's based upon. The author of Bringing Down the House, Ben Mezrich, presents the book as nonfiction, although it contains many significant fictional elements. This may be one of the reasons why MIT refused to allow "21" to be shot on their campus. Bloch also noticed that a few of the casino scenes were very similar to situations depicted in his own DVD, "Beating Blackjack", which came out two years ago.

After leaving the team, Andy went on to play poker professionally. Nicknamed "The Rock" because of his solid playing style, Andy uses his mathematical abilities to the fullest when calculating percentages at the poker table. His success may have something to do with his strong educational background. Andy earned two electrical engineering degrees from MIT and a JD from Harvard Law School.

"It helps, but conventional wisdom isn't enough," responded Bloch.

Bloch realizes that winning against top players requires more than just the analytical skills he obtained in school. Whatever the key ingredient to winning might be, Andy has an abundance of it, as he has gone on to win over 3.2 million dollars in poker tournaments since his MIT Blackjack days.