There’s a card-counting scene in the movie Rain Man in which a savant’s total recall is all that’s needed to break the house. That’s my other qualification: I’m expendable. Or, I might be tapped on the shoulder by an unfriendly “pit boss” and booted out of the casino. My position is called “Big Player,” or “B.P.” If all goes well, I’ll be sitting at a blackjack table for the next two days, reading the card counter’s hand signals, betting thousands of the team’s dollars. Nonetheless, I’ve been enlisted for my qualifications: I can take directions and I live near Biloxi. I’ve never played a card game in a casino in my life. I’m the fourth man on the team, here for the weekend only. His all-black attire is topped by a black hat, which looks very strange in the bright Biloxi summer sun. A room of pale vampires or drug dealers sleeping all day with the curtains drawn, and then going out all night? Not in his hotel.ĭarryl looks especially suspect, a massive, Brando-esque 36-year-old with a soft beard and a softer voice. Nobody with that kind of money stays in a dump like this. It later becomes clear that the manager grew suspicious when he looked into our room and saw stacks of bills and purple $500 chips. I think the manager’s listening to our phone calls.” He’s a thin, long-haired Lithuanian immigrant who is learning to play blackjack to supplement his career as a photographer.ĭarryl returns to the room and starts packing. Our third player, Edis, walks sleepily out of a back room.
John has prematurely gray hair and a four-month losing streak that surrounds him in a palpable cloud of defeat.
WIZARD OF ODDS PROFESSIONAL
The commotion wakes John, a professional player who, like Darryl, has been counting cards for 15 years. He arrived in Biloxi the night before, driving a rented car with a suitcase in the trunk, packed with $28,000 in cash, all in hundreds.
“Would you stop and tell me what you’re talking about?” Darryl pleads again.ĭarryl is captain of a three-man team of professional blackjack players who count cards for a living. He follows the manager, a thin, older man who, at the moment, is carrying an armful of clean sheets from room to room. “What are you talking about?” Darryl asks, acting innocent. We’re about to get thrown out of our room. His yells rise above an ugly beachfront hotel on the fringe of Biloxi, Miss., a few miles from the city’s casino strip. “I know what you’re doing!” the motel manager shouts.
0 kommentar(er)
