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| The following is part of a series of interviews of notable blackjack figures by Robert V. Lux, produced for the Swedish gaming website, Kasinocentralen. Each piece is of one-half of the total interview, with the complete interview reserved for Robert's future book. | ||
| [Ed. Robert was gracious enough to allow us to post the complete text of the following interview of AdvantagePlayer.com founder and RGE Publishing owner Viktor Nacht.] Q#1: For how long have you been playing blackjack? About a decade ago, I began playing blackjack heavily in the American Midwest, partly because there's just not anything else to do. To start, I was a basic strategy fanatic; memorizing card-dependent, rule-specific BS charts for every game. You never know when that single deck, LS, DAS, $10K table max game is going to pop up. I then took my first step towards real advantage play with, unfortunately, KO, then progressed to Red 7, Hi-Lo Lite and, finally, shuffle-tracking. All of this occurred in about 2 to 2.5 year intervals, which may be the maximum length of my attention span. Q#2: Why did start playing the game? Machismo...money...prestige. I was a status-seeking poseur. But hey, my $25 bets were the envy of every competing male in the casino! I also had a thing for the romance and excitement of classic casino culture, along with old-school pin-up art, retro design, American kitsch, etc. Then, after my first few plays at the tables, I discovered I also really enjoyed the social aspects as well — the manipulation of which I still find crucial to my longevity. But after the first couple years, when the initial thrill of having my ego massaged with VIP treatment — the casino's strongest weapon — had worn off, I instinctively felt like there was more depth to the game then I could see, so that's when I finally turned to the literature for education and inspiration. My first blackjack epiphany was with the KO book. Most boys have their first epiphany while they're sleeping, but I was a late bloomer. Q#3: At what stakes do you, usually, bet? It changes frequently, sometimes on a daily basis. A year ago I was betting multiple hundreds on multiple spots regularly, on and off I'm involved in plays that lay down more money than the GNP of small nations, while this morning I was playing quarters, as in $0.25, at a local casino, taking advantage of a high EV promotion. Because I play daily, I go with the best opportunity available to me at that time, which could be anything from BPing a $10K hole-card game to the $1.50 broiled chicken dinner special at the Klondike. Some of the millionaire bankrolls out there know what I'm talking about. Q#4: Do you spend much time practicing, reading and updating your blackjack skills? Between running RGE and taking advantage of various opportunities, I'm in the horrible position of being constantly forced to stay up-to-date. The website, catalog and books we publish keep me on top of new things, while I'm at a spot in my playing career where I just have to prepare for the situation at hand: Refreshing myself on 100+ index numbers for a shuffle-tracking play, recalling a specific BS for a coupon, or learning a new strategy for a video poker machine [AKA: ATM] that some silly casino just installed. Q#5: What do you consider your strongest area in blackjack? Longevity and perception management. I differ from most of the well-known blackjack personalities in that my formal education is in the performing arts, mainly acting, while programming, web development, and advantage play are self-taught intellectual pursuits. Making the pit comfortable with me, making them feel that I am not threat, or sometimes, getting them on my side, are my strongest weapons. To paraphrase a quote from a recent mentor, when the big cards are coming, shoot the pickle and don't get caught. I got the same advice from my junior high gym teacher, before he went to jail. Q#6: What do you consider the trickiest parts in the game (i.e. converting to true counts, index numbers, basic strategies for various games, etc.)? To this day, when it's time for the big bet (in relative terms) to come out, I still sometimes get an overwhelming pounding in my head that mirrors my rising heartbeat, which is the exact same feeling I get with stage fright. It used to be at this point that I forgot everything I've ever known, including my name, gender and home planet. Fortunately, through experience on the stage and at the tables, I've diminished this down to a mild cognitive hiccup. Q#7: What's your greatest and worst blackjack memory? My worst memory is a conglomeration of two horrible events: My first trip to Vegas, still as a BS player, I sat down at a DD game in the Las Vegas Club — card-composite, rule-specific strategy at the ready — and lost $500 in 5 minutes. Flash forward one year, KO Preferred system in hand (with the full matrix), enter the LVC, sit down at a DD game, and lose $500 in 5 minutes. To this day I hate everything about the LVC, including the employees and their pets. That's tied with my $500 DD Wong-in at the Bellagio that went horribly, horribly awry. But that's still too painful to talk about. My greatest memories are all within the last several years, and I really wouldn't feel comfortable sharing them, since I wouldn't be able to give you enough detail to make them interesting, while also masking my identity. Unfortunately I haven't been around long enough to have fabulous stories from the golden days. Let's just say they involve winning an obscene amount of money, and having an audience to boot. I like it when people watch. Q#8: Have you participated on any blackjack seminars? If so, what was your impression? Just the ones RGE offers, and they're great! Q#9: Have you met, or do you know, any blackjack authors in person? If so, which? And, what does it mean to you, to be able to discuss blackjack with experts on a high level? Nearest and dearest there's Arnold Snyder, Don Schlesinger, Rick Blaine, and my good friend Parker. There's also Anthony Curtis (my business exemplar), James Grosjean, Bob Loeb and Max Rubin, just to name, specifically, blackjack authors I've met in person. There's another score of authors, developers and professional players I deal with in person and virtually. Given some very hard feelings, it would be nice to rewrite history. But meeting, and subsequently working with, Arnold, was a life changing experience. I learned more about the game than I could imagine, and I found a gambling role-model that had a similar balance of creativity vs. intellect that I continue to aspire to. That might surprise a lot of people. And while Don's support and friendship was always steadfast when I first started reviving RGE21.com from virtual Valhalla, AdvantagePlayer.com and RGE continue to exist because Don believed in me when most people would have made errant, though understandable, assumptions otherwise. I've learned a lot from Don that has nothing to do with gambling, which means just as much if not more. Now in terms of discussing blackjack on a high level, I have to admit that when the conversation turns to the virtues of the floating edge, or the minuscule effect the cut-card has on one billion shoes of blackjack, my eyes roll into the back of my head and implode. Q#10: Do you spend much time, playing in the casinos? If no, why so? And, do you play any games besides blackjack? If so, which? I try to play every day, and in addition to blackjack I play video poker, coupons, comp whoring, casino promotions, a touch of three-card poker, and about anything else that comes along. There's no point to being too proud when you're an advantage player. AdvantagePlayer.com's next channel will be called "Advantage Dumpster Diving." Q#11: Bad treatment of skilled blackjack players, has been a problem for a long time. Harassments, insulting, personal interferers, etc., do regularly occur in the casino environment. Have you ever been a victim of such incident? If so, what was your impression on this? How did you react? Any general ideas on how to eliminate such behaviours? I haven't had any negative experiences, but I also haven't been backed-off since very early in my career. I do hear stories, publicly and privately, of rough treatment, and I believe they should always be aggressively pursued as civil rights cases. However, given the current political climate, we're much less likely to find sympathy in the courts. There are also other trends, nationally and locally, that are making life harder on the working advantage player. Even though most pros agree it's better that the casinos have the option to throw us out, the casinos are going to such extremes to improve the bottom line, they're hurting the general public. On the local level, there is growing problem with Griffin and Biometrica incorrectly identifying total strangers as teammates and advantage players, much to the ploppy's surprise and chagrin. Further, Griffin is getting more and more desperate to generate alerts when they start regularly reporting peanut players spreading from $25 up to $200. Often enough, these players aren't doing anything, or aren't even playing a winning game. There's also a trend of casinos tracking winning players (in any game), and then cutting them off as soon as they've exceeded an arbitrary, and statistically insignificant, threshold. I've heard of these referred to as "hot lists" and "win lists," which are shared amongst related properties and carried over from day to day. There's talk of connecting the lists between casinos as a service. The casinos just keep sending out the message: Las Vegas doesn't like winners. And as a resident and a player, it doesn't bode well for the future. Further, as I predicted in my BJF article [Online Security for Advantage Players, Parts I (Winter 2001/2002) and II (Spring 2002)], national changes in law and culture have made it much more difficult for an advantage player to operate anonymously. Casinos now demand photo id for more and more transactions, in the name of "security," and technology is moving in a direction where casinos know more than they have a right to about you and your play. And it's much more dangerous to try and work under an assumed name. There's going to come a time where LV locals are going to need to make stand for the integrity of our tourism and our rights as the people who give the mandate that allows casinos to operate. You can't kick us off the casino floor (Trespass Act), you can't keep making games that just take visitors' money faster and faster without publishing the odds, and you can't stop people from playing just because they're getting very lucky. Q#12: Which is your personal favourite blackjack game (including number of decks, penetration, rules and spread). Note; the game must exist at current writing. Does anyone really answer this? (Interviewer's note: I am not looking for the actual casino, just some general information on what rules and conditions you prefer.) Q#13: Who do you consider the greatest blackjack player or author, ever existed? Arnold Snyder. Q#14: You are, according to the serious society of blackjack players and authors, a know ledged and skilful player, and contributor on your homepage, www.rge21.com. Why don't you write books on specific areas in blackjack and share your understanding and techniques with the international blackjack society? Albeit the game is pretty much covered, the game is on a continuously development, constantly changing. It is constantly changing, and I'm waiting for the game and the gaming environment to reach a point where I can contribute something truly innovative based my combined understanding of the game and technology. I'm not sure what form that will take: It may be a book, a grassroots movement, software, or something completely different. For right now, I'm very proud of Trackjack. That's www.trackjack.com. Now available at an Internet near you. Q#15: Albeit you do not write books on blackjack, you run courses on shuffle tracking. Can you describe those courses to the curious? Costs? Length? Level? Shuffle tracking is so much an art that many players, especially mathematically-minded, experienced ones, are unable to make the leap of faith required to master the techniques associated with visualizing the location of the cards and playing them. We run a 16-hour course for $300-$400 (depending on the instructor) that interactively teaches the published techniques, with a few new tips and tricks thrown in. There tends to be a lot of sensitivity amongst pros about shuffle tracking, so we try to find the delicate balance of helping those that want to learn — our job — without giving away the farm. We orient them towards experienced counters, although I've heard it argued that the better shuffle tracker is one that learned tracking first, and counting second. Q#16: Many serious players claim that shuffle tracking is too hard to exploit and, more or less, useless, because of its complicity and restrictedness. Only a few games, where suitable shuffles are utilized, are beatable with shuffle tracking. How much of a gain, may be achieved, by adding proper shuffle tracking methods to one's arsenal? Is the above shuffle tracking myth incorrect? The more players that think that way, the better. I also hope they consult for the casinos. Your other questions are best left to the true experts. Q#17: You recently bought the rge21 concern by Mr. Arnold Snyder. For what reason did you acquire it? How has it influenced you as a person, and your blackjack career? I knew that question was coming. You're like the Barbara Walters of the blackjack world. I'm not sure I can give you a satisfying answer that respects Arnold's privacy. If you look at Arnold's activity on the blackjack sites two years ago through the present, you might surmise he had and has other priorities, and that his passion is for writing and BJF, and less so for other manners of business. And the more he's able to do what he loves, the better for all of us. I've hinted at, and will now state, that from what I was told during the negotiating process, RGE and this site would no longer exist if I hadn't taken over. What Arnold has planned is a mystery to me, but it will quite likely be very exciting. The one rumor I want to address is that this wasn't a hostile corporate raid. That would make me the Michael Milkin of the blackjack world. Q#18: I have heard that you plan to make some major changes on the site. What kind of changes? See Q#22. Q#19: As a foreigner, was it hard to adapt to the, primarily American dominated, blackjack society? Most of my adolescence and all of my adult life has been in the States, so I don't have a fair basis for comparison. Q#20: In America, blackjack is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most popular table game. In Europe, roulette still rules the market, although blackjack catches in. Why is America the only country with a well developed blackjack culture? Ditto. But I would hazard a guess that blackjack appeals to the American Wild West spirit. It's a one-on-one game, you against the dealer, and unique in that (even to the non-counter) you have other cards and events around you from which to base your decision. It's not a sit back and relax kind of game. It's much more dramatic, and you feel like you have much more control over your fate. Which, after all, is what gambling is all about: The short-term thrill ride of tempting fate and chance. Q#21: As a German, you've probably played blackjack in Europe as well. What's your opinion on these games? General rules, penetrations, spread, casino crew attitude toward counters, etc.? Ditto. Q#22: What are your plans regarding your future blackjack endeavours and the development of advantageplayer.com? AdvantagePlayer.com's mission is to create well-rounded advantage players, able to take advantage of any opportunity at hand: A good shuffle or deeply dealt blackjack game; A positive edge VP machine; Errant sports lines; Biased wheels; Poker games with lots of fish; Valuable coupons; Cheap food; the whole lot. Thanks to a tremendous team effort, the blackjack channel has achieved great success, but our VP channel is still struggling. I'll be working hard to make what we have more successful, and add new facets of advantage play to the site. In the coming months I'm going to create a completely new service based on Trackjack that will impress and thrill a lot of people, and likewise shock and anger just as many others. Finally, I'm also working on some software products (that run on PCs instead of the web) for blackjack and VP players that will also surprise a lot of people. But piss off far less. Q#23: The general blackjack conditions are constantly getting worse. As the players find new and better ways to beat the game, the situation is just getting worse. Present blackjack, cannot be compared to blackjack five years ago. Whatâs your motive power in keeping up with new strategies and techniques, as the game incessantly gets harder and harder to beat? For right now, I don't buy this argument. Just recently, an 85% DD game emerged from the smoldering ashes of blackjack history, and a new simple, hand-shuffled game was introduced. And there are plenty of dealers that just can't resist sharing the hole card. There is no shortage of opportunities. My concern is for the treatment of players, skilled and unskilled alike. (Interviewer's note: In my question, I meant that blackjack games in general deteriorate.) Q#24: Will or has blackjack reached some kind of climax? And, do you think that, one day, no profitable games will exist to the counter? One day it will, there's no doubt about it. And I have been guilty of declaring the near end of the world when I encourage people to learn shuffle tracking or to be careful of playing under assumed names. But the death of blackjack has been periodically predicted for decades now, so I won't stick out my neck and declare a time frame. But I will say that the ultimate death to blackjack will come through technology, and the race between casinos and advantage players to thwart one another with it. There's a web page now selling blackjack computers disguised as garage door openers. As-is, it has no practical application — other than ripping-off charity games — since a guy playing blackjack with his hands down his pants the whole time just isn't going to look right, no matter what you assume he's doing down there. But, even though the majority of blackjack players take pride in the ethical separation of the casino from their money, blackjack and other advantage play computers are just going to get smaller and harder to detect. And in response, the casinos are going to be forced to put technological counter-measures in place. Two upcoming technologies are the smart shoe and smart table (which may or may not be their real names). The smart shoe counts the cards as they are dealt. The smart table uses short-range RF technology to keep track of how much each player has in chips, which can or will also pick up what's in the players' pockets. Currently the risk isn't great enough to warrant investment in these technological wonders. But as advantage players turn more technological, the casinos will buy these technologies. And when we use radio jammers to hide the chips in our pockets or shuffle tracking only on negative counts to fool the smart shoe, they're going to create something to fight back. Eventually, all the tables in a casino will be networked together along with the card dealing machines, and the exact location of all the chips in the casino will be known, and the exact count, and odds, at every table will be known instantaneously. When we reach a point where you can't jump a bet without a computer somewhere knowing why, then blackjack will be dead. Whether people, on a societal level, choose to fight back and demand less technological influence on our day-to-day lives, which is increasingly transitioning from support to outright control, remains to be seen. But as a technocrat, I welcome the arrival our new robot lords and masters. Hail Zormax, V |