2011年世界上最伟大的21点玩家

　　通常情况下，我不是一个喜欢自我吹嘘的人。然而，对于今天的这一博客标题来说，这一说法就没有任何的作用了。所以我要抛开所有的矜持，然后我很自豪地宣布，我是世界上最伟大的21点玩家，因为我是2011年的21点游戏锦标赛的冠军。

　　也许你从未听说过的21点球，它是世界上最好的21点，并为那些年度盛会提供游戏的研究并作出了贡献。多年来，它被托管在拉斯维加斯赌博的最大鲁宾的一个秘密地点。该标签是在圣地亚哥的Barona赌场，我认为这是非常冒险的，其中支付。它是一个著名的事情，只是为了获得邀请。有关详细信息，我强烈推荐的文章由迈克尔Konik，出现在“雪茄爱好者”杂志1999年9月/ 10问题的BlackJack球。

　　从傍晚开始，酒会，晚宴，然后再进入名人堂的21点大厅应征投票。获胜者是一个鲜为人知的但最佳的21点玩家，泽利科Ranogajec。接下来是2011年世界上最盛大的21点玩格罗斯让杯比赛。它与加尔各答同时开始，其中每个人都可以赌谁会赢。但是，我没有赌上自己，这很可惜。

　　与往常一样，第一场就缩小了约100名优秀的21点玩家，只有六个房间。这是有21个问题的测试，有与21点和赌场相关的知识。一些问题很难，一些则很琐碎的。我不好意思地说，我错过了一个很好的问题，是“克拉克县3-2单层的赌场是否拥有21点游戏？”我会在底部做答案。另外一个，我没有得到正确的回答：Chumash赌场是在什么样的城市呢？在圣巴巴拉住了五年，这一个容易，圣伊内斯，这是一个小镇，从圣巴巴拉出发，接近迈克尔杰克逊的Neverland牧场内陆。

　　我在测试中的得分为11。我不认为这是一个足以获取资格的很好的得分，但我与其他六个人得分最高的相关。一位被淘汰。接着就是轮流命名在全国任何哈拉斯（我仍然出现问题，我称他们为凯撒娱乐）的财产。只要有人给了一个错误的答案，或重复，他或她就被淘汰。我们经历了第一次在拉斯维加斯的所有回合。经过约两个或三个多轮有人给出了一个错误的答案，我则通过了。

　　然后，表中有五个点，仅6人先进。用飞镖游戏来淘汰一个人。只是那天早上，我被儿子要求去拍摄一个BB枪，所以我准备得比较匆忙。我自豪地说，我不仅没有输，而且赢了。结果我在表的第一个基地的位置坐下，这个位置比较有优势，虽然我不知道如何运用这种优势。

　　接下来是各种游戏的21点技能。一些是比较难的和一些是比较有趣的。这里的措施包括：芯片洗牌，切卡位置估计，一个21点开关类型，一个用于选择队友的信号的东西，一卡柜台，可能需要用手势来传达的字谜游戏类型的游戏。我的指令是“这场比赛很烂，让我们离开。”玩家在游戏中按照各点数，芯片最少的被淘汰掉，幸存者则可选择主打芯片类型。我在这里做得很好，运用芯片洗牌和切卡估计。谁曾想过芯片洗牌将成为我的任何目的？

　　（我知道，为时已晚）要尽量长话短说，最后只剩下我们三个人：安东尼柯蒂斯，还有一个我不知道的家伙，和我。安东尼提到他来自一个叫lasvegasadvisor.com的地方，所以我不认为他会介意我提到这一点。我是芯片的领导者，淘汰别人。我知道最终的竞争胜利取决于谁的甲板卡最快。我绝不是最快的，所以我对自己期望不高。不过，让谁带我还是有选择权的。我知道，安东尼柯蒂斯是一个非常活跃的玩家，所以我可能会选择他作为我的对手。正如我所说的，其他的家伙，我只是不知道。安东尼是我的书的出版商，是我多年来的好朋友。我选择他作为我的对手，因为友谊对我来说意味深重，如果我没有赢，我会希望看到安东尼赢得世界杯。

　　我们主要的主机最大鲁宾给我们每一个单层卡。他提请四张面朝下的牌的每个顶级。然后，他说，他甲板上的第一人，表一手牌，并正确地指出了他的甲板计数，将赢得其余四个卡。在20年左右的实践甲板中，我没练过倒计数，所以我不是感觉非常有信心。然而，早在80年代UCSB的，我作为一个商业的21点玩家自学计数。一会，我数了数，至少一天一个小时的甲板，直到我得出我的速度，关于这一点我的手不能翻快得多卡。幸运的是，本次比赛与我25年前相似，似乎就像发生在昨天。

　　讲明规则后，我们拿起我们的甲板上，等待“出牌。”最大的字后我做了我最好的两个卡翻身一次，同时保持在我的头上运行计数，正如我很多年前在大学的一样。但是，我从来没有这样紧张过。幸运的是，我的甲板上从来没有去得很远，只是在“中间”。当计数极端的波动，我觉得有点困难，幸运的是，情况并非像我想的那样。

　　似乎必须有什么想从观众那里表现出来，我放下了卡，表耳光，并说：“零！”这意味着，我的甲板平衡很高，低卡的条款，这意味着剩余的四个卡将被淘汰。最大上缴他们三个，两个小卡和一个大。打开卡之前，他说：“如果这是一个十或ACE，夏克就胜了。”

　　这是十！我认为是女王的钻石。我简直不敢相信！最大的奖杯递给我，我自豪地接受了来自观众的掌声。这是真正要记住的一个晚上。我完全承认，在房间里有大量比我有更好的技能赚钱的其他人。然而，当你在一般的21点和赌博知识结构，我觉得我没有懒散。我也完全承认很多有运气相助，而且当晚我得到公平的份额比较多。

　　对这个我在拉斯维加斯的博客向导后写上，我的父亲写道，“现在，你已经正式成为世界上最伟大的21点玩家，你会玩到哪种程度才结束呢？”也许我使用自己的真实姓名公开宣告自己是第一个优胜者这种做法是非常愚蠢的。不过，我已经翱翔，有再多的伤害，又能如何？对于这一场盛大的比赛，我付出了很多。

　　译文

　　Normally I'm not one who enjoys tooting my own horn. However, in this blog entry it just can't be helped, so I'm going to throw all modesty aside and blast that trumpet. I'm proud to announce that I am the winner of the World's Greatest Blackjack Player tournament at the 2011 Blackjack Ball.

　　For those of you who have never heard of the Blackjack Ball, it is an annual gathering of the world's best blackjack players and those who have contributed to the study of the game. For years it has been hosted by gambling writer Max Rubin at a secret location in Las Vegas. The tab is paid for by the Barona casino in San Diego, which I think is very sporting of them. It is a prestigious thing just to get invited. For more information, I highly recommend the article The Blackjack Ball by Michael Konik, which appeared in the Sep/Oct 1999 issue of Cigar Aficionado magazine.

　　The evening starts with a cocktail reception, dinner, and then voting on an inductee into the Blackjack Hall of Fame. The winner is a little-known, but one of the best blackjack players ever, Zeljko Ranogajec. Next came the tournament for the Grosjean Cup for the 2011 World's Greatest Blackjack Player. It starts with a Calcutta, in which everybody can bet on who will win. No, I didn't bet on myself, unfortunately.

　　As always, the first step is to narrow down a room of about 100 outstanding blackjack players to just six. This is done with a 21-question test on knowledge of blackjack and casinos. Some questions were serious, some trivial. A good question, that I'm embarrassed to say I missed was, "Which Clark County casino has the most 3-2 single-deck blackjack games?" I'll post the answer at the bottom. Another one, which I did get correct, was in what city is the Chumash casino? Having lived in Santa Barbara for five years made this one easy -- Santa Ynez, which is a small town inland from Santa Barbara, close to Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch.

　　My score on the test was 11. I didn't think that was a score good enough to qualify, but I tied with six other people with 11 as the highest score. One had to be eliminated. This was done by taking turns naming any Harrah's （I still have trouble calling them Caesars Entertainment） property in the country. As soon as somebody gave a wrong answer, or a repeat, he or she was eliminated. We went through all the Vegas properties first. After a about two or three more rounds somebody else got one wrong, and I advanced to the table.

　　However, the table had five spots only, and six people advanced. A game of darts was used to eliminate one person. Just that morning I had been shooting a BB gun with my son, so I was primed and ready! I'm proud to say that not only didn't I lose, but I won, giving me the first-base position at the table, and some positional advantage, although I'm not sure if it helped.

　　Next came various games of blackjack skill. Some serious and some fun. These included: chip shuffling, cut-card placement estimation, a Blackjack Switch type game, and a charades-type game of signaling a chosen teammate something a card counter might need to convey with hand signals. My instruction was "This game stinks, let's leave." At various points in the game players were eliminated either for having the fewest chips, or by Survivor style choice of the chip leader. I did well at the chip shuffling and cut-card estimation. Who would have ever thought shuffling chips would serve me any purpose?

　　To try to make a long story short （I know, too late）， it came down to three of us: Anthony Curtis, a guy I didn't know, and myself. Anthony mentioned his place at his own lasvegasadvisor.com, so I don't think he will mind that I mention this. I was chip leader and got to eliminate somebody. I knew the final competition would be who could count down a deck of cards fastest. I'm by no means the fastest counter, so my expectations were not high. However, the choice was whom to bring with me. I know that Anthony Curtis used to be a very active card counter, so I would probably be in trouble going against him. As I said, the other guy I just didn't know. Anthony is the publisher of my book and a good pal for years. I chose him as my opponent because friendship means a lot to me, and if I didn't win, I would have liked to see Anthony win the cup.

　　So our great host Max Rubin gave each of us a single deck of cards. He drew four cards face down off the top of each. Then he said the first person to count his deck, slap the table, and correctly indicate the count of his deck, as evidenced by the four remaining cards, would win. I have not practiced counting down a practice deck in about 20 years, so I was not feeling very confident. However, back at UCSB in the eighties, I taught myself counting out of Revere's Playing Blackjack as a Business. Between classes I counted down a deck for at least an hour a day until I got my speed to about the point where my hands just could not turn cards over much faster. Fortunately, this training stuck with me somewhat 25 years later （seems like yesterday）。

　　After explaining the rules, Max had us pick up our decks and wait for the "go." After Max gave the word I did my best to turn over cards two at a time while keeping a running count in my head, just as I did in college many years ago. However, never have I been so nervous doing it. Fortunately, my deck never went very far from neutral. I think it is a bit harder when the count has extreme swings, which fortunately was not the case.

　　After what must have seemed like a very slow performance from the audience, I put down the cards, slapped the table, and said "zero!" That means that my deck had balanced in terms of high and low cards, meaning the four remaining cards would too. Max turned over three of them, two small cards and one large. Before turning over the last card he said, "If this is a ten or ace, Shack wins."

　　It was a ten! I think the queen of diamonds. I couldn't believe it! Max handed me the trophy and I proudly accepted the applause from the audience. This was truly a night to remember. I fully admit there were plenty of other people in the room with greater money-making skill at blackjack than myself. However, when you mix in general blackjack and gambling knowledge, I think I'm no slouch. I also fully admit there was a lot of luck too, and I got more than my fair share of it that evening.

　　After I wrote about this in my Wizard of Vegas blog, my father wrote, "Now that you are officially the world's greatest blackjack player, will you be banned from playing everywhere?" Maybe I'm the first winner foolish enough to openly broadcast it, using his real name. However, I fly so high above the radar already, what more harm can it do? Thanks Max for hosting the tournament and to the Barona for paying for it.