______________
by Semyon Dukach
Former MIT blackjack team player
Sometimes I try to imagine what my life would be like today if I hadn’t been introduced to the game of blackjack in 1992. It seems like such a long time ago. I was a just a kid, really. I was navigating the campus at MIT, trying to make a Ph.D. thesis out of the idea that the Internet could be used for buying things. Then I met the guys running the MIT blackjack team, and my life has never been the same. As a result, I grew from a young graduate student into “The Darling of Las Vegas,” a card-counting whiz kid featured in the book Busting Vegas, by Ben Mezrich.
Today, I am the chairman of a successful technology company, SMTP.com, and I’m actively involved in several other boardrooms around the globe. When I’m not looking for an edge in the corporate world, I’m staying busy with my wonderful wife and children. Suffice it to say, my life has very little down time.
On most days, blackjack is nothing more than a distant memory. That is to say, the glamour of stretch limousines, private jets, and high-roller suites are all images of the past. Two things I took away from blackjack, however, continue to impact my life today. The first is the business sense that I acquired as a manager of the MIT blackjack team. After all, that is exactly what it was, a business. People invested in our organization, we applied our business process—playing blackjack with an advantage—and everyone involved profited.
The other thing of value that I gained from blackjack was the number of great people I’ve met over the years. Some of my best relationships were established during my playing days in the 1990s and newer friendships continue to grow as a result of my blackjack-teaching endeavors since I retired from the game over a decade ago.
I remember the first time I met Nathaniel Tilton. His soft-spoken nature led me to believe that he was nothing more than a fan of my story, which drew many gambling buffs to my seminars, but few who aspired to achieve something with the game. Most who attended weren’t there to learn. They were there to catch an inside look at how my former teammates and I were able to take Vegas for millions. They wanted to hear the stories, not learn our techniques; they were under the impression that you had to be a math genius to beat the game. As a result, many of my seminars turned into question-and-answer sessions focused on the aforementioned glamour of the Vegas Strip or underground casinos in the shady section of Boston’s Chinatown.
Not long after the seminar detailed in this book, I decided to terminate the seminar program and focus full-time on my bourgeoning career outside of blackjack.
Several months later, I received an email from Nathaniel. He told me that he and another attendee had been making progress on learning how to count cards and they wanted to hone their skills. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that my seminar had inspired them to explore the game professionally and I stayed in touch.
I have always believed that players should look for new vulnerabilities in the game, develop strategies to exploit those vulnerabilities, and then share those ideas with other aspiring players. In The Blackjack Life, Nathaniel has done just that. He and D.A. were able to absorb the many different strategies that exist today and combine them in a highly efficient and effective way, while staying true to the mathematics of the game.
They proved that advantage players don’t have to be on large teams, like I was; and they don’t need to be stuck grinding through shoes by themselves, which can be difficult from a bankroll and advantage standpoint, but can also be a lonely life. In many ways, this story is much more relatable than previous ones that I’ve read. These were regular guys living regular lives, yet they figured out a way to master the art of card counting using small-team play. I’m a big believer that ordinary people can do extraordinary things.
Over the years, I’ve gotten to know Nathaniel quite well and I am glad to call him a friend. In many ways I see a lot of myself in him. He approached blackjack like a business and sought greater understanding of the game, himself, and life. Like me, he’s not one to be tied down to a 9-to-5. He has a passion to live his life on his own terms, and he does so with absolute enthusiasm. He even brought my website back to life, which includes the seminar program that he now teaches.
If you ever meet Nathaniel, you’ll know that he is genuine and kind, but when it comes to his blackjack game, he has a take-no-prisoners mentality and his skills are exceptional. He has always been committed to improving his game and he has never been afraid of getting his money on the table when the count was in his favor.
Meeting the blackjack team at MIT changed my world nearly two decades ago and I’m happy to have had an influence in changing Nathaniel’s world, as well. Not only is his story compelling, but I’m proud that he has taken blackjack to new places and is now passing those techniques along to you.