Smart or Smartass?

[houyi]

I enjoyed their documentary and was inspired by the faith part of it and wanting to take money from evil casinos, which most can all agree they are evil. As far as blackjack apprenticeship goes, they found a way to make money off teaching people how to play or more so learn how to start playing. If your still intrigued after heading a bad variance, you take it upon yourself to read and develop skills more. It's called capitalism you find a need and you provide a service. They wouldn't be charging that kind of money if the market wouldn't pay those prices. I'm sure their boot camps are used to scout players to teams.

One issue I have is networking, I'm finally starting to network a little on this site, but have yet to connect and network with people in my area, I hope one day a BP sees my playing and wants to involve me in a team or I come across a partner. The Church team did an excellent job at networking training and by finding investors 1.5 million is an awesome accomplishment by any standards. I don't think they had longevity in mind rather to hit it as hard and as fast as possible, that's why their team grew to so many players so they could cycle through the, with back offs. I wonder what their spread was does anybody know? Was it something crazy 1-20????

If I recall correctly, a full one-third of their entire bankroll was from one of the founder's father-in-law, who got a home equity loan and invested. If that's so, it's not all that impressive--a few years ago, fly-by-night micro-hedge funds with "investors" who primarily consisted of mommy and daddy were the thing. This is little different in that sense--really, it's not all that difficult for someone with middle-class friends and family to raise 1 million plus for something like this, but it requires either supreme confidence, or an absolutely callous disregard for the money of loved ones. As satisfied and confident as I am with my play, I've never once taken money from a friend or family member to use for blackjack, and several have actually requested I do so. I just don't feel comfortable mixing friends and business--I'm pretty much assisting in the selling of things of various, sometimes dubious, value at work everyday, but the people on the other side of the table, no matter how courteous and friendly we become, know that ours is a business relationship first.

As far as their training program being capitalism, sure it is, and if you approve of such laissez-faire shenanigans, then fine, but I do find something rather immoral about offering a product of dubious value for money and then attaching religion to it. I myself am not religious, but people who are can be quite vulnerable to manipulation when something involves their faith.

[RS]

What's wrong with charging people to teach them how to count? People say you can look it up all online or in books etc. But last I remember, people are still rather secretive in their techniques. Norm charges what, $3/month for the subscription here? I don't know what it is at bj21/greenchip or other sites. But it's still the same thing -- someone wants to learn so they pay $$$ for that knowledge. Perhaps the boot camp by Colin & Ben is a bit expensive, at least by our standards (ie: those who already know how to count and whatnot). How many hours did it take you to learn what you know today about AP? Reading books, forums, blogs, then figuring out what is legit information and what is a scam? The way I see it, doing the boot camp would save a lot of time in learning and researching. If people are willing to pay for a service....I think it should be up to them. I'm taking a fair assumption in thinking that the boot camp is legit and teaches these players how to play properly.....and not some kind of scam (ie: paying to learn some type of "winning progression system").

The bottom line is, in mg opinion, Ben & Colin's team made some $1,000,000+ from casinos and are now teaching others how to play the game. Some might disagree with mixing AP with religion....but that's how their team started up, if I remember correctly. And given they are religious (and if you saw the documentary, you'd see they were deeply religious), I find it hard to believe what they are doing with their boot camp to be sketchy.

For "bankroll consultation", I don't think it's as simple as just downloading CVCX and running a Sim. Not saying there's anything bad with CVCX (or any CV software), but I do believe you can learn a hell of a lot more from someone who knows about BR management than by plugging numbers into a piece of software.

[bjarg]

bottom line is they took around 1.4 million dollars out of casino's pockets into theirs.

Small, theres a lot of people that have serious doubts about that...

But I dont want to be a dick talking crap about people I dont know. And I agree their site is pretty good. A lot of showing off, but definitely a good resource for begginers.

[ZeeBabar]

To me, going to these things is like someone joining Nutra Systems or Weight Watchers and such. Some people have it and some don't, temperament, that is. Otherwise, like the participants in weight loss programs who eventually gain all their weight back, most of the folks will lose all their $$$.

[Jabberwocky]

Wonder if their spread was 20-1? Try 180-1!!!

[biggg]

While this was clearly done to get backed off, the guy probably played a couple shoes with 3x500 out in big counts before the back off and wasted no money on cover and kept his name clean playing unrated. He could probably come back the next week on a different shift or different appearance and do the same thing. Depending on the rules and ramp he probably generated several hundred in EV at what was a ****ty burn joint unlikely to have other opportunities. Seems like a win to me assuming you live somewhere with a regular rotation of stores and don't have any better plays to put on at that store.