Gambling With an Edge - Colin & Ben of The Church Team

[BigJer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyF42K8XPMU

[Blitzkrieg]

"Life is a series of gray areas." Very interesting to know that RWM.

[garylee]

Crappy recording with only 1 side of the interview. I wonder if this recording in presented properly on munchkins website?

[Three]

Crappy recording with only 1 side of the interview.

It came over my speakers as the interviewer over the left speaker and the team on the right speaker. I think you have one speaker feed not making it to a speaker.

[RWM]

Sorry, this was my first time experimenting with Skype recorder. There was a bit of a bad connection on Ben's end that caused some glitches. My technical skills will improve as I do this and learn more.

*The stereo issue is now fixed.

[SiMi]

Thanks for posting this link. I listened to the entire interview but found very little I can use. The main point Ben and Colin of the Holy Rollers Church Team made is that money is not the main motivator in their lives at this point and they think surveillance people are not personally against them (and may even secretly cheer for them). Sadly, that doesn't really help me at all since, as far as I can see, the Casinos will still back you off.
The most interesting point came at the end and was that their Church Team play was not very effective and came in WAY below EV and only cost the Casinos they visited $3 per day! The message they SHOULD be giving the casino personnel is that card counters, even TEAMS, are probably not costing the Casinos any significant money at all.
It's also possible that Colin and Ben are not very good at what they do and studying with them may not be a good investment...

[BigJer]

Thanks for posting this link. I listened to the entire interview but found very little I can use. The main point Ben and Colin of the Holy Rollers Church Team made is that money is not the main motivator in their lives at this point and they think surveillance people are not personally against them (and may even secretly cheer for them). Sadly, that doesn't really help me at all since, as far as I can see, the Casinos will still back you off.
The most interesting point came at the end and was that their Church Team play was not very effective and came in WAY below EV and only cost the Casinos they visited $3 per day! The message they SHOULD be giving the casino personnel is that card counters, even TEAMS, are probably not costing the Casinos any significant money at all.

I think they said that Tommy Hyland also believes that the major teams came in below EV.

[Three]

It's also possible that Colin and Ben are not very good at what they do and studying with them may not be a good investment...

I wouldn't go that far. It takes a lot more than a big BR and knowing how to do a count to be successful. Then there is the team theft issue. I am not sure how many people I would trust with that kind of cash. Skimming can really hurt EV. As I understand it from the documentary, they threw a guy off the team for being a suspected thief. They also tested people who had been playing on the team after extreme underperformance and found they couldn't even count. I think it was mostly a very poorly run team. This lack of proper training and testing may call their class into question. You would think even more effort would be put into training the guys that will take your money into battle. Perhaps too much faith was placed elsewhere rather than in the math.

[Blitzkrieg]

I thought it was a good idea to train their players at the casino, but at the same time Ben is admitting to casino surveillance during the video about how they were there to train their players in the aspect of card counting and to get some practice in. I think that was scratching the surface of the id and superego and a very bad decision from the leadership of the team. It would be a great way to burn your face and also burn the faces of the trainees before they even get off the ground. I don't think surveillance is on the card counters side.

[Tarzan]

I was watching that segment where one of them was doing a card counting drill and was going off consistently. My jaw dropped... this was one of their players and he was an airhead with no counting skills that couldn't perform a basic good ol' Hi-Lo count. I said aloud to the screen, "What would Jesus do?!?" as I laughed, nearly cried but was shocked at how lame that really was. Did this guy figure that he didn't need to practice or study because the answers would all be given to him by some of that divine intervention action? It was scary and he had no business being at a blackjack table with other people's money. I don't know that much about team play but I know that you're only as strong as your weakest link and I have to question how that guy ever got on the team to begin with... Maybe this isn't the sort of job that you can be "juiced into".

[SiMi]

Tarzan

Yes, I bet most of the people here were shocked at that performance! I kept wondering if this was not reality and that this was more or less 'staged' for the cameras and they already knew the guy was a lost cause but they needed the footage to make the film better and make the point that some people get booted.

After hearing their results from team play (about 1/4 of expectation), I was shocked! I suspect that team play is one tough nut to crack. Maybe a 2-person team would be manageable, but it sure seems that 20 people (which is the max size they reported to RWM in that interview) would be too messy.

[BigJer]

I was watching that segment where one of them was doing a card counting drill and was going off consistently. My jaw dropped... this was one of their players and he was an airhead with no counting skills that couldn't perform a basic good ol' Hi-Lo count. I said aloud to the screen, "What would Jesus do?!?" as I laughed, nearly cried but was shocked at how lame that really was. Did this guy figure that he didn't need to practice or study because the answers would all be given to him by some of that divine intervention action? It was scary and he had no business being at a blackjack table with other people's money. I don't know that much about team play but I know that you're only as strong as your weakest link and I have to question how that guy ever got on the team to begin with... Maybe this isn't the sort of job that you can be "juiced into".

What segment was this? Where?

[mrw464]

It comes at about the 42-43 minute mark in the documentary