Chicago Sun-Times: History Channel takes count of blackjack wiz kids

They were scores of scrubbed-faced college kids seemingly out on a lark, partying down at gambling casinos around the world -- and winning. Not just enough for next semester's tuition, but hundreds and thousands of dollars every night.

They were members of the largest and most successful of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology blackjack teams -- mental marauders who had perfected a card-counting technique that nearly broke the bank wherever they went.

Russian-born graduate student Semyon Dukach was the founder of a group that called itself Amphibians Investments. Bored by his major in computer science at MIT, Dukach joined classmates in the card- counting venture. Eventually, he began to manage and train battalions of volunteers who wanted to do more with their summer vacation than bask in the sun.

From 8-10 p.m. Sunday, the History Channel presents, "Breaking Vegas," the story of Dukach and his pocket-protector brigade. He talks about the experience:

*How he got interested: "I read Ken Uston's books when I was a kid and it seemed really cool, and then one day at MIT, I was walking down the hallway and saw a sign that said: 'Group needs recruits. Make $10,000 over the summer' or something like that."

*The silent underground: "Since the late '60s, there have been people at MIT who had various techniques at beating blackjack. The group that I joined had already become fairly professionalized, we paid taxes, had records. It was legal."

*How the technique works: "The term 'counting cards' simply refers to the idea of keeping track of the cards that are dealt, in some way . . . to [evaluate] the other cards that haven't been played yet. Everybody watches the cards when they've played; it's just a question of having a good system and good ability for using that information. There's no magic trick. It's just being aware of the cards and having a system that allows you to do it without having to do crazy memorizations like in 'Rain Man.' "

*Why the Amphibians landed: "The groups tended to get larger and larger and it became fairly unwieldy to manage them. You could only bet so much, so to have a higher return on the investment, you would have to have more people playing. Then it was a management question. Casinos would only let you bet so much and we were maxed out. And there's too much attention at that point. We really stuck out."

*The payoff: "For an investor, over a year, you'd expect 100 percent. That's not out of line with any small business that takes a risk. I thought it was a reasonable return. We probably had less risk than other ventures."

*What he does now: "I'm an entrepreneur. I started several companies, more software companies than anything else. I don't have a 9-to-5 job. That would be depressing. I guess I'm best at starting new things."

Scripps Howard News Service