Headline, April28, 2013

'''THE PROFESSORS'''

Dominic O'Brien is a quiet, inscrutable man, around 40 years old. Born of Irish stock, he could most easily pass as a Colombian Gangster: 6 feet 2 inches tall, heavy moustache and coal-black eyes that seldom betray emotion. Behind them, though, fierce forces are at war, a passion for gambling dens, hard drinking battles with the propriety of genteel middle-class upbringing, and the rural, largely teetotal life he leads in Hertfordshire.

Dominic dropped out of minor Guildford public school when he was sixteen and found work as a petrol pump attendant. A month's wages were blown in just one night, testing a prototype system for not loosing at roulette  -playing with blacks and reds, doubling your bets when you lost.

He drifted from job to job, searching for order in a chaotic world. Some years ago he found it, on live television, when a psychatric nurse called Creighton Carvello pulled a stunning card trick, memorising a shuffled pack of cards in 2 minutes and 57 seconds. Dominic was flabbergasted.

Dominic has always been interested in numbers and cards. He discovered he was dyslexic at school, as a child, he instinctively said ''nine,ten, jack,queen,king'' when learning to count. It was in the family, his great aunt had played bridge for England. After seeing Carvello's trick he shut himself in a room for weeks and tried to work out what Carvello had done.

Two years later, Dominic earned himself a place in the Guinness Book of Records. He had managed to memorize 35 packs of shuffled playing cards. After looking at each card only once, he recited, in perfect order, all 1,820. It was time to blackjack.

Between September 1990 and January 1991, he travelled up and down Britain playing as many casinos as he could find. After four months, he stopped. He was making £1,000 a night but he had been banned from over 30 clubs. A letter from the Sergeant York's Sporting in Lutton is typical if many he received:

"Dear Mr O Brien, It has been decided at an extraordinary meeting of the Election Committee that your membership be withdrawn with immediate effect. This means that you no longer be allowed to visit the club either as a member or as a guest."

His face was becoming familiar.

Obrien is what's known in the gambling world as a ''card-counter,'' or a ''jouer  professional'' as the irate management at Enghien had come to brand him. Casinos don't like card counters. Relying on Mathematics rather than chance, they make sure that the odds of blackjack work in their favor, rather than the bank's.

In Dominic's case, he does that by using his own complicated system, arrived at by dealing himself over 100,000 hands of blackjack, and later verified by month's of work on a computer. But then Dominic has a phenomenal memory.

Card-counters are doing nothing illegal. They just eat into the manager's profits.  If a card-counter plays undetected for long enough, he can close a casino down. Operating as private clubs, casinos can deny entry solely at the Manager's discretion. And they do.

''There are no more than six top card-counters in the world that I know of,'' Dominic declares in his quiet, understated way. ''They are Americans mainly, and a couple of Australians. They earn between a quarter and three-quarters of a million pounds a year and they move around the world the whole time. Apart from me, the only one in Britain is based in the Midlands and he's known on the circuit as the ''Professor''. He dresses up as a woman. I can't tell you any more than that.''

On the cards: the odds are always stacked in Dominic's favour because he relies on Mathematics and his brilliant memory rather than lady luck. He's no cheat but he could break at Monte Carlo. He is a leader of the pack.

Respectful dedication to the brotherhood of man.

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless