The Best Director

On the big screens of over three thousand cinemas, accompanied by an exhilarating soundtrack, members of the MIT team swaggered into the casino. The casino servers greeted them with smiling faces, completely oblivious to the fact that they were a card-counting team. Natalie curled her lips slightly, “Of course.” Daniel Wu and others all wore knowing smirks as they marched straight to the blackjack tables, where the gamblers’ shouts were still wild.

The next shot was of several large rolls of money being tossed onto the gambling table. Only when the camera zoomed in did one see Natalie and Daniel Wu pulling out chairs to sit down, saying to the dealer with a smile, “Change it all into chips, all of it!” The camera then gradually pulled back to reveal Alexis and Jay Baruchel seated to the left and right with smiles, swiftly making various hand signals. The subtitles displayed: “16 points, 2/3 of the deck left, 68 tens, 17 Aces…”

Watching each hand signal and piece of information, the audience in front of the screen felt somewhat stirred. Before entering the casino, the MIT team had said they were going to play all out this time, to bet big on the high counts, to dominate with a 100% profit margin, to grab the microphone and shout, “The card counters are here!”

When the dealer’s code words finished displaying, the camera swept over the dealer’s hands retrieving chips. As the chips piled into stacks, the cinema erupted with a “whoosh” followed by a faster and higher-pitched soundtrack; the camera returned to the close-up front shot of Daniel Wu and Natalie, who both pushed out a large stack of chips. She exclaimed, “Let’s Go!!”

“16 points, 15 points, 16 points, 17 points…” “16 points, 15 points, 16 points, 17 points…”

Amid the stirring music, the card-counting voices of the two big players rose simultaneously, Daniel Wu’s a dubbed narration and Natalie’s as if live; her lips unmoving in the shot. The two voices merged, and the cards at the blackjack table were dealt swiftly, the dealer revealing the hole card, taking chips, clearing old cards with calls of “Player wins.”, “Busted.”, “Player wins, busted.”, “Whew…”

Meanwhile, MIT’s big players and controller laughed heartily, clapping their hands, looking wild as they exclaimed, “WIN!”, “YES, YES! —”, “Buddy, let’s end this!”, “Ten! I love you! You’ve been so good to me!”, “Oh my god, what luck I’ve had today!”, “Hahaha—”

The audience in the cinema unconsciously sat up straight, their eyes widening slightly. Evelyn felt her palms and forehead sweating, filled with excitement and exhilaration. Clair let out a soft wow, her smiling face utterly enthralled. So cool, this was conquering Las Vegas!

No slow-motion! Quick cuts with fast footage! Nancy was a bit surprised, then understood, indeed, no need for slow motion anymore. The audience had already developed a three-dimensional concept of card counting and formed an impression of the MIT members’ genius. Now without too much technical detail, the audience could still grasp what they were doing and feel it; they were reaping, and the feeling was pleasure!

This wasn’t illegal nor was it gambling; it was the application of intelligence, it was reaping. The ones being taken advantage of were the casinos, and casinos were the bad guys; no one would think of casinos as good, at least not in the public psyche.

With slow motion, there wouldn’t be this kind of exhilaration or frenzy… nearly an entire evening of cool slow-motion shots, but now explosively unleashing this climax was truly satisfying! Nancy exhaled with a smile, stealing glances left and right amidst the busy atmosphere, seeking to confirm her judgment. She saw the surrounding audience with mouths agape laughing, along with an increasing number of small movements — the expressions of inner excitement and relief!

“YES, Blackjack!” As the dealer dealt out a spade Ace and a heart Jack to form a genuine Blackjack on the screen, Daniel Wu shouted and punched the air, while Natalie laughed, leaning back in her chair with arms crossed. Seated Alexis and standing Karen Mok applauded in admiration. The dealer, now breathing heavily with furrowed brows, finally began to suspect. Were these people acquainted? Card counters? Because the table was losing cash at an alarming rate!

Just as the audience witnessed the dealer turning to alert security, the music softened as if to fade away, and the two big players started to scoop piles of chips into the same sack, laughing as they prepared to leave. At this, the Caucasian dealer’s complexion changed, crying out, “Hey!” As the two took a few steps away, they glanced back, and in a close-up, Natalie first looked puzzled, then had an epiphany!

“Hope you have a pleasant evening!” She pulled a chip from the sack in her hand, placed it between her fingers in front of her lips, and gave the chip a hearty mock kiss, “Mwah!” After kissing, she flicked her fingers, sending the tip chip spinning over!

“`

“Da-da-ah-ah—” The moment the chips fell on the gambling table, the almost vanished exhilarating music erupted again. Natalie and Daniel Wu laughed and turned to walk away. Then came the slow motion again, with Alexis and Jay Baruchel also standing up from behind the gambling table, joining Nick Cannon and Karen Mok in a smiling procession out of the place. From a panoramic shot, the dealer behind the table stood stunned, like a wooden chicken.

“Wow—! So cool!” Clair couldn’t help but exclaim softly, being a die-hard fan of Natalie, she thought that chip toss was incredibly cool! She had thought Juno was unique, and before stepping into the cinema tonight, she had wondered, “Could the genius duo of ‘Magical Yang’ and Natalie lack a breakthrough?” But now… She felt that if it were for real, Amanda would play Juno to death!

It wasn’t just Clair’s soft exclamation that echoed in the movie theater; many young viewers couldn’t help but sigh softly, forming a low buzz. Watching the MIT group’s frantic sweep on the big screen, listening to the boiling music, they felt no hints of disappointment—just sheer exhilaration!

As the music gradually faded, the scene on the screen suddenly switched from the casino to a luxurious hotel banquet hall, where the security manager, a female detective, and the entire apprehension team were laughing and celebrating, toasting to the capture of the card-counting team that had cost Las Vegas nearly ten million US dollars. Suddenly, a tense-faced security guard in a suit hurried over, whispering a few words to the manager, who gradually furrowed his brow while holding his wine glass.

“Hahaha!”, “Blackjack! Blackjack!”, “I love this game!” The camera quickly switched to a different gambling table where MIT group members shouted and cheered, their chips stacking up rapidly. The camera then cut back to the banquet hall, where the security manager silently mouthed a few words, and Rachel, after a moment of shock, quickly walked out.

In the midst of rapid cuts and edits, Rachel and the security guards walked out of the hallway, took the elevator, and rushed into the casino… The camera at the gambling table spun around, fists raised, chips pushed over, several casino signs flashed by like slides in quick succession. Daniel Wu and the others laughed and left the place with style once more; Rachel and her team seemed to have just arrived at the blackjack table, but not a single MIT group member was in sight.

The stirring music stopped. The close-up shot of Rachel showed her eyes narrowing slightly, her lips moving, revealing a silent expression of inner fury, then a faint smile.

Accompanied by light-hearted country music, just like at the start of the film, Daniel Wu, dressed as an ordinary young man with a backpack, smiled contentedly as he cycled against the wind along the beautiful Charles River. The audience knew the movie was coming to an end and settled into a calm mood, curious about how much money the MIT group won that night and what happened to the casinos afterward.

“It turns out card counting can make you win seven figures in one night, but the price is becoming the most unwelcome people in Las Vegas. The funny thing is, these casinos even applied for a court injunction to keep us away from the blackjack tables and out of the casinos, or else we’ll be trespassing on private property. The court agreed—the act of card counting is not illegal, but they won’t allow people to play because we could break the casino, and the casino wants to make profits forever and ever.”

As the voice-over continued, Daniel Wu arrived at the MIT campus, parked his bike, and walked toward the Maclaurin Building through a busy and bustling lawn: “So what? We had our fun; it was just a math game, just a job, and now it’s all over. Card counting was just one path to the dream, but we now have over ten million in capital; yet a dream remains a dream.”

Evelyn, who now thinks everything looks cool, couldn’t help but nod in agreement. To possess such extraordinary skills and yet to be so carefree—wasn’t that the epitome of cool? Seven figures, ten million, so much…

“HEY!” In the screen scene, Daniel Wu saw Natalie, Alexis, and a few others carrying backpacks and shoulder bags not far away, and greeted them with a smile. Natalie and her friends waved back with a smile, and just like that, a sense of campus friendship was born. Suddenly, a greeting came from behind: “Hey, Jeff!” The chubby classmate walked over, and the two proceeded up the white steps, chatting, “By the way, what classes do we have today?” “8.52.”…

“We returned to the routine campus life, continuing to deal with numbers every day, moving toward the original goals we had when we came to MIT. Of course, sometimes we would get together and drink at the bar.”

As Daniel Wu’s voice-over played, the screen switched from the campus to the MIT group laughing and drinking in the bar, congratulating each other on passing exams.

“Occasionally, we would vacation in Las Vegas, but we were like some kind of rare species.”

“`

The scene returned to Caesar’s Palace Casino, but the colors and lights were no longer hazy; they were crystal clear. In between two rows of old slot machines, the plainly dressed members of the MIT team were surrounded by a group of stern-faced security guards who moved as they moved. The security supervisor spoke in a deep voice, driving them away, “We don’t serve you here! If you want to gamble, go somewhere else!” As they moved, Natalie smiled and said, “We’ve never gambled.”

“Kids, if you don’t leave now, we’ll throw you out!” the security supervisor threatened fiercely. With an exclaimed ‘wow’ from Natalie, the team members all chuckled softly, and she casually pointed at a nearby slot machine, asking with a laugh, “Can’t we even play this one?” The security supervisor’s face tightened with frustration, his eyelids twitching; it was then that Daniel Wu suddenly laughed and said, “You know what? As far as I know, only losers play the slot machines.”

The camera panned to the interested faces of Natalie and others as Daniel Wu, already speaking fast, began to speak even faster, “The winning probability for modern slot machines is determined by the programs on the computer chips within them. Slot machines do not increase the winning probability on their own. In other words, it’s not about playing longer or more rounds to increase the payout odds; each time you pull the lever, the odds of winning remain the same. Additionally, slot machine programs have a return percentage. If you play one hundred dollars, with a return percentage of 90%, no matter how lucky the player is, they can only get back 90 dollars. The casino is always the winner.”

“Take a weighted slot machine like this one,” he patted a nearby slot machine, and continued without taking a breath, amidst the laughter of the team members and the scowls of the guards, “The top prize stop on each reel corresponds only to one virtual stop position. This means the chance of hitting a jackpot symbol on one reel is 1/64, and the chance of hitting jackpots on all three reels is 1/64 to the power of three, which is 1/262144. You’ve got to pick the winning door out of over 260,000 every round, and don’t forget it’s like this every time.”

He paused for a moment, then laughed, “No skill, no strategy, this is gambling.”

Since the audience had previously seen Jeff Ma studying books about casinos in the classroom, and had been asked by Wang Yang, who made a cameo as a classmate, “Do you want to be Rain Man?” they didn’t find it abrupt. Instead, they found it amusing and entertaining—as well as professional! All that fast talk, though clear, took less than a minute. They naturally did not grasp the content fully, but they knew it meant… playing slot machines was a sure loss, only fools played slot machines!

At the premiere in the Caesar’s Palace Theater, Gary Slayton was stunned, ‘This guy, Wang Yang…’ remembering that 70% of casino revenue came from slot machines! Losers play slot machines, and the big winners play Blackjack? As he wiped his forehead, he also breathed a sigh of relief; thankfully, there weren’t many geniuses, and now there were automatic shufflers, facial recognition systems…

“That’s it! That’s why losers play slot machines.” On the big screen, Daniel Wu concluded and shrugged his shoulders, smiling at the security supervisor and asking, “You don’t mind, do you?” Alexis and others either chuckled or smiled, but Natalie took out a coin and slipped it into the slot machine, her lips curling slightly as she pulled down the lever, “Let’s give gambling a go then!”

The “ding ding ding” rolling sound immediately started, and Daniel Wu, Alexis, and the others’ expressions slowly changed from smiles to surprise, as if they had seen something incredible. The camera focused on the slot machine screen, showing one 7, two 7s, and the third column was still slowly rolling, sliding past oranges, apples, strawberries…

The hearts of the audience in 3354 theaters instinctively felt a thrill of excitement; with odds of 1/260,000+, was the MIT team so good that they even hit the jackpot when gambling?

Ding ding ding… The third column was about to stop when suddenly the big screen went black, and a youthful and lively song started playing. The credits appeared on the screen: “Director: Young-Wang; Screenwriter: Young-Wang, Ben Mezrich; Producer: Young-Wang…”

“Oh!” “Wow!” The auditorium erupted with audience exclaims. Nancy laughed heartily; the short span created an atmosphere of inevitable loss when playing slot machines, yet it seemed as if they were about to win big. The result was left unanswered… an open-ended conclusion that lingered in people’s minds.

Many in the audience reacted like Nancy, stunned for a moment before laughing out loud, and some cursed jokingly, “Damn you, Wang Yang!” While those with wide eyes waiting for the result, Clair exclaimed, “COME ON!” She glanced at Adam next to her and exhaled, “What’s this? Isn’t he afraid of getting pelted with tomatoes?” Adam spread his hands helplessly, indicating he didn’t know either, when he suddenly noticed something new on the big screen, “Clair, look!”

Following the separate images of the director, screenwriter, and producer, the right side of the screen scrolled up, showing row upon row of actor information, Daniel Wu—Jeff Ma… On the left side of the screen, there were end credits special effects, with adorable poker cards and numbers colliding and dissolving. What really kept the audience from leaving was the introduction and current status of each member of the real MIT-21 team.

Mike Aponte (Mike-Aponte), John Chang (John-Chang), Dave Irvine (Dave-Irvine), Jeffrey Ma (Jeffrey-Ma), Kyle Schaffer (Kyle-Schaffer)…

These people really live the life! Seeing Jeff Ma’s current status as “the creator of a sports website, a senior data expert, and a consultant for the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers and the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers,” along with the other members, although audiences already knew this was adapted from a true story, they suddenly became excited once more. They found the movie story they just witnessed even cooler—it’s real, a truly remarkable legend!

“Wow, wow!” At the Caesars Palace Theater, the audience didn’t even wait for the end credits to finish before erupting into laughter and cheers, accompanied by the enthusiastic song. From just a few individuals to an entire section, the spectators started to stand up and applaud. The theater was instantly filled with thunderous applause, bursts of laughter, and whistles that could be heard nonstop: “So amazing!!”, “Unbelievable movie!”, “Natalie!!”, “Incredible Yang—”…

In the media critic area, the critics all delivered applause with various expressions. How should they review this film? Fresh or rotten?

Reflecting on the past two hours, a flood of information suddenly overwhelmed Betsy Sharkey’s mind, causing a bit of a fluster, as if not being able to remember or understand it made her an idiot. Math problems, card counting, teamwork… and those thrilling casino scenes, the sharp editing, the beautiful cinematography… but without a doubt, “MIT-21-TEAM” was very satisfying and worth savoring!

Listening to those not-so-unfamiliar applause and the vaguely recognizable shouts, Wang Yang took a deep breath with his eyes slightly closed, looking like he hadn’t messed up! Before he could think much, laughter and applause had already erupted around him. He stood up with clapping hands, opening his eyes with a smile and asked, “Thanks, feels good, doesn’t it?”

“What do you think? You’ve given me a huge surprise!” Natalie said with a beaming smile. She hadn’t expected that the post-production fusion of cinematography, editing, and music would make the complicated script look so imposing and cool! She gave two thumbs up and laughed in admiration, “Yang, you did it! This is the pinnacle of gambling movies! Previous ones seem like toys compared to this! Wow! This is so cool, so entertaining!”

“Thanks, as long as it’s cool that’s enough, no need to remind me of what comes next,” Wang Yang said with a shrug and a smile. Rachel, with a cheerful and sweet smile, clapped as she nodded and laughed, “Yang, the movie is such a pleasure! It’s just that Beverly seems really silly.” Beside her, Alexis laughed, “I look really cool!” Daniel Wu and his girlfriend Lisa chatted with a smile, “I never knew before how fast I could talk…”

Valery Fisher and other major creators were also filled with laughter and merriment. Margaret felt very content and happy, as this movie seemed like the kind that would be hailed as an instant classic upon release.

Seeing the endless compliments from everyone, Jessica looked at Wang Yang’s face beside her, vigorously clapping her hands, her eyes filled with pride and happiness. The conversation they had in the living room last year, he had made it all happen! And it was loved by everyone.

At that moment, a very loud shout erupted from the back of the audience: “Alexis Braidel! I love you—!! You performed so well!!!”

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PS: A new week starts, and I’m eager for recommendation tickets! Please don’t let us fall behind in the ranking charts! Thank you all. (To be continued. For the future story, please visit . There are more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!)