吻仔魚的天空

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz0TNrhD_vA&feature=related

JEFFREY
MA

Using the undeniable power of numbers—of math!—Jeffrey Ma has helped spearhead what BusinessWeek calls "The New Age of Numbers." The famous number-crunching MIT whiz kid who took Vegas by storm, Ma is the subject of both a New York Times bestseller, Bringing Down the House, and a great new movie 21, starring Kevin Spacey. In his keynotes, he draws on his extraordinary life and work to show us how to harness the power of rational, quantitative analysis to make smarter business decisions.

Putting his innovative theories into practice, Jeffrey Ma co-founded PROTRADE, the popular sports fantasy website that allows users to trade players like stocks. He uses hard facts and results-not emotions-to determine the true market value of an athlete or team. (Think of Billy Beane's Moneyball-style of talent management.) Ma has created a series of proprietary analysis tools and metrics to help users make smarter decisions-decisions that often prove to be the difference between winning and losing. (Best of all, you don't have to be a calculus nerd to use them). Partnering with Sports Illustrated, Major League Baseball and ESPN, Ma and PROTRADE have revolutionized the way we think about sports and business, and how we make decisions that will benefit the bottom line.

Jeff Ma first tested his unique approach to numbers as a member of the MIT Blackjack team, a small group of hyper-geniuses who took the gaming world by surprise. His life story became the national bestseller Bringing Down the House, and is also the focus of a critically acclaimed new movie, 21, starring Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth and Laurence Fishburne. In the movie, Ma's name has been changed to Ben Campbell, but you'll still be able to easily pick him out: he's the one using his unlikely mixture of wits, charm and math skills to trump his competitors.

WATCH JEFF MA ON CBS' EARLY SHOW

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. This interview was a it of a surprise for me. I showed up for Jim Sturgess and Robert Luketic and had no idea Jeff Ma, the guy Sturgess’ character is based on, was going to be available.

 

It’s not a long interview, but we talk quite a bit about counting cards, having a film made about your experiences and just how involved he really was in the film. Enjoy!

 

Quint: So how are you?

Jeff Ma: I’m good, very good. How about yourself?

Quint: I’m doing well; the craziness of SXSW is just starting, so we’re just beginning.

Jeff Ma: Cool.

Quint: Have you ever done the film festival thing before?

Jeff Ma: No, I really have never done it. I’m very new to the whole Hollywood world, so this is pretty exciting for me and a little surreal. I’ve been doing interviews all do and I’ve enjoyed it. Have you seen the movie?

Quint: I have.

Jeff Ma: Did you like it?

Quint: Yeah.

Jeff Ma: It’s fun, right?

Quint: The aspect that I really liked about it was how they showed the counting process and how they made it easily accessible, like that scene where Jim sat down and he was looking at each card as they were coming out and he heard the numbers.

Jeff Ma: You know, I think they did a really good job at doing that and that part was very true to life. Any card counter that watched that would fell like “Wow, they did a real good job explaining something that is pretty difficult to explain well” and to think that they have got to do that in a sort of mainstream movie and not have half of the audience fall asleep… They did a good job.

Quint: So how involved where you in the filming?

Jeff Ma: I was pretty involved in the beginning, just in terms of when they created the general concept and then the first screenplay that they had written, Peter Steinfeld that wrote it, spent a lot of time with us and with me to get a sense of what we were like and that was really cool to be a part of that and then as the screenplay sort of evolved, I was less and less involved and then… You know, I’m not a movie maker and I don’t really know what that takes, I’m just someone that had a fun thing happen to them and did a fun thing and so I try to help out along the way as much as possible, but tried to stay out of the way.

Quint: What about when they were shooting? Where you there?

Jeff Ma: I was on set a bunch of times and I have a cameo in the movie.

Quint: Oh yeah?

Jeff Ma: Yeah, I’m a dealer. You know the scene where they knock the table over? I’m the dealer in that scene.

Quint: When Jim comes in and knows you because he’s been playing there so much, right?

Jeff Ma: Yeah, that’s me.

Quint: I remember that.

Jeff Ma: So that was a lot of fun and it took two days to film that, so I was on set for the two days and it was pretty fun. I was on set a bunch of other times, but nothing… It’s not like I was sitting in the director’s chair making adjustments. I was just there and if Robert [Luketic] had a question or if one of the actors said “Hey, how do we do this or say this?” That’s all I was there for.

Quint: That’s cool. Jim [Sturgess] was saying that he ended up playing a lot of blackjack because you couldn’t, so he was filling in when they were playing for leisure afterwards.

Jeff Ma: Yeah. I remember the first night I was there I kind of screwed around a little bit with some of the producers, Dana [Brunetti] and Mike De Luca, and play a little bit and then the next day I came on a set to film my scene and one of the casino people walked up and said “We heard you were playing blackjack last night” and I said “Oh yeah…” He said “You’re the guy that this movie is about, right?” and I said “Yeah.” He was like “You can’t play blackjack here.” I was playing like 25 dollars a hand, so it’s not like it was a big deal…

另一段影片
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMyGrRQ5JwA&NR=1

21點教學
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boQbuyDjWnc&feature=related

電影PREVIEW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od0Y5qrlNZQ&feature=related

原著討論
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqKGo6ZSj2s

JEFF MA 工作介紹
http://www.protrade.com/AboutManagement.html