Card counting in a group means that you have one or more players at a table who use on of the many card counting systems to determine the balance of high and low cards in the deck. Once the balance is favorable, they somehow signal a new player to come in with a large bankroll to start making large bets and (theoretically) win.

If you have the large chunk of time needed to learn how to count cards and want to do it in a group, perhaps you will want to learn from one of the most notorious groups of all- the MIT team. MIT stands for Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where the infamous members were students.

MIT is known for having some of the most brilliant science and math minds in the world, yet these students still had to do a ton of practice. Not only did they practice playing cards themselves (using a standard Hi-Lo system that is one of the simpler and most-used systems), but they had to practice how to act. In the words of David Irvine, one of the MIT team members, they were drilled on 'how to act and not be over the top. First and foremost, you have to be natural. You have to be believable as someone who has money.'

Once they practiced ad nauseum, they headed to Vegas for a weekend. Things went so smooth that weekend, that team member Mike Aponte had to stash $30,000 under his cap because he had no place else to put it for the flight back to Boston.

But it wasn"t always big wins and an overflow of money. Fortunately, the group knew that a part of gambling meant dry spells. It is fortunate that they knew and anticipated this, because at one point, they were down $300,000 after continued trips to casinos. However, they did not let it discourage them. 'Even when we were down $300,000 in 96-97, we had been successful so long, we never doubted' said Aponte.

This is because they knew that money management is a key component to counting cards. You must have a large bankroll to withstand big losses, and faith in your card counting so that you know that over the time, you will make up losses and hopefully come out on top in the end. But you absolutely will have pockets of bad luck and losing streaks, so you must be prepared for them.

Though the group no longer plays together, they did write a book, had numerous articles published and will be the subject of a movie due out next year about that magical weekend that they took the casino for half a million dollars using their math skills.

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