The Card Counter (2021)

William Tell: I liked the routine. I liked the regimen. Same activities, same time, every day. The same toothbrush, the same clothes, same toilet. Same stale sweat, stale smoke, stale bodies, stale cooking, stale farts. Same conversations. The faces change but not much. No choice. I found that I liked reading books. I'd never read a book before... Not all the way through. I found a life for myself that had been beyond my imagination. It was in prison I learned to count cards...

William Tell: What separates blackjack from other games is that it's based on dependent events, meaning past affects the probability in the future.
     The house has a 1.5% advantage. If a player knows the nature of the cards in the shoe, he can turn the house advantage to himself. To do this, he has to keep track of every card that is played.
     Count is based on a high/low system. High cards... Ten, jack, queen, king... Have a value of minus-one. If they are depleted, player's advantage goes down. The low cards... Two, three, four, five, six... Have a value of plus-one. The seven, eight and nine have no count value. The player keeps track of every card and calculates the running count. Then the player arrives at the true count, which is the running count divided by the decks remaining.
     For example, if the running count is plus-nine and there are four and a half decks remaining, nine over four and a half gives you a true count of plus-two.
     As true count increases, the player's advantage increases. The idea is to bet little when you don't have the advantage, more when you do.

William Tell: It's a matter of degree. The house doesn't mind players who count cards. They don't even mind players who count cards and win... What they don't like are players who count cards and win big. It's about how much you win and how you win it. I stick to modest goals.

La Linda: If you don't play for money, why do you play at all?
William Tell: It passes the time.

William Tell: In poker, the player does not play against the house. He plays against other players. The house takes a cut. Two things are necessary: knowledge of the mathematical odds, knowledge of your opponents.
     Poker is all about waiting. Hours pass. Days pass. Hand after hand, each hand like the hand before. Then something happens.
     There's a weight a gambler can accrue by accepting financial backing. It's like any weight a person in debt accrues. It builds and builds, has a life of its own.
     There also is a moral weight a man can accrue. This is the weight created by his past actions. It is a weight... which can never be removed.

William Tell: The smartest bet for a novice is red/black in roulette. Your odds are 47.4%. No more bets. You win, you walk away. You lose, you walk away. It's the only smart casino bet.

Cirk: I'll, uh, give the slots a whirl.
William Tell: All right. Bet small, lose small.

Cirk: How much cards do you play?
William Tell: 40 hands an hour, eight to 12 hours a day, six to seven days a week.
La Linda: Do you do anything else?
William Tell: Like what?
La Linda: Like anything. Go to a park, a concert, a museum... ... No, but seriously, you should do something else. Just for variety.
William Tell: I like playing cards.

William Tell: You know the phrase "tilt"?.. When a player gets caught up in winning, plays outside his zone. Just like in pinball. And there's something similar in interrogations. It's called "force drift." It happens when the interrogator applies more and more force to the prisoner with less results. The interrogator becomes intoxicated by frustration and power. Any man can tilt. I can tilt. Your father can tilt. You can tilt.

William Tell: A great player can see right into your soul. He can wear earplugs, a hoodie, a baseball cap, mirrored glasses, a ski mask, but he'll see right into your soul.

William Tell: This is not a proposal you can afford to reject.

William Tell: We are each responsible for our own actions.
Gordo: I believe that.

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