JP Massar helped form the MIT Blackjack Team. Now he fights for progressive values in Oakland and Berkeley.
JP Massar poses with some playing cards at his house in Berkeley, Calif., on Dec. 13, 2021. Massar is an expert-level blackjack player whose story was fictionalized in the movie"21."easyMassar, 65, is telling me his life story on a rainy December afternoon at an Indian restaurant near his house in Berkeley. It’s a story that’s been told dozens of times, though rarely with his name or face attached, and never in full: Massar co-ran the world’s most famous team of blackjack players.
The day we meet, Massar’s wearing a perfectly normal, unassuming brown jacket; underneath it is a perfectly normal, unassuming olive green Henley. His glasses are for substance, not style, but they pair well with his face and his soft smile.Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATEDouglas Zimmerman/SFGATE Massar has also, somehow, mostly looked — and acted — the same for many years. “His personality is uncommonly consistent,” says Debbie Notkin, a Bay Area organizer and friend of Massar’s. And that makes his discordant first and second acts all the more intriguing.Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATEMassar was born and raised in Dannemora, New York, a small town near the Canadian border. He started playing card games when he was a little kid.
A rich guy named Dave, who fancied himself a blackjack pro, called up Massar and offered to bankroll a real Atlantic City excursion. That holiday season, the MIT Blackjack Team — a handful of guys in total, Massar included — was born. They still made mistakes, but they kept learning, kept getting better. They doubled, then redoubled, their $5,000 investment.
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