Andy Bloch Poker Player Andrew Bloch was born in June, 1969, and grew up in Orange, Connecticut, a small suburb of New Haven. All throughout his school years, Andy Bloch played cards. Whether it was with friends or family, Bloch usually won. After high school he attended MIT where he graduated in 1992 with two bachelor’s degrees in electrical engineering. That was the year that he first started playing casino poker. His first time in a casino was on a business trip to Las Vegas. He was working as an electrical engineer at the time. Back east where he worked, the Foxwoods casino had just opened up and Bloch would drive two hours to play there. At the Foxwoods, Andy Bloch saw a board for the ‘World Poker Finals’ tournament winners. He had never played in a tournament before but decided to enter. He started out with small $35 tournaments once or twice a month. After a year, he entered his first World Poker Finals tournament, the $100 No-Limit Texas Hold’Em event, and took first place. The win earned him over $4,000 and he got his name on the board.

In 1993, Andy Bloch lost his job. While he was unemployed, the Foxwoods introduced a new game, Hickok Six-Card Poker. It was similar to Caribbean Stud and instead of a table of other players, the gambler was up against the house. Around this time Bloch joined a poker group in Boston. He discovered them on Usenet and the group proved invaluable to players who were mathematically inclined in poker. Also around that time, Bloch acquired a new job designing network computer chips. While at his new job, he developed some computer programs that helped to create strategies to beat the game Hickok.

Andy Bloch and the MIT Blackjack Team

Through his connections with the poker group, he came into contact with several MIT alumnus that wanted to start an MIT blackjack team. Using Bloch’s computer programs, the team trained to play and beat Hickok. For several months, the team won, beating out the house. However, while they consistently won, at the stakes they were playing, it wasn’t very profitable. Despite over-exaggerations in the newspapers, in six months the team only won an estimated $75,000. Other players were also discovering that the odds of winning against Hickok were better than average and spots at the table were becoming harder to find. Eventually, the casino caught on and changed the rules of the game and put a stop to the team’s success.

Around 1995, Bloch grew bored with his job designing computer chips and after the company’s current project was cancelled, he quit his job. He began to play poker and blackjack full-time. His first trip to play blackjack in Las Vegas was with the now infamous MIT Blackjack Team, whom Bloch would later go on to manage. The team was featured in a book Bringing Down the House. Bloch moved to Las Vegas to continue his career as a professional gambler but also applied to Harvard Law School. He got accepted and paid for his tuition with money he had won at poker and with the MIT team. He was still playing with the team and altered his Hickok computer program to help figure out poker strategies. Some of his friends and acquaintances were developing computer programs, as well. A program for beating Chinese Poker was shared around and in 1995 Bloch used it to finish in the money in several Queens Classic Chinese Poker tournaments. He later won the 1995 Hall of Fame Classic Chinese Poker event. It was during this time that he was introduced to fellow poker player Chris Ferguson and the two formed a fast friendship. They had a lot in common. They were both intellectuals who had written computer programs for head-up poker and come up with similar results.

Andy Bloch - Managing the MIT Blackjack Team

While attending Harvard, Bloch managed the MIT Blackjack team and they made millions off the casinos in just a few years. The secret to their success was by counting cards. The skill is not illegal and one cannot get arrested for it but it can get one banned from a casino in a real hurry. After all, this is a business and no business wants to lose money. Bloch has stated that he has been banned from just about every casino in Las Vegas and even some in several other countries. But the bans are not for life. The statute of limitations will eventually run out or the casino will change management and forget. Yet even now, when Bloch enters a tournament such as the World Series of Poker, he is escorted in by security who will not let him stop at any blackjack table.

Bloch graduated from Harvard in 1999 and the next year he ended his association with the MIT team. Even though he had a law degree, he was not interested in working in a law firm. For about a year he traded stocks while he played poker. Yet he had grown tired of poker tournaments and was considering finding a new career. Then came along the World Poker Tour.

Andy Bloch WSOP Tournaments

Bloch had already had some success at poker tournaments. Back in 1997, Bloch had played in the World Series of Poker Main Event. He acted as a guinea pig in the new hole card camera technology. In 2001, he made it to two final tables of the WSOP. In January 2002 at the Jack Binion World Poker Open, No Limit Hold’Em event, he took eighth place and won $27,160. Then in November 2002 at the World Poker Tour Season One, Bloch took first place at the Limit Seven-Card Stud event and earned $42,920. Then at the No Limit Hold’Em event, he took third place and earned $102,350. At the L.A. Poker Classic in February of 2003, Bloch won another third place in No Limit Hold’Em and earned $125,460. Despite his success, Bloch can no longer play in the World Poker Tour events. He refuses to sign the WPT agreement that he feels is unfair to the players and could place them in financial stress with other sponsors.

Yet there are still other large stakes tournaments and Bloch has cashed in big at them. In 2006, at the World Series of Poker No Limit Hold’Em event, he took eighth place and earned $67,357. Then a week later he came in second place at the WSOP No Limit H.O.R.S.E. event. That win earned him $1,029,600, the biggest tournament win of his career. In February 2008 at the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship, he took second place at No Limit Hold’Em and won $250,000. A few months later at the WSOP Pot Limit Hold’Em World Championship, Bloch won second place again and earned $488,048.

Andy Bloch Recent Events

Bloch still plays in tournaments all over the world. In 2006, he had a instructional dvd made titled Beating Blackjack, which featured strategies and techniques used by the MIT Blackjack team. Bloch is a sponsored player of the site Full Tilt Poker where he is a member of Team Full Tilt. He donates all of his winnings from Full Tilt Poker to various charities. As of 2008, his estimated winnings from tournaments are almost $4 million.