Semyon Dukach

When not learning how to fly my new Schweizer from the awesome instructors at Blue Hill Helicopters, teaching people about the MIT Blackjack Team at blackjackscience.com, or managing EMUmail and smtp.com, I dabble with windsurfing, biking, Argentine tango, the art of amusing pre-teen children, and snowboarding. Sometimes I get a little local press.

In the distant past I founded, grown, and sold a software company called Fast Engines, co-founded Vert, and made a little money running a blackjack team at MIT which is the subject of this book. Before all that I grew up in Moscow and Houston, did my undergrad at Columbia, played with virtual reality at IBM research, and got a degree from MIT for creating an early e-commerce system, way before it was cool. My daughters Dagny, Miranda, and Zoe are cute, and really awesome in every way. My cousin Alex writes songs, and my sister Inna is an opera singer who married a rock star. People often see patterns where none exist.

I have to admit that lawyers are OK sometimes, and that I'm not very selective about adding friends to my myspace page.

It may seem that I like toys, but what I actually like are poetry, pickles, and good timing.