The Classic Blackjack Books
by Jerry Patterson
Excerpted from Blackjack: A Winner's Handbook (2001) Edition
Copyright
(c), 2001-2003, all rights reserved
AN
ABUNDANCE OF BLACKJACK BOOKS
In 1978 when the first edition of this book was self-published, it contained my review and comment on every blackjack book in existence at that time. The same was true in the 1980s edition. Then, with the opening of the Atlantic City Casinos, the market for blackjack methods, information and instruction increased dramatically throughout the 1980s. In the 1990s, with the passing of the Federal Indian Gaming Act and States and Localities legalizing gaming to get in on the gravy train, the market for gambling information exploded. When the 1990s edition was published, there were around 50 blackjack books in print and many of them, mainly oriented to card counting methods, were just a rehash of many others. So I selected 27 for review and comment. Now, as this new millennium edition goes to press, there are close to 200 blackjack books in print, an impossible number for even the most experienced blackjack player to confront, not to mention the beginning players.
This
growing list presents a serious problem to the many new blackjack players who
seek more information about how to win. How
does a player new to the game confront this many titles and choose one or more
books that may be useful to him or her? You
can get an idea of the scope of this problem by going to the amazon.com web site
and entering keyword blackjack. You
will be confronted by close to 200 titles as you scroll down the pages.
Regarding
this morass of information, we are compelled to ask the question:
Have there been that many breakthroughs in the game, that many new
approaches to playing and winning, to justify this plethora of books published
about just one casino game? My
answer is a qualified no, and this conclusion is based on over 25 years as a
player, author, system developer, instructor, and analytic observer.
Most of these new books, and most books published over the last 15 years
of the 20th century for that matter, contain rehashed data and, in my
opinion, are not worth your time, let alone your money.
Now
let’s get to the list of classic blackjack books that I am recognizing for:
(1) having one or more outstanding attributes (which I will list); or (2)
having had significant impact on the game; i.e., have contributed to changes to
the game by the casinos or to changes in the players’ playing methodologies;
or (3) an interesting read and telling some great blackjack stories.
Some
that I list may be out-of-print, but, with the availability of the major book
retailers online, the online web sites specializing in gambling books, and the
rare book stores online, these out-of-print books are accessible to any
blackjack player who invests a little time to make the search.
These books can be considered as the blackjack classics. With two exceptions, they were all published before 1982. This year is significant and can be considered as the “timeline” in the evolution of blackjack systems and methods. There is no coincidence to the 1982 timeline as that was the year that everything changed in the world of blackjack. 1982 was the year Kenny Uston won his suit against Resorts which prevented the Atlantic City casinos from barring card counters, the year that 8-deck games were introduced, the year the elaborate shuffles and washes began to clump up the multi-deck blackjack games and make card counting obsolete in these games for all but the long-term card counters.
There
are 13 books on this "Classic List" and I review two of the
"bottom three" and one of the top 2 for you in this Special Ezine.
I encourage you to purchase Blackjack: A Winner's Handbook to obtain the
other 10 reviews. It's well worth the small investment of just
$13.95. The other 10 may surprise you, but they are all worth purchasing
especially if you're new to the game and just getting started.
CLASSIC
BLACKJACK BOOKS
Position
13: Wong, Stanford. Professional Blackjack.
Pi Yee Press, 1994, paperback, $19.95.
Originally published in 1978.
Reason
for inclusion on list: Back-counting
method – playing only on positive counts; good book for traditional players
wanting to use the high/low count to play the hands
When
this book was first published in 1977, it revolutionized the way card counting
was employed to gain an advantage at the blackjack table.
Prior to this book, the standard way to play was to sit down at a
blackjack table, keep a running count of the cards, and make small bets when the
count was low and the dealer had the advantage, and large bets when the count
was high and the player had the advantage.
Wong’s book changed this standard card counting procedure.
His approach involved keeping a count behind the table without sitting
down and therefore without playing any hands disadvantageous to the player.
This method came to be called “back-counting” or “Wonging it.”
The player entered the game only when he had the advantage, leaving once
again when the count turned negative and favored the dealer. In this way the player was making flat bets and not following
the usual up-and-down betting patterns of the typical counter.
It
took the casinos two or three years to catch on to this method and implement
countermeasures. In many cases the
dealer is instructed to shuffle up or restrict the player’s bet size to table
minimum until the shuffle. This
countermeasure is usually taken only if a player is obviously standing behind
the table, waiting for a high count to occur.
In today’s games, many casinos simply bar mid-shoe entry which,
essentially, eliminated the strategy and made it obsolete except for those
traditional players who use the book as a reference for its many tables and
matrices, keyed to the high/low count, showing how to play each blackjack hand
according to the true count.
Position 12: Meadow, Barry. Blackjack Autumn – A True Tale Of Life, Death, and Splitting Tens In Winnemucca, Anaheim, CA: TR Publishing, 1999, hardback, $27.95.
Reason
for inclusion on the list: The best
description for what it’s like to operate as a solo professional blackjack
player
Blackjack
Autumn
is a must read for any player who’s ever considered playing blackjack for a
living. Publisher of a monthly
horse racing newsletter and a casual but skilled card counter for over 20 years,
Barry Meadow puts together an $8000 bankroll, arranges to take 60 days off from
his business, and heads for Nevada with the objective of playing in every casino
in the State. As you read further into this list you will realize that I
like blackjack stories and Meadow has plenty to tell from his 60-day caper.
And he tells them with charm and wit.
Consider: “As I walk the
floor of the Owl Club, I assess the situation.
Here I am in some godforsaken, trailer-filled town playing in a four-deck
game with bad rules, joined by two poor players, with a half dozen drunks at the
bar and one guy playing quarter video poker.
Surely professional gambling can’t have much less glamour than this.”
And it only gets better as Meadow wanders through casinos from Las Vegas
northwest to Reno, stopping along the way in such out-of-the-way places as
Beatty, Hawthorne, and then continuing on from Reno to Winnemucca (where he does
split a pair of tens as the subtitle indicates) and then East to Wells, South to
Ely, back South to “Glitzville” and then completing the circuit in Laughlin
having played in 192 casinos and won over $21,000 (I suspect most of this was
won in the single- and double-deck games which are favorable to card counters).
Meadow tells about the life in real terms:
The huge swings in his bankroll, the loneliness of cheap motel rooms, the
bad buffets, the heat from the pit bosses, the fear about getting barred from
play and of getting rolled for his bankroll, fighting to get a good game and a
decent betting spread, and the nagging question of “why am I doing this?”
Meadow
has the knack of pulling the reader right into his blackjack sessions and his
adventures along the way. In fact,
about half way through the book, somewhere East of Winnemucca, I began to get
bored with the book, just as Barry was bored with his play and his travels.
On his way home, he sums it up: “Once
the trip had seemed like a great adventure, but by the end it had simply become
a burden. In those last days,
rather than thinking of casinos as exciting vacation destinations, I thought of
them as items on an unpleasant to-do list.”
Meadows opening epithet sums up his feelings (and mine) about Las Vegas,
about Nevada, and about the casinos and casino personnel:
“It’s all about the Benjamins, baby.”
Even
if you have no inclination whatsoever to turn professional, I recommend strongly
that you read this book.
Position 2: Uston, Ken. Two Books On Blackjack. Originally published in 1979. Out of Print, but copies can be found on the Internet.
Reason
for inclusion on list: (1) A veritable history of Atlantic City blackjack in
1979 when the “candy store” was open for business; (2) excellent instruction
for recreational players; (3) great pictures of Kenny in his glory days
Two
Books On Blackjack
is really two books in one: (1) An
adventure book titled One-Third Of A Shoe, and (2) an instruction book
titled How You Can Win At Blackjack In Atlantic City and Nevada.
The
One-third of a Shoe portion of this book is Kenny telling the day-by-day story
of forming Team 5 and playing during these halcyon days (Teams 1 – 4 were
described in his first book, The Big Player).
He describes the problems of selecting and deciding on the Team Members,
of deciding on the size of the bank and the bet size, of the Team almost
disintegrating before it even began play because of a personality clash.
He
takes the reader along with him on a wild 9-day ride – the wins, the losses,
the bankroll swings, the first double of a $60,000 bank, the encounters with the
casino bosses and the other teams, the media attention, and the inevitable day
when the fun had to end (“Black Tuesday”).
His Team 5 ended up with a win, after expenses, of about $145,000.
And memories they will cherish for a lifetime (unfortunately Kenny’s
lifetime ended just seven short years later, he died of unknown causes).
But
this history of Atlantic City blackjack is only part of this wonderful book.
The other half is a how to book containing instruction for learning basic
strategy including flash cards, some interesting facts about card counting and a
discussion of some common misconceptions and commonly asked questions.
I was hanging out with Kenny Uston in the late 70s when Two Books On Blackjack was conceived, written and published (Link to stories below).
For the "rest of the story" - - - -
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