"Spread The Truth:
Regarding Hatchet Job Reviews
Placed By Dubious Sources On Amazon.com"

by Richard Harvey

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but sometimes lame criticism from jealous competitors is the sincerest verification of the power of something new.

For instance, let's look at the thinly-veiled criticism from dubious sources on Amazon.com's listing of my book, Cutting Edge Blackjack. Because Amazon steadfastly refuses to police its open-door policy of allowing competing authors and other malicious writers to post lies under fictitious names in order to hurt books that threaten them (a practice unveiled in a New York Times piece one or two years ago), I would like to ask your help.

First, examine the works of “genius” among the one-star reviews. Form your own conclusions as to what their motivations are.

The interesting thing is that any “details” purportedly from my book in these reviews are outright lies. In other words, they have nothing to do with the content of my book!

Case in point: the Einstein who hides behind the anonymous name, “A Reader.” He writes:

“It says obvious things that most players already know: for example, that even when the dealer has a 6 there's less than a 50% chance of him busting. On the other hand, it gives advice on how to count other player's face-down cards. This is odd because the book never covers counting itself! Apparently he uses a simple hi/low count, but who can tell? It cetainly [sic] doesn't cover strategy changes based on count. Therefore it's bad for both beginners and advanced players.”

Number one: Regarding the dealer's 6, how this Einstein places me on an Old School approach is curious. Einstein conveniently ignores the fact that I'm contradicting this approach! Cutting Edge Blackjack introduced the fact that dealer up cards have constantly varying busting rates. And I give a method to deal with those variances. I guess he had to pretend I was advocating Old School simplistic notions because he's a simpleton who cannot adequately contest what's really in my book.

Number two: I CRITICIZE the Hi-Low card counting method in this book! So how can he claim I'm USING it???

Another “genius” writes:

“The Circle of 13 seems to be ingeniously written- but all its hyped up to be are spreadsheets on probablities [sic] to win or bust on hands.”

NO. It's simply a learning tool for newcomers to state-of-the-art blackjack, to get them thinking properly.

He goes on: “Another issue I had is this model doesn't give much emphasis on hi-low card-counting, a system that I religiously rely on whenever I play.”

OK! So he's a died-in-the-wool Old Schooler, using a faulty and antiquated card counting method that's nearly 50 years old! And -by the way; let me make this clear: he's wrong, too, to say that I don't "give much emphasis on hi-low card-counting." The truth is: I give NO emphasis at all to it. As I mentioned above, if I mention it, it's only to criticize it for its being antiquated, faulty and ineffective.

The MIT teams used this. In Bringing Down The House by Ben Mezrich, they admitted that the Hi-Low system was so inefficient (they said it gave them a measly 2% advantage over the house) that they had to make enormous bets in order to profit from it. Read it for yourself.

Another coward, also calling himself “A Reader,” says “Progressions Are A Scam.” The only problem with this remark is that Cutting Edge Blackjack has NOTHING to do with progressions!

I guess those who fear this book (competitors and those who don't want you to win) have to criticize it for things that are NOT in it because they can't formulate an intelligent response to the powerful innovations that ARE in it – innovations which have made the game much more winnable and have been praised by many gaming experts and players (see www.blackjacktoday.com for just a sample).

Another writer, in a tome called “When I play blackjar [sic]”: “… when I opened this book at B&N for a quick scan...there it is...don't play at tables where the other players don't play correctly, and a long senseless explanation as to why this would hurt your chances.”

If this genius ever took the time to actually read the book, perhaps he'd get beyond a simpleton's view based upon a misimpression. I don't even know what he's referring to!

Clearly there's a malicious motivation here that he (whoever he truly is) is not brave enough to state. Who are you, writer, and what makes you so angry that you'd criticize this book with misinformation and malice?

A favor to ask of you: Since the false information in these reviews can be damaging, can I ask those of you who've found Cutting Edge Blackjack to be helpful to post your own reviews on Amazon?

I'm not telling you to write – except that it be the truth . Let's get the truth out. Many thanks and God Bless.

(And, until Amazon agrees to remove these offensive and malicious reviews placed anonymously by those who have not even read my books, I encourage you to buy my books from other fine booksellers and dot-coms, such as Barnes & Noble and Borders, those who respect authors. I don't see how Amazon could object to this favor that I ask of you. After all, don't they allow competing authors to trash my books as pretend "reviewers" and suggest that Amazon's customers buy their books and not mine?)

NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER:
The views expressed above are those of Mr. Harvey's and not necessarily our own. However, it should be noted that we have attempted on numerous occasions to get Amazon to change its policy of allowing competing authors and others with a motive to trash our books anonymously and maliciously, and they have persistently ignored our requests that they police their reviewers. We feel this does a disservice to all authors and we urgently ask Amazon to update itself and remove its open-door policy allowing fraudulent and harmful lies to be posted under the guise of being those of an impartial and intelligent reader-reviewer.
While Amazon's policy of allowing anyone to post criticism for any motivation and without a shred of truth is now glaringly wrong, we understand the time in which this innovation was instituted. Amazon's motivation initially was pure in trying this noble experiment.
We respectfully suggest, however, that the time and place for this idea has come and gone. It has not worked and will not work. In fairness to all authors, it must be stopped.
In the meantime, we would be glad to open a dialog with Amazon on this subject; we've attempted this for years. The invitation is still open.
We apologize to Amazon if they feel Mr. Harvey went over the top with his reaction to what he perceives as their unfeeling reaction to hurtful pretend reviewers. However, Amazon must understand that it is causing real pain and real harm by its open-door "reviews" policy and is perceived as being callous by authors when it ignores all pleas to remove offensive, false and malicious diatribes that pretend to be "reviews" by uninterested parties, and it continues to enable the malicious to do their dirty deeds by posting anonymous hatchet jobs with false claims.
We do agree with Mr. Harvey, however, in that if Amazon argues it has the right to continue to post these dubious-source "reviews," Mr. Harvey should have the right to post his opinion (which he is unable to do on Amazon's site, ironically enough) here.