The ULTIMATE And ONLY
|
|
Borders Blast
It was standing room only crowd at my book event at Borders Books & Music in Meriden (CT) yesterday and they sold out of two of my four titles (Blackjack The SMART Way and Cutting Edge Blackjack). I didn't take a head count (I should have), but I believe there were about 40-50 people there, not counting those who straggled in occasionally, unaware an event was going on. People were crowded in the aisles, some were nearly out the door of the store, and some were behind me, trying to get close. I felt very honored that they endured the standing room only conditions and stayed for the duration of the 2+ hours event. They raptly listened and had lots of questions, based upon the misconceptions they had learned from Old School books. I'll discuss some of that in my advice blog shortly. The sooner we clear up these misconceptions, the sooner everyone can play blackjack on a higher, more cutting edge level. OK - my point is: It was a great, fun, live-wire crowd, but what I really want to tell you is that so many of those who came signed up to be on a seminar waiting list that I might very well do a blackjack seminar soon, and in Connecticut. So, if you're interested in attending, please email my publisher as soon as possible. You can do that from this web site. Give them your name, street address, phone number and email address. They usually book my seminars purely from their waiting list and this is probably your only opportunity to get in. (Mystic Ridge Books sponsors my seminars and they usually charge between $400-$500 for a full-day's seminar, depending on the cost of putting on the seminar in each location, which is reasonable given what others charge for professional seminars these days, and how much you'll learn.) (Casino representatives are regrettably not invited to attend, to protect my career and the careers of those attending. This policy will be in effect as long as casinos continue to claim the right to bar winning players. For that reason, there is a simple screening process you must agree to go through in order to attend. Please read the seminar page information.) Heads Up It was a busy week for media interviews. Was on the Sebastian In The Morning Show on WCCC 106.9 FM for a lengthy interview (and Sebastian later came to my Borders book event in Meriden, CT). His show one of the best in Connecticut. High energy. Not sure, but you might be able to access the interview online (?). Was also on Mary Jones' show, on the Talk of Connecticut stations. She's very personable and does a great interview. Also did a lengthy interview with the Meriden Record-Journal, resulting in a very nice piece by Jesse Stanley. I also just taped a guest appearance on the nationally-syndicated Erskine Overnight show for broadcast this weekend. If you miss it, you can access the interview from Erskine's web site. Erskine is a national treasure. He goes where few talk show hosts go and brings out the best in you. He's a fabulous interviewer and he does his research, so his questions bring out important points. He gave me lots of time and we covered a lot of ground. You might want to catch the interview online. "Once Bitten" Players I was doing a newspaper interview today in a coffee shop and an interested blackjack player broke in. "What do tell players to do if they have a hand of 12 points against the dealer's 4 through 6? Do you say they should always stand? Because when I stand the dealer never busts. So now I hit those hands." And he had other questions along these lines. "Do you tell players to always split Aces, because when I do that, I always get two low cards. So now, I just hit those hands." This is what I call a "once bitten" player (as in: "once bitten, twice shy."). On the one hand, they're operating on hunches and homemade voodoo strategy. On other other, they're expressing a deep mistrust of Old School blackjack methods - whether they recognize this or not. The simplistic Old School strategies, which give players a "one-size-fits-all" one-move solution to any situation, have bitten them in the butt and they're afraid to go there anymore. So, based on a dog bite, they're afraid of petting any dogs and they go their own way, without a clue as to go about determining correct strategies. They simply make it up as they go along, based upon one or more bad experiences. One answer to this type of player is: "You don't ALWAYS do anything. There is no one-size-fits-all approach that works. You need to analyze the cards in any given situation to determine what's the smartest way to go." Another answer is: "Although you've correctly found that Old School strategies often don't make any sense, you cannot simply make up your own homemade strategies on the fly. It takes years of proper research and development to invent a better way to play." I spent more than 10 years doing R&D. It's grueling work and few have the patience, training or gumption to do this. Why so many players think they can just pull a rabbit out of a hat at the table and come up with answers that require a deep knowledge of card behavior and blackjack's mathematical ins and outs is beyond me. The other answer dog-bitten players need explained is this: "You cannot draw intelligent conclusions from one round of experience. Plus - just because you lost doing one move in one round of action doesn't mean that you made the wrong move. Most every smart move will lose a certain percentage of times. You play the percentages - choosing the move that either: a) has the best likelihood of winning; or b) has the best chance of cutting your losses (in a losing situation - such as, commonly, with a 16 point hand versus the dealer's 10)." Yes, I can understand players' frustrations with Old School blackjack. But the solution is not attempting to recreate the wheel. Coming up with a scientific approach to the game is not for the feint of heart, or those without the stamina and training to do proper research. For that's where the Old School researchers went wrong - they wanted a quick and simplistic conclusion to their efforts, without regard to the results. Poker vs. Blackjack Practically every poker player, in every poker book, says the same thing. That's why I love blackjack. It's a different game. Well...when you use a state-of-the-art system. And, using my scientific loss limits methods and following my overall system as I advise, you will never risk going broke. Early on in my playing days I realized the need to develop a scientific loss-limit method. Card strategy only goes so far. If you don't know when to stop playing, and if you don't know when the cards are bad, you're looking for trouble. Trouble is, I could not find a book that presented an intelligent loss-limit system; and, actually, most completely ignored this area. And - don't even email me the platitudes that some may have mentioned. Soft soap won't do it. No homespun mother's milk or folk wisdom will protect you when it comes to cutting your losses. It didn't come easy, the development of scientific loss limit methods (I offer several approaches, based upon a player's skill level). It has to be based on true card behavior and what it means. And it has to start with the intricate study of losing cycles. What causes them? And how long do they last? And how low is low? My first question was: Is there a point of no return (and P.S., there is, and I found it!). Hell - how can the Old School talk to this issue when they don't even acknowledge that such a thing exists, losing cycles? Because they're lost in their mental-masturbatory world of random number generators, they're blind to the true world of cards. That's what happens when a researcher falls in love with his computer to the extent that he gets lazy and does not obtain the proper real-world data for his research. In the world of blackjack, the proper data is that produced by real dealers, shuffling, dealing and collecting the cards the way they do at real casinos. Don't talk to me about "simulations." That's code for: "I didn't do my homework as a researcher. I didn't take the time to collect proper data." By the way, there was a woman in the news recently who obviously did not use my system. She's suing the casinos for losing millions of dollars - some of which she allegedly stole to fund her habit. I feel terribly sorry for her. Yet, that's why I'm so adamant about players needing loss-limits methods - methods I insist must be a part of your game. I developed them for myself, years before I even contemplated writing a book. If you are unaware of this concept, back off and get up to snuff. You're totally exposed without this aspect of a state-of-the-art player's overall approach to the game. I've said this many times, but it still seems to escape the Old School writers: many things go into winning at blackjack (unlike what those guys in the Ivory Towers and those who never leave the glow of their computer screens say). One of the essentials hardly ever discussed is loss limits. But, of course, you need to know something about card behavior before you can: a) discuss this intelligently; and b) come up with a proper way to deal with the vagaries of the cards. And the Old School types can only speak to the realities produced by their computer's random number generator, which "simulates" the game in a wholly inadequate and unreal fashion. They cannot speak with any intelligence about card behavior because they spent their time scrupulously avoiding the handling of cards in doing their research (if they did any; most writers today just quote the faulty random-number-generated studies of the past). I think any system without a scientific loss-limit method is irresponsible (or blind to the real risks that face the true player). Because the sad truth is the poor woman suing the casinos isn't alone. Oh no. She's the tip of the iceberg. I just noticed the other day that there's a guy hawking a new book on how much money he lost using the Old School methods. He's trying to warn people away from becoming a card counter. Good for him. The Old School methods (basic strategy and card counting) - apart from being highly ineffective (to be kind) and faulty - show no awareness about how to lessen a player's risk factor. Indeed, the MIT guys admitted that the Hi-Lo card counting system they used provided such a horrible return that it demanded they incur a monumental amount of financial risk. No matter. According to them, they used Other People's Money. Call me old-fashioned, but I think anyone designing a blackjack system must take a player's risk factor into account. I consciously designed my system to be conservative (and this, again, was initially just for myself, not for others). Not the profit end of things, but the loss end of things - in other words, you cannot allow the bad cards or the losing sessions to wipe away but a fraction of what you make in winning sessions. And if you use the right system, your winning sessions will greatly outnumber your losing sessions. On a side note, I had to laugh recently. I read another Old School blah-blah-blah column in which the "pundit" said something like: "The goal is not to win more hands..." Well, if that's not the goal, buddy, what is??? Welcome To The Machine The words still ring in my ear: "Yeah, right!" the newspaper editor said to my publisher. (Paraphrasing here, because I didn't hear the conversation first-hand.) "We should teach our readers how to win at blackjack! The casinos will really like that!" That was his response to the suggestion that his paper carry my column. Yet, here comes this blackjack movie, "21," the "fact-based" (using the words of one newspaper, meant to gloss over the fact that it was fiction-infused) story intended to mythologize the MIT teams (in the author's words - in the same breath he admitted loosely adhering to the facts)...and this very same newspaper and many others nationwide dutifully played the role of the publicist's parrot, disgorging shameless PR-style claptrap meant to send you all scurrying to buy tickets to see the movie. Makes you wonder. If casinos don't want you to know what I know - and they use editors as their gatekeepers, to essentially blacklist my columns - but don't mind the promotion of a movie glorifying (faulty) Old School blackjack methods...what do you think that says? I'll let you put two and two together. I Don't Get It Apropos of what I blogged five days before, the word is out: the story of the MIT blackjack teams apparently is a mix of fact and fiction. In a (glowing) boston.com article, for instance, it says this about Bringing Down The House author Ben Mezrich: "He makes no claims that his volume is a scrupulously chronicled account. Rather, Mezrich said he is more interested in the mythic aspect of kids taking on and beating the system, a central theme of his other works." (In other words, he actively created a "myth" to make these guys seem like demi-gods.) Say what?! Prior to that admission, the article notes Mezrich changed "details." "Enter Mezrich," the reporter writes," a Harvard grad and fiction writer who'd penned a few pulpy thrillers. He was introduced to Ma at a party, recognized the narrative potential of Ma's high-stakes escapades, changed names and details , and scored a book deal." Honestly - did Mezrich previously warn readers of this? Did the book warn readers it was part fairy tale? And if it didn't, isn't the statement that “He makes no claims that his volume is a scrupulously chronicled account” untrue? These teams are being celebrated based upon the information presented by this book, which everyone took to be the God's honest truth. So, what exactly, was the truth? And should we not at least tame down the celebrations, given the new revelations? I don't care what the subject is - politics...the weather. I demand to know when a book or story is true or not. Don't sell me horsepoop and later say, "Oh yeah, it wasn't all true, by the way." Players are now hiring these guys as blackjack experts, to teach them how to play, based upon what they read in Bringing Down The House. People are emulating their methods based upon what they read (methods that are old and faulty and are not to be emulated). Why am I the only one apparently upset about this??? Has this world become so vacuous that we need to give ourselves virtual lobotomies so we can ignore inconvenient truths because happy horsepoop is what we now value? What kind of world has this become, when it's more important to sell something than tell the total honest truth, when the publicity machines and book product mix together and truth gets run over - and a whole generation of people celebrate it?! Again - I want to make this clear: from what I can tell, the MIT guys have told the honest truth. (Author Ben Mezrich is the one who apparently decided the truth was too uninteresting and made the decision to mix fiction with fact.) I have no gripe with most of the MIT guys. From what I can tell, they've been largely honest. They even admitted the system they used was NOT created by them; it was the oldy moldy Hi-Lo system, which they said was so ineffective they had to use OPM (other people's money) and make huge risky bets in order to hope to make any profits. And Jeffrey Ma (now running a fantasy sports web site) continued to prove his honesty in this boston.com piece: "With card-counting about to be glamorized in multiplexes across America , is anyone concerned that hacking Vegas will become a recreational pastime? Unlikely, said Ma, who believes the book and movie make the endeavor seem a lot more fun than it actually was. Only with drilling and training does the practice become instinct - and even then, only in the long run do winnings make up for the losses , Ma maintained." OK? Read that carefully. Ma is honest. He says the book and movie were so fictionalized that the story is not what he experienced. Also note his comment on the "losses" they incurred and profits came "only in the long run." (I don't remember this being brought out in the book. Was it? Or was this among the truths conveniently left out?) In fact - if my memory is correct - the MIT guys said that, using OPM, they were each sent to the table with $150K, for each playing session. In other words: this is not a system for the average player, to say the least. The area I disagree with Ma is his assessment on the impact of the book and movie. I do believe the "glamorization" the reporter referred to will send a lot of college kids down the wrong road. That is what's especially shameful about how this book was marketed. I do not recall, in the book or in the promotion of it, a warning that it was a fictionalized account and not to be taken at face value. At this point, I'm really curious as to what was true and what not. It's clear now that the truth has emerged that no one can quote Bringing Down The House as proof of anything, regarding Old School methods. Again - I have nothing against the MIT blackjack teams. These were courageous kids who managed to eke out a profit using very inefficient blackjack strategies (any claims in the book about how much the teams made are now legitimately to be questioned, by the way, given the confessions of the author). No. What upsets me is the publication of untruths when it comes to a serious game where people base monetary decisions on what they read. Blackjack is a serious game, involving hard-earned money. Anyone writing about it should feed readers unadulterated truth. Don't you agree? (And, by the way, another thing college kids and others now eager to emulate the MIT teams need to know is that the methods they used are now horribly out-of-date and no longer state-of-the-art. This is another truth being run over and left for dead. Face it, based upon the author's admissions, I'd have to say that truth was road kill when it came to the promotion and writing of this movie and the book that inspired it. Correct me if I'm wrong.) You Have To Read This While I give credit to the MIT college kids for courageousness and apparent success, I often wonder about the details that have been presented. Always a mystery to me is: if you were making so much money, why'd you quit? (Perhaps when the money was divided among the many players involved, it wasn't really that much, per player, but it's hard to get a handle on this based upon the information that was released.) In an interview with a Vegas TV station, Dave Irvine, one team member was quoted as saying: "We are absolutely retired doing other things." The question is: Why? I'm just curious. Anyway, the thing I need to pass on to you today is something I read in "The Tech" Online - an MIT school publication. In it, they apparently discuss how much truth vs. fiction. was in the book Bringing Down The House by Ben Mezrich, the book that brought fame to the MIT teams. Senior Editor Jillian A. Berry interviewed Mezrich and former MIT team player Jeffrey Ma. I was absolutely floored by the revelation that the book apparently wasn't entirely honest, because I had given the book its due, and taken it on face value. Now I believe we need to ask: What part of the book was fiction?! Ma appears to say 75% was true. Mezrich seems to say maybe 90%. (Read the actual quotes below.) Innocent question: shouldn't ALL of it have been true? Here's the relevant portion of the interview (I've highlighted the significant quotes with italics, bolded words and underlining): "TT: Jeff, how much of the book is true to your story? JM: I always tell people about 75 percent because the reality is Ben and I sat down for three weeks everyday for about two or three hours and I told him every story I remembered from the times in Vegas. He took that and turned it into a book … so there are little things that he did take some liberties with . But in general, the spirit of it is dead on … I bet you wouldn't actually be able to guess what didn't happen and what did happen because the truth is that whole cliché: the truth is stranger than fiction. BM: The other thing is that the MIT Blackjack team has been in existence for 25 years. There's a lot in the book that's true that didn't necessarily happen to Jeff. So I would say more like 90% of the book is true to the stories of the MIT Blackjack team." OK. So I ask you: isn't this vaguely disturbing? Makes you wonder: why the need for padding the truth? Was it not interesting enough? Were their gains not high enough? What, exactly, did Ben Mezrich fabricate in telling this story??!!
Promotional Geniuses, Maybe Well, the Columbia Pictures publicity machine is pumping hard its blend of fact and fiction in its attempt to make the upcoming Kevin Spacey blackjack movie, "21," a hit. And that's all well and good. Anything to make blackjack even more popular is fantastic. But let's stick to the truth here. I don't mind them conning the public, but serious blackjack players should know the truth about the MIT teams - especially if you're considering using the oldy-moldy inefficient and faulty Hi-Lo card counting system they used. Here's an example of the hype I read today regarding a MySpace promotion for the movie: Commenting on the announcement, Dwight Caines, executive vice president, worldwide digital marketing strategy, said, "Every year, millions of people travel to Las Vegas in the hopes of winning big. Most leave town licking their wounds and counting their losses, but '21' is inspired by the true story of a team of players from M.I.T., real geniuses, who used their powers and skills to beat Vegas at its own game. With this widget, users can experience the excitement of blackjack and become experts in Vegas' only beatable game." Where's the hype? In his claim these guys were "real geniuses." If you read the books on the MIT teams and saw the TV documentaries, one thing is clear: these guys never claimed to be geniuses, nor did they ever claim to have come up with their own way of playing the game. So I have no fault with them. They admitted to using the half-century-old Hi-Lo system; and they admitted it was terribly ineffective. They confessed that it gave them a lousy 2% advantage. As a result, they said they had to place horribly high bets on the table in order to hope to profit from that system. Each player, if my memory is correct, was sent to the table with $150,000! (And - correct me if I'm wrong - to play at a level like this, they needed a millionaire to fund their exploits; or, at least, an outside sponsor.) Not to take anything away from any of my fellow blackjack players - clearly this is the not the work of "real geniuses," but of courageous college kids who labored with an ineffective blackjack approach and managed to make some money. If you try to button down just how much each player made, you'll have a bit of a hard time. The numbers seem to vary depending on who makes the claims. Not to say they didn't make money; I'll accept that as the truth. What I'm not sure about is how much each player made. According to my best calculations, it seemed as if no one player made anywhere near a million dollars. But I'm willing to stand corrected - if one of these guys wants to come clean on the actual, substantiated figures (per player). This notwithstanding, what I want everyone to understand is that any blackjack player deserves our collegial support. However, if you're trying to decide what method to use, you must not be conned by the hype the publicity guys are using to sell this movie. The system the MIT fellows used is not to be used anymore; it is far from state-of-the-art and it requires a high risk and huge capital outlay for a small payoff. Why use this system when I've developed - principally for my own use but also yours - so many much more precise methods; and when I've uncovered, through 10+ years of intense blackjack, card behavior and shuffling research (including computer analyses of card data), so many new phenomena and discoveries from which you can profit?! This may sound self-serving, but, please - go to the library and pick up Cutting Edge Blackjack for starters. Then tell me if you don't think it's the number one, most state-of-the-art blackjack book and system on the market today - as so many blackjack insiders have said it is. Put yourself in my shoes. It frustrates me to see the Old School machinery plow over the truth. The book sales are already there - Blackjack The SMART Way and Cutting Edge Blackjack are best-sellers and are among the few blackjack books you'll find on bookstore shelves these days, surviving the poker craze. I'm not saying this out of a need to pump sales. I'm saying this to get the word out, for your own good: sure, emulate the MIT guys if you want. Form your own teams if you want; but use the right system, the most state-of-the-art approach available today - one that allows you to use your own money (and doesn't require crazy sums of money on any one bet) and gives you a much more precise card and betting strategy, with a much higher rate of profit. That's all I'm saying. The MIT teams came before the first of my four books came out. They didn't have the advantage of the breakthroughs that came from my years of scientific research and development. And - by the way: with my innovations team play is no longer necessary. That concept was developed to get around the Old School methods' ineffectiveness. Do your own research. You'll see that's the truth. Close Your Eyes I love this quote on the "wizard of odds" site, regarding the strategy he promotes as if it's so fabulous nothing comes close: "The most important thing to know about blackjack is the basic strategy. This strategy is simply the best way to play every possible situation, without any knowledge of the distribution of the rest of the cards in the deck." [my italics] Without any knowledge of the distribution of the rest of the cards in the deck??? This guy's asking you to close your eyes and not look at the cards on the table! No one can play a good game if you don't: a) look at the cards that have been dealt; b) think about what's been dealt, to have a "knowledge of the distribution of the rest of the cards in the deck." This is a basic requirement of playing any game properly!! Yet he's giving you a system that's the "best" for those too stupid to look at the cards and make intelligent decisions!!! Perhaps he's assuming you're too stupid. I don't mean to single out the "wizard." He's an example of the lunacy behind all of the Old School systems. All Old School writers ask you to check your brain at the door. Why are even neophyte poker players smarter than these blackjack guys who say they're experts? For example, the neophyte poker player knows you have to look at the cards. You cannot be ignorant "of the distribution of the rest of the cards in the deck" and play a good game. To give you a poker analogy (hang in there with me) - if you get "Big Slick," an Ace and King, as your hole cards in Texas Hold'Em, that's potentially a great hand. Yet, all great poker books tell you it all depends on what comes next - what the "flop" is (the three common cards dealt face-up on the table, shared by all the players). In other words: "Big Slick" could in fact be "Big Sick" if the flop comes down 7-8-9, or the three flop cards are of the same suit and your cards are not of that suit. Given these flops, the supposedly great hand would be folded because another player (akin to blackjack's dealer, in that in poker the other players are your opponents) is likely to have you beat: with a straight, in the first example (the 7-8-9), or a flush (in the second, with all flop cards of the same suit not reflecting what you're holding). In other words: a smart, state-of-the-art card player watches what cards were dealt and adjusts his strategy accordingly. You can tell, by looking at the cards, whether: a) your first two cards are any good anymore; and b) you're beat (and you need to creatively cut your losses) or you need to adjust your strategy to attempt to win. Is there an analogous situation in blackjack? Many! For example: you get two Aces. The Old Schoolers scream: ALWAYS split Aces! How foolish! When you split Aces, you are only given one card upon each new hand. If low cards are overdue, you will end up with two crappy hands. (The same thing is true with the "Big Slick" of blackjack: the 11-point hand, often worth doubling on. But not when low cards are overdue. Again, when you double, you get just one extra card; if it's a low one, you now have a crappy hand with TWICE the amount you'd originally bet on it in a losing situation! When low cards are overdue, by the way, this is also true: the dealer is highly likely to achieve a winning score.) And - unlike what the "wizard" suggests - if your eyes are open, you can figure out when those low cards are likely to come. So why ignore the evidence? (It's interesting, but this self-styled "wizard" doesn't promote the Old School's other notable but faulty creation, card counting. He writes: "Let me say loud and clear that card counting is hard and is not as rewarding as television and the movies make it out to be." Again. All I have to do is quote the Old Schoolers and you can see that what I'm saying is true. They admit it themselves.)
Insights Into How The Old School Blackjack Approach Went Wrong And: The Press' Complicity In This post dovetails nicely with my last post, because here you have, once again, a newspaper who doesn't seem to care about the truth. But that's just part of this story. The story-behind-the-story is also about how non-players with mistaken notions of the game were behind the creation of the Old School systems still being hawked today, and how the press is complicit in propagating methods only a casino could love. And, finally this is a story about how the Old School blackjack crowd's publicity machine plows over the truth. I reveal all of this not to be nasty but to shine the light for players who must have the truth in order to decide what system to put faith in, with their money riding on the line. I'm referring to a piece that appeared in the Boston Globe on February 20th, 2008 called "Getting a Hand: They Wrote The First Book But Never Cashed In." Well, you might say...this story seems to be about some guys who really got a bum deal! No fame or fortune from "the first book" on blackjack! Poor guys! But let's examine this further, to discover where the truth really lies. First of all, the game (originally vingt et un, or 21, invented in France) dates back to the 1600s or earlier. Let's not claim this was the "first book." Or even the first good book. Second, why the headline and the breathless big deal promotion of all of this when the fact is what the article is really about is a losing system!!! The guys involved ADMITTED their system was a loser, in this article (keep reading). Yet their book, Playing Blackjack to Win (interesting title, given their confessions that it's a losing system) - is about to be re-released! Go figure! Who is behind all of this? Continue reading and tell me if this is a book that you feel is worth re-issuing! With all due respect, this book, published in 1957 and written by (as the article puts it) "an oddball mix of academics and amateur card enthusiasts matching wits with the gambling establishment - yet never cashing in by beating the casinos at their own game," really epitomizes the Old School ethic: that of the non-player or sometime amateur neophyte doing quick, lazy and faulty blackjack research, producing strategies that don't really work. Typical of many Old School blackjack writers, the four behind this book all but forgot about blackjack after the book came out, going on to other things that really held their interest. And, again, don't take my word for it. This is how Baldwin put it: "As I said in my [Vegas] speech, my knowledge of blackjack ended with the first edition of Beat the Dealer." (That came out in 1962.) This pattern has continued to this day - with psychologists, mathematicians, newsletter writers and other non-players or sometime amateurs (most not even rising to the level of a wannabe) spending some of their spare time compounding mistake after mistake in their lazy investigations into a game that they don't care enough to play very much, if at all. And they think all it takes to produce a winning strategy is simple math based upon a simple (and faulty) application of statistics. (Wrong.) But, again, the good part is: most of these writers admit their short-comings, if you read their words carefully enough. (As I've demonstrated over and over again…and as you'll see below.) Yet this is the bad part: in spite of these admissions of their shortcomings, they write books as if they know something worth passing on! I would think that if you fail to unravel the mystery of the game with a clearly winning strategy you wouldn't have the balls to put out a book urging players to use your system! Worse yet - the press then gets in bed with them, pretending their work is something hot, worth getting excited over. In this Globe piece, the reporter writes: " Baldwin [one of the four Army buddies behind the book] thought it possible to lower the dealer's advantage (around 5 percent) by formulating a betting strategy based on precise mathematical modeling." Precise mathematical modeling? How can it be precise? This is just the kind of bull that ticks me off. How can this be true, when Baldwin admits to the reporter: "I calculated the house still had the advantage in the long run." [my italics] One of his co-authors agrees with that admission: "Maisel agrees. 'In statistical terms, we still had a negative expectation ,' he says. 'Unless you got lucky, you'd still lose in the long run .'" [my italics] Great! It's a losing system. They said it. I don't have to prove it. …And someone in the publishing industry thought their book was worth re-printing??? Go figure! Nothing against these guys, personally – I'm sure they're nice fellows and they were well-meaning when they wrote this book. But – this is akin to a book that teaches you how to build and fly an exact replica of the Hindenburg (under the title: "The Best Way To Fly")! Either way, you go down in flames! Now, don't get me wrong. I mean no disrespect. These four Army buddies, as they're described, were sincere (but lazy-minded) in their little game of trying to figure out blackjack and their venture was, on the surface, a noble one. But their endeavor was not interesting or worth noting. It ended in failure, if truth be told. For let's put this in its proper perspective: what they came up with was the wrong way to play. Again - I don't have to prove this. Maisel says: "we still had a negative expectation ." As far as their being non-players, I am not pulling that assertion out of my butt. Here is how the Globe reporter described them: "They met in the early 1950s as Army enlistees at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland . McDermott and Baldwin had done graduate work in mathematics at Columbia University . Maisel, who later taught computer science at Georgetown University , was part of a team assigned to analyze such problems as weapons trajectory. Cantey, a sergeant, was the ranking officer among the foursome and its only African-American. Baldwin and Cantey were card players as well, mostly of the penny-ante variety. During a game of dealer's choice, blackjack was called. Baldwin knew the game's basics - players try to draw hands totaling as close to 21 points as possible, without going over - but did not know that casinos forced dealers to draw on 16 (or less) and hold on 17 (or more) ." [my italics] Even the one guy with some knowledge of the game did not know its essentials! He did not know casinos forced dealers to draw on 16 and stay on 17! This is clearly a non-player!!! Must I say more?! And the reporter wrote that McDermott, in Vegas to be inducted into the Blackjack Hall of Fame, was not interested in playing blackjack! I quote: "In Vegas, where casinos take a vigilant (and aggressive) stance toward card counters, he didn't play even a single hand of blackjack. 'I've mostly forgotten how,' McDermott says." (Gimme a break! I'm an advantage player, and I've run into heat from time to time, but is that a reason NOT to play the game? It's not THAT bad!!! What on Earth does McDermott think will happen if he sits down to play? And if he feels it's that scary, maybe he shouldn't agree to re-issue his book, as is. Maybe he and his buddies should warn people away from the game, if this is the true way they feel. I mean - what is it, folks??? Should people play blackjack or not? And if you're not playing or using your system, why are you telling others how to play the game?) …Now, having been a reporter, this makes me wonder why the Globe reporter didn't put 2 and 2 together. Why, after listening to their stories of how they came up with a losing system, and their admissions of not being true players, did he then cast them in such a glowing light and not question why their book was being re-issued? Did his editor tell him to make this a puff piece and spin the truth, turn negative into positive? This is a story about guys who momentarily dabbled in blackjack research but who didn't play the game, don't now play the game, don't use their own system, and who – apparently, according to McDermott - might even think you SHOULDN'T play the game! I'm writing about all of this because I feel it's my duty to show you the lunacy that's behind the creation of Old School blackjack. Don't you think you should know all of this - BEFORE you decide to put your money down on their methods? I think anyone who writes a blackjack book should put their money where their mouth is. If you can't get behind it, don't hawk the book. Anyway...Interestingly enough, in this article it was said that Edward Thorp, the one-time MIT professor who teamed up with IBM 's Julian Braun to write Beat The Dealer (who, if my memory serves me correctly, admitted in his book to playing blackjack a sum total of two weeks of his life) - a well-meaning and highly intelligent mathematician and brilliant Wall Street investor, but NOT a blackjack player - credited Baldwin et. al.'s book with producing the foundation that underlies Beat The Dealer . Again - here's a non-player basing his book on the work of other non-players, one result of which was that he made faulty assumptions about how to go about research and the production of a meaningful game strategy and went down the wrong path of doing a simplistic global statistical study. (You can't succeed in producing an effective blackjack system by summing up millions of pretend rounds of blackjack and then doing a simplistic statistical study. And you especially can't succeed if this is done with pretend numbers – that is, the use of dealer busting rates as if they're constants, which they're not. (See Cutting Edge Blackjack for details of how dealer up card busting rates constantly vary. As scientists, mathematicians and researchers, Thorp, Baldwin and their crowd should have recognized they were trying to force a square box into a round hole; that they did not have “constants” in dealer busting rates, and therefore their equations could not work in producing a precise and accurate game strategy.)) Now, what's up with this? Do you know of any other field of pursuit whose "experts" did not partake in that field of endeavor??? Now, as a side note, I know I will never be inducted into the Blackjack Hall of Fame (as Baldwin et. al. just were) because I dare to say the emperor has no clothes, but that's of no concern to me. Tens of thousands of players who have read my books, taken my seminars, etc., love my system know what I'm telling you is true, and I think it's important that someone tells you the truth. Some of those involved in the late great Ken Uston's blackjack teams of the 70s and 80s, for instance, have come to my book events and seminars and praised my work – two of whom told me my system was “the best system” in the world today, “by far.” This is not a lack of respect on my part for those who went before me. Frankly, I thought the Old School writers would hail my historic breakthroughs, insights into the game, shuffling and card behavior, and state-of-the-art game strategy developments, just as people in any other field welcome progress. But, unlike true players, who did hail my breakthroughs, because they're out their playing and want the best, most state-of-the-art methods and insights available, the Old School writers only saw me as a threat to the sale of their books. So they circled their wagons. Apparently all they cared about was that I had now made their work obsolete and they might not be able to hawk their books. Sad that blackjack is the one field where progress is stifled - for financial reasons and pettiness. Players and objective insiders universally hailed my work from the get-go. Only the tiny bunch who'd laid down the "law" for how they thought you should play were anything but excited about it. Instead, they were petty and some got nasty. That crowd reminds me of the guy who ran the U.S. Patent Office in the late 1890s, who shut it down because he felt everything a human could possible invent had been invented! Because you will never read, in an Old School book or column, anything that didn't date back to the 1950s and 60s. They're just regurgitating the “technology” of that day and have blinded themselves to anything new. They deny there could be anything better and refuse to acknowledge anything that could be better. The beauty part is all I have to do is quote them to make my point - to help you decide what methods you should use. Again, someone needs to tell you the truth. It's your money. An Interesting Occurrence I got an email from my publisher today with an interesting story. In syndicating my weekly blackjack column, they made a routine phone call to a small city newspaper owner and asked if they'd be interested in carrying my column. The newspaper owner laughed. “Yeah, right!” he sneered. “I bet the casinos would like THAT – teaching our readers how to beat them at blackjack! Ha ha ha ha ha!” There's a lot to be learned in that response. Number one: some newspapers shield you from the truth, to protect their advertising dollars. I think that's shameful. As a former journalist, I can tell you that that's not what a newspaper's interest is supposed to be. Perhaps we ought to start worrying about what our local newspapers are putting out these days. (Yet these same newspapers sometimes take the Old School blackjack writers' columns. You draw your own conclusions.) Number two: his reaction is actually a compliment, and I am going to take it as such. So, Mr. Newspaper Owner: Thanks for vouching for the effectiveness of my methods! (My publisher felt this guy knew who I was – knew my work.) Number three: as you know, many casinos sell basic strategy cards. I've been trying to tell you that they would not do so if that was a winning strategy. Perhaps this guy's decision to censor my input, to blacklist me essentially: a) indicates that the casinos who advertise in his paper have made it clear they don't want any information in it that teaches players how to win at blackjack; b) validates my methods as being superior to what the casinos are selling, and a threat to some of them, for being so effective; and c) lets you know how some casinos feel about players who want to win. Now, some casinos are paranoid in this way and some are not. I was told by one editor who published my articles that he was getting flak from casinos and they wanted him not to air my views anymore. Again – that's certification of the power of the methods and insights that have come from my 10+ years of research and development. Yet, my column is carried in some newspapers with casino advertising and those casinos have not been unkind. (It's interesting to note that the editor who let me know about the casino opposition to my articles worked for a publication who printed the works of many mainstream Old School blackjack types; the casinos had no problem with their articles. I guess the Old School methods – basic strategy and card counting – don't seem to threaten them. They obviously understand that players won't do very well with those methods! Very interesting, don't you think?!) This reminds me of what I taught you in Blackjack The SMART Way, about picking a good casino. Some casinos are player-friendly (and therefore we like to play there) and others treat you like you're a bank robber. Anyway, I thought I'd pass this story along to you. There are a lot of lessons to be learned by it.
The Loser As Expert Syndrome
“You're not one of those guys who lose a lot of money at blackjack and then writes a book about it, are you?” he said, smirking. “Definitely NOT!” I responded. But you can't blame the guy for being skeptical. To paraphrase an Elton John song, it's amazing how much damage a few insects can do. The guy was responding to what is actually a writing genre . Periodically, some writer goes off half-cocked, playing blackjack without a clue, loses a lot of money and then sells an article or book on his blackjack experiences to some gullible magazine or book editor. And it's sold as a cautionary tale. Ooooh! Don't play THAT game! This guy lost! Ooooh! Why is this instructive or interesting? Why some writers think blackjack is a game anyone can play without a shred of knowledge is beyond me. The end result is predictable. It's a predictable disaster. These writers had no business playing blackjack. They had no training, experience, skills. They did not attempt to study the game, find a good system, and then practice until they were ready to go to the casino. And, please, guys. This genre has been done to death! What's the point? Yet when a writer lose all of his money, this supposedly intelligent person is surprised. Then he pronounces the game un-winnable because he, a novice (to be kind), failed to win. And he writes blackjack off as if he's an expert on the game. I have to ask: When did losing make one an expert? Where does this lunacy come from? This takes a lot of gall – to enter into the arena where experts earn their living due to an amazing accumulation of skill and knowledge, as a pretender unworthy of even the title of neophyte, and then diss them all by pretending to be worthy of the challenge, without possessing a shred of skill or knowledge. Would these blackjack losers go one-on-one with Michael Jordan, lose, and then pronounce basketball a waste of time? No. For some reason, they understand how little they deserve to be in that arena. But, when it comes to blackjack, few writers seem to understand the balls it takes to pretend to be a player when they're not. The latest such writer is Brent Kessel, who, in a January 29 th HuffingtonPost.com Opinion piece, pronounced blackjack a losing proposition because he – a non-player – couldn't win. (Actually, his real reason for writing was to drum up business as a stock broker. His argument was that Wall Street is a better bet than blackjack. Really! Interesting time to try to sell that idea!) “I'm standing inside the Wynn Casino in Las Vegas ,” he wrote. “I 've been playing blackjack, and losing quickly. I don't bet a lot, generally the cheapest table in the house, and usually once a year for a couple of hours. But here at the Wynn, the minimum is $15 per hand. I've been getting the worst cards anyone at the table has ever seen. My $200 budget is gone in fifteen minutes.” Well… yeah Brent! I hate to break this to you buddy, but you don't know what you're doing! So why WOULD you win? (And, by the way, $15 is not a big bet. You don't sell $15 stocks, do you?) He continues: “This got me to thinking about the parallels between gambling and money management. Many people like to think that investing in the stock market is just as risky as gambling.” Actually, Brent State-of-the-art game strategy is not gambling. You're disrespecting both the expert player and the game of blackjack when you don't report the truth about the game. I don't care that you're a lazy reporter and you're really only interested in selling stocks. Just don't pretend you know anything about blackjack! The expert card player uses math and a knowledge of card behavior principles, among other things, to beat a winnable game. He then makes this outrageous statement: “Gamblers who play perfectly can generally get to about 49% odds in their favor. If one counts cards in blackjack, and plays perfect strategy, they might get to 51-52% odds in their favor. The odds are about 30% the way most people play, in my estimation. In other words, you're virtually guaranteed to deplete your wealth given enough time. The stock market, by contrast, grows wealth. The market goes up roughly 60% of all trading days. And over the last thirty-five years, the $200 I was willing to lose at the blackjack table would've grown to about $20,000 using a portfolio of index funds I tested.” By “perfectly” he's parroting the Old School types whose 50-year-old methods are antiquated and ineffective. So he obviously hasn't read my books. But that's no excuse. His statement that “you're virtually guaranteed to deplete your wealth” is only true if you don't know how to play. The joke is his claim that “The stock market, by contrast, grows wealth.” I mean, how many seniors do you know whose wealth went the way of Enron?! Let's get real! Suspicious Reader Email Leads To Musings On An Old School Book It's funny. When my first book, Blackjack The SMART Way, came out, I braced myself for all kinds of flak. It was, after all, criticizing the ways of the past and introducing a new (and better) way to play - one that required a change in mindset and the way players looked at the cards. Well, even in Las Vegas, where I (mistakenly) did two seminars and publicity tours of bookstores along with (radio) talk show appearances, the flak never came. The reaction was overwhelmingly and universally positive - that is, among players and non-co-opted industry insiders. The book succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. It was the idea of my friends, who asked me for a "manual" to show them how to win as I did; I had no intention of becoming an author at the time, but the "manual" grew into a book, which became a best-seller and the rest is history. And the universal acceptance and acclaim has remained true in the nearly 10 years since that book first came out. The only occasional glitch has been some nastiness from a few bitter Old School writers and their friends, who are upset their books are no longer relevant. I give you this background, because my publisher passed along an email they received this week which might fit into this category. Not sure, but it does seem strange. Clearly the intent was to make my publisher think less of me, but the writer doesn't understand that my publisher is my most ardent supporter and promoter. In this email, the writer cuts and pastes a parenthetical sentence from this web site (maintained, created by and funded by my publisher, which posts web sites for all its authors) and then poses a strange question. Here it is, in its entirety (the reader's comment and anonymous sign-off is in italics): "(This just in: Because of the respect of those in the blackjack industry for Richard Harvey's contributions to the game, he has received the honor of receiving an unsolicited invitation to compete on GSN-TV's World Series of Blackjack. Because of the danger of getting barred, Mr. Harvey has respectfully declined - but we are working on a way he might appear yet keep his anonymity. Way to go Mr. Harvey!)
Well Very Curious, it's very curious to me you didn't reveal your name (speaking of anonymity). I did do some checking, however, and found that your email was sent from Toronto, Canada - home of "Lance Humble" (aka York University psychology professor Igor Kusyszyn), co-author of the so-called World's Greatest Blackjack Book. I'm not suggesting anything other than your email made me think of that book, which I'd like to discuss in a moment. I dunno; maybe you're a "Lance Humble" fan. The animosity in your email makes me wonder. First off, to anwer your question: Anyone who's come to one of my seminars knows that casino industry people (and those working for them, directly or indirectly) are not allowed at my seminars. There is a screening process in place and some have been screened out from attending. One of those even tried suing me in order to be allowed to attend. (Didn't work.) He apparently thought my seminars were so important that he did not want to be left out. Sorry. I protect my anonymity and everyone who wants to come to my seminars must agree to go through a screening process. So that's the answer to Very Curious' question. The email, though, made me dust off the copy I have of The World's Greatest Blackjack Book - a book whose "latest" edition (correct me if I'm wrong) was published 21 years ago - in 1987. I took it with me to a blackjack talk I gave this week. It got big laughs when I quoted from it. For instance, on page 193 it says: "With the information in this chapter, the house advantage is virtually wiped out...you stand an excellent chance of almost breaking even if you play the Basic Strategy. You can now enjoy playing Blackjack with all the amenities that go with being a player in a casino (complimentary drinks, meals, shows) without the risk of losing large sums of money." Well, well, well. Being a psychology professor, I guess, taught Mr. Kusyszyn to couch a losing method in winner's terms. He says "the house advantage is virutally wiped out" - in other words, his Basic Strategy is a loser. He promises you might "almost" break even. Well, la di dah! Is this really the goal of the serious player??? And then he patronizes you by suggesting that you're more interested in a few free drinks and a slab of free beef and a free show than winning. Is this a GIFT he's giving you? "You can now enjoy playing Blackjack..." he says. Well, thanks Igor! I always rankle at the writers who, first of all, think the few giveaways the average player might get are worth the price of a plane ticket and hotel room in Vegas. Do the math, stupid. You'd do better to stay home, in your own house - you're spending hundreds and hundreds on the trip, and this guy is telling you how great it is to get a lousy meal off of it? And that's BLACKJACK? Second of all - since we're also talking about ANONYMITY here - a player cannot remain anonymous if he or she takes the comps that Igor is recommending. You have to give the casino your name, address, etc., to obtain these dubious perks, which now destroy your anonymity and greatly increase your chances of getting barred and forever be forbidden to play blackjack at all. Otherwise, the book is also horribly outdated. It refers to and and seems to pertain largely to 4-deck blackjack - a variant I haven't seen anywhere for at least 10 years. And - let's talk about honesty. On the York University web site, Kusyszyn (aka "Humble") is quoted: "Kusyszyn states that this is "the only book that exposes how casinos cheat at blackjack and advises players how to protect themselves."" (http://www.yorku.ca/ycom/gazette/past/archive/041499/issue.htm) Now...for someone who chose the pen name "Humble," this is a curious statement. Kusyszyn should know better. Thorp, in the seminal (although now outdated) book Beat The Dealer, talked about how casinos cheat. That was back in 1962. And many other books after Thorp covered that issue, for that matter - books preceding Kusyszyn's book. So does my book, Blackjack The SMART Way, by the way - and it discusses it in a much more comprehensive and player-usable way than Kusyszyn's book ever did. (Even Lawrence Revere - in 1969's Playing Blackjack As A Business - mentioned casino cheating. And, by the way, you owe it to yourself to read the final pages of that book where I believe he makes references to a "Lance Humble." Though written in 1969, I'm assuming he was talking about the same guy. Maybe I'm wrong.) These thoughts were only sparked because of the origin of the strange email - Toronto, Canada. And I don't take the kid gloves off much. Rarely, in fact. But I do believe it's sometimes wise to clear the air. And it helps players to understand the differences between my books and others'. It's no different than what today's Presidential candidates are doing in the debates - pointing out the weaknesses in their opponents' arguments and setting themselves off against the rest. I think blackjack players need to know this kind of thing. I only do this, though, when I'm reminded of someone's book. The Circle of 13 A little learning device I created on the road many years ago seems to have ticked off the Old School types. It seems they especially want you not to try this for yourself. Because if you do, you'll realize how far off the Old School methods - of basic strategy and card counting - are. I was in the middle of a nationwide book tour, and I was trying to figure out how to get across complex ideas involving my state-of-the-art innovations and methods in the short amount of time you have at your typical book event. (Actually, I found that you really had to grab the audience in the first few minutes or you'd lose them.) So, having minored in theoretical math and statistics in college, I thought back to the mathematician's idea that you should break a formula/equation/fraction down to its lowest common denominator to see the truth of the matter more clearly. ...So what's the lowest common denominator when it comes to a deck of cards - or 8 decks of cards, for that matter? A suit of cards. Each deck is made up of four suits of cards, of the same mathematical makeup and proportions. Each has 13 members of the equivalent designations and denominations. So, I ask, why is it not valid to play a round with just one suit to demonstrate the mathematical principles involved in making correct card moves? Of course it's valid. I really don't see how my supposedly astute competitors could miss this point. One, attempting to convince players not to read my books, has claimed my Circle of 13 learning tool is actually the sum and total of my system - which he knows is a lie. This is just an entry level demonstration tool that covers a few short pages in my 300-plus page bestseller Cutting Edge Blackjack, which is arguably the most state-of-the-art blackjack book on the market today. (I guess my competitors feel they have to lie to prevent readers from reading my books; they have no valid reasons to criticize it otherwise, without lying.) Now, I encourage you to try this tool, because anyone who does so will immediately see the power in what I have to teach you. Blackjack is not about summing up of millions of rounds of pretend, computer-simulated action and then doing a simple statistical study resulting in one-size-fits-all Old School methods - an approach that makes you incapable of analyzing the realities of the moment, in any given round. That only tells you how to bet if you could bet on the sum total of millions of pretend rounds of action - which is not what casino blackjack is all about. Like any other card game, cutting edge blackjack achieves precision by using state-of-the-art methods to properly analyze the cards that have been dealt since the last shuffle, in deciding (among other things): a) what the dealer's hole card is likely to be (and therefore the dealer's likely result, busting or not); b) what cards are likely to come your way as hit cards, if you're thinking of hitting, splitting or doubling (and therefore is it wise to make those moves); and c) what chance you have against the dealer (and therefore should you surrender if that option is available, or stand pat rather than putting more money on the table). These analyses are easily done. I can demonstrate them - and have demonstrated them - with any number of decks of cards, in a matter of minutes. Jaws drop when I show players how easy the card game can be - when you have all the facts you need at your disposal. In fact - I still laugh today - one player from Arizona was so impressed by how accurate my predictions were in the course of an 8-hour seminar that he suspected I was using marked cards! He demanded that I let him buy the cards for his inspection later on. No, I said, handing him the cards. I'll give them to you for free. And he stalked off, surely disappointed when he discovered they were not marked or tampered with in any way. There are no tricks involved in my system. I spent more than 10 years, doing research, computer analyses, theoretical math models, card behavior studies, shuffling studies, and so on, and then taking real casino-style card data and formulating ways of beating the game. I did the heavy lifting; the methods I devised for myself (and, as an afterthought, others; for I did not initially intend on writing books) are themselves easy to pull off - if you understand all the concepts I've discovered and have practised the methods I invented, designed to be doable at the casino. But...this month I just want you to do this: take out a suit of cards. Deal to three players (don't burn a card before dealing, though), as is done at the casino. Start with the first player through the third, giving each their first cards, then deal the dealer's hole card, the facedown card (don't peek). Then deal each player's second cards, in order, and then the dealer's up card. Then, ask yourself: what is the dealer's likely hole card? With these few cards involved, you can actually do it precisely. After the initial two cards, you'll have six unknown cards. So, start with the 10s, for instance. What's the likelihood the hole card is a 10? How do you do this? Look at what's on the table. Take the number of 10s (by this I include all 10-point cards, including the face cards) you see and divide that by six, to get the exact probability the hole card is a 10. (Now you're learning a bit about probability, too.) Now ask yourself: given this fact, is this a good thing or bad for me? If the up card is a low card, it's good; if not, it's bad - or, at least, you'll need to pull to a 17 or better to compete with the dealer (or you'll DEFINITELY lose; that's a 100% likelihood). Do this, too, with every other significant card - cards that would give the dealer a bustable stiff score (12-16 points); and cards that would give the dealer a potentially winning score (of 17-21 points). Try to figure out when the dealer might have a blackjack, too (especially with the Ace showing) - so you can learn when it's wise to take Insurance. Do this simple exercise and you'll begin to understand the principles involved in playing a great, state-of-the-art game - principles you won't learn in Old School books or columns or DVDs. And perhaps you'll also understand why this demonstration/learning tool is so threatening to the Old School writers. It exposes the flaws in their systems and reveals the true nature of the game.
|
Home | Back To Top | Blackjack Seminar Info | To Order Books & Seminar Tix
