Hi!
i hope you can recommend me a good book or the first book a beginner player must have to play blackjack ant to start card counting.
Thnks
Click the link below for a post made by Coug Fan a few months ago. It will steer you in the right direction.
get Blackjack Bluebook II by Fred Renzey and you'll be good to go.
Playing Blackjack Like the Pros, by Kevin Blackwood.
Kevin hits on the basics real well and then can turn you to the counting aspects of the game. On top of the good material, inside, it is not a dry, boring read.
There are many good books to start with...even KO Blackjack...that takes you right to the point! I feel you should read more than one book. Each will say basically the same thing; however, you will get something different from each and the more knowledge you gain, the better off you'll be. Cellini's book is a must for any player serious about the game.
Whatever you select, master BS first!
Regards,
PM
Beat the dealer
Bootlegger's 200 Proof Blackjack and Blackbelt in Blackjack get my unreserved endorsement. After you have those two volumes well digested, then you might turn your attention to Blackjack Attack III(soft cover version). Finally don't neglect the fine software that's available on this and other blackjack sites.
I carried Wong's Professional Blackjack with me. Dry but factual. Great reference book on the road. That and a top notch analysis software. I used SBA by Karel Janacek. ShuffleTrak by Dennis Suggs came in handy a lot too. If I felt lazy or a shuffle didn't lend itself well to traditional tracking methods I sometimes did simple analyses of shuffles and looked for generalizations in my cutting like "count plummets first deck, cut 2.5 decks from back to put slug right in front of cut card", etc. Binions in Shreveport had a remarkable shuffle for this around 5 or 6 years ago. I've never owned anything but a laptop for this reason. Also good are Snyder's and Schlesinger's books for insight into the game as it exists today after decades of evolution. For your act, if you don't have a little bit of conman in you all the books in the world may not help.
Thanks for the plug PM! Another book for aspiring part-time players who don't want to become pros is Rick Blaine's recent work.
Another book for aspiring part-time players who don't want to become pros is Rick Blaine's recent work.
This is a compliment, right? I thought there was much in Blaine's work which would help a part-time player to turn pro.
You would be courting trivial advantage with enourmous fluctuation. Poker is infinitely superior.
Alan Wilson wrote in 1966 that he went about lamenting the demise of the 21 game after the Baldwin et al article appeared in the September '56 issue of JASA. It took some four exciting decades, but ultimately the late doctor was proven right.
Poker, especially Hold'em, OTOH, can, with proper game selection, yield far more than the one Big Bet per hour standard so widely quoted. And the fluctuation is so much less that blackjack pales in appeal. I see no reason to renew my Green Chip subscription for this reason.
Why should you believe me? Because I played 21 for three decades. Because I play cash games in B&M cardrooms everday I'm not traveling. Because I'm playing in an online room as I write this.
Read LVBear on single deck. If you do learn the game well, if you do devote some time every week to keeping counting speed up and re-reciting decision tables, you can check out the games as you pass by to the poker room. This is what I do, but I seldom see anything that makes me want to stop and play.
Cardcounting for the Casino Executive by Zender is what you need if you intend to read exactly one 21 book in your lifetime.
Renzey's Blackjack Bluebook II was great for easing into card counting with ascending versions of his KISS Count. It made advantage players out of myself and two friends.
Rick is a good friend and he has had a stellar track record as a high stakes player. So he definitely knows what it takes to be a pro, but he was smart to advise most people to make card counting a sideline, rather than a full-time job, and I felt that was very valuable and practical advice.
Been toying with the idea of approaching Wong, Snyder or Schlesinger to have an analysis of a concept on which my system is based. I hesitate because I don't want it to appear in a book somewhere. The system demonstrates the concept and the concept explains the system.
Having access to either one, you can easily deduce the other.
If you were to email me two hours before you croaked, I'd gladly give you the info so you would have the satisfaction of knowing "Hey! there is something out there that has a bright future." I'm hoping we both have a long time left.
I agree, counters cannot give up and let the ploppies lose hope. Necessity drives invention, and invention will be required to beat majority of available games. We haven't reached our full potential or earnings until all the casinos offer even money only games.
Accolades to jomoats for not simply following the regiment-like style taught in books - the BJ community needs some ingenuity similar to styles demonstrated by the MIT teams.
> Alan Wilson wrote in 1966 that he went about lamenting the
> demise of the 21 game after the Baldwin et al article
> appeared in the September '56 issue of JASA. It took some
> four exciting decades, but ultimately the late doctor was
> proven right.
People have been saying that for decades now. When Thorp�s book came out they said the same thing, then again when Uston won his case in AC, and again with the introduction of CSMs, facial recognition software, Mindplay, 6:5 BJs, SuperFun 21, and pretty much every time something new happens.. How long as the sky been falling?
> Poker, especially Hold'em, OTOH, can, with proper game
> selection, yield far more than the one Big Bet per hour
> standard so widely quoted.
Well, so can Advantage Play at blackjack. The key element, as you mentioned, is �proper game selection.� There are both good and bad games for blackjack and poker players out there. Neither game is profitable without proper scouting.
Solo card counting is just the tip of the iceberg. Huge advantages are possible using advanced methods like shuffle tracking, sequencing, cutting/steering, and many other techniques that are not available to poker players. Poker players just don�t have the control over the cards the way blackjack players do. Less control means more variance.
> And the fluctuation is so much less that blackjack pales
> in appeal.
The variance will tend to be high in either game. A smart player can find ways to reduce it though. I would think that poker has much more variance since you are playing against other humans who are unpredictable. A blackjack dealer will always play by the house rules so you always know what to expect and how to play. Poker requires much more uncertainty and �hunch� playing (poker players call it �intuition�) which makes it more of a gamble than blackjack.
I�m sure it�s much easier to find a good poker game than a good blackjack game, but if you�re expecting to make decent sized bets I would feel much safer at a mid/high stakes blackjack table than at a mid/high stakes poker table.
> Why should you believe me? Because I played 21 for
> three decades.
I�ve only been playing for about 7 years but I�ve seen some pretty amazing blackjack games in that time. Games with 3:1 suited BJs, 2:1 on all BJs, Lucky Ladies, Royal Twenties, and other games with a 1-2% advantage off the top are still available all over the country TODAY. They require a bit if scouting, but they�re out there.
> you can check out the games as you pass by to the poker
> room. This is what I do, but I seldom see anything that
> makes me want to stop and play.
Perhaps you are not looking hard enough. It takes more than a fleeting glance to catch a front loader or to analyze a trackable shuffle. Those should be the �bread and butter� of any serious blackjack player�s income.
Although I do agree with you that game conditions are slowly deteriorating, I still don�t think the casinos will ever completely destroy the game. They�ve had the power to make it unbeatable for many years now but they have made the conscious decision to keep it alive. I see no reason why they would want to kill the game now.
As far as the blackjack vs. poker issue, I think that a successful gambler absolutely needs to know how to play both.
-Sonny-
We would see, what, 100 people play?
Solve by inspection.
21 is dead. Poker is the engine to make the money.
Not sure what you mean here. That the WSOP has become a big event is not in doubt. What this has to do with advantage play, I'm not sure.
A lot of ploppies are getting into poker because of it, but so are a lot of AP's. You might want to have a look at Syph's post on limit hold'em over at blackjackforumonline, or Lefty's tourney analysis on this page. They don't suggest a potential gold mine in poker. Money to be made, sure, but it is a bit of a grind. And the poker skill sets do require a lot of unprofitable downtime to acquire.
Sonny's post sums it up for me. Card counting may suck these days, but there are a bunch of plays that you can use at BJ you can't use at poker, or are considered cheating. The basic problem with poker vs BJ for AP's is that when something is broke in poker, it is considered unethical to take advantage of it. When something goes wrong with a given blackjack procedure, IMHO, it would be unethical not to take advantage. And Sonny doesn't even mention online play, the profits to be had from the emerging markets such as exchange blackjack, casino rebates, and yes, big-money online BJ tourneys.
Maybe you can do better than one BB an hour at poker, but there are professionals out there that wouldn't cross the street for the equivalent of 5 BB an hour.
Good poker games abound. I play in them every day. Good 21 games are scarce. They are quickly killed and I'm quilty of that myself.
What's the greatest advantage one can personnaly find at 21? 8%? How often can it be found? How much time is spent in the looking? How long does it last? Over one years time how much do you gain in the pursuit?
Bankroll requirements plummet as advantage increases and in poker these situations are a regular event. Battering of one's 21 BR from uncontrollable fluctuation is symptomatic. (In medicene, a condition that is symptomatic is incurable.)
And, sadly, the frigging games just suck and they suck worse and worse regularly.
I wish things were different. I'm approaching the stub end of my life now, but things really were better in the past. (sigh)
One compared to the other, the reality is that it's not even close.
