Tommy Hyland chooses "The Blackjack Zone" for new players

A few days ago I quite unexpectedly got a call from Tommy Hyland. He told me that people come up to him all the time asking how to become a card counter. When this happens, he likes to give them a book. He told me that Wong's book (Professional Blackjack) is too advanced (btw, I recommend Wong's book in Chapter 42 of The Blackjack Zone), and that he used to give out another beginning book. But, after reading my book, he decided that it would be his book of choice for new players.

Here is what Tommy Hyland said:

�While there are some great blackjack books out there on the market, I think that The Blackjack Zone is the best book out there for the beginning player who wants to learn how to beat the game.�

"The Blackjack Zone" is available for sale on this site,

http://bj21.com/ads/the_blackjack_zone/ad.html

There is no form of respect more valued than that of one's learned peers.

First of all, let me congrats to the author for lots of good stuff he does for the bj community, and it's nice to see another BJ book on the market. Hip hip huray!

Now, let's get back to the reality. Where is the commonsense, & Where is Tommy? A constructive criticism is in order here.

A more effective way to advertise for the above-mentioned book is to ask the BIG-GUN Tommy to post the author's "scripted" message. For example, if author wants to sell a how-to-play golf book, it will be more effective to ask Tiger Woods to post his "scripted" message than the way the author is doing now.

Speaking of commonsense, it's hard to believe that some commonsense goes out of the window when a gambler steps into a casino. Here is a funny story. A card counter asks a shift manager: " Mr. Caesars, I'll be nice, and can I play in your shop?" If you don't think that's funny & UN-COMMONSENSE, then consider this: A mouse asks the cat: "Mister Cat, can I play in your master's home...I promise I'll be nice?" We all know what the cat/shiftmanager will do...it's commonsense to most of us! By the way, I should send in the above mouse-cat joke to Jay Leno, lol.

I ain't no saint, but I'll be a "brown-noser" if I just say "ditto" to the author's post. In this case, taking the 5th is almost as bad as dittoing.

Oh thanks to Doctor Stanford Wong for this "speak-the-truth" free-speech board...I bet my post will stand here without getting busted, but I dare not say the same with other bj boards.

God bless our freedom, liberty, & the fine art of speaking the truth!

Primarily because no one can figure out what the hell you're rambling about.

It's like the Navaho code-talker coinage for torpedo, which is "iron fish". [by Dark Avenger] Sometime we need to use our God-given imagination to decode the message. Well, like I said, I aint no saint...I don't know what I was rambling about neither, LOL. Peace

Only a very small number of BJ players post and no one can be expected to post to every forum. References are usually handled in this manner.

Self-respect is more important than the approval of one's peers.

Are you privy to something denied the rest of us? Spill!

Sorry to disappoint you, but I admire Eliot's genial lunacy. Blackjack would be much more tedious without him.

I was merely making the general point that there is probably too much brazen back-slapping in the blackjack world. An awful lot of "You said you liked my book/video/software so I like yours" and vice versa.
Human nature, I guess, but ultimately a little false.

Before you point it out, I am of course far from immune from this myself. A couple of sentences of praise from Edward Thorp, which were in retrospect so faint as to be damning, had me spinning cartwheels like a rotating bunny.

Makes sense to me

Posted By: Norm Wattenberger
Date: 18 Jun 05, 7:54 am

In Response To: Where is the commomsense? & Where's Tommy? (Samoht)

[A] Only a very small number of BJ players post and no one can be expected to post to every forum. [B]References are usually handled in this manner. [by a link to a article]

Dear Sir:

Here are my sincere responses to you:

(A) An excuse does not cut it. For example, if Dr. Wong uses your excuse to "hold up" posters' messages indefinitely, then I, or Stainles-Steel-Rat, and/or numerous guys will never post here. Truth is always better than endless arguments. For the readers: if you want the truth about the result of making unwise excuses, please take a look at Dr. Wong's forum & Parker's forum. Compare the 2. You get your "no-excuse" answer. Dr. Wong's forum is simplily much better, PEROID...mainly because Dr. Wong never ever holds up posters' messages indefinitely. He never ever OKs "yes-sir" messages & not-OKs "no-sir" messages.

(B) Your suggestion is good about a link to a story...but...I have attempted to provide a link to the great article about Grosjean-Russo vs Caesars-Griffin, but the link worked a few time when I tried it, then it was "disable/blocked". I kid you not. try the link below & find it out the hard way for yourself...

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_h...ss/2184716.html

This is not the first time I run into problem with links. As a result, I like to quote the article & ALWAYS provide the link to the story... as a full disclosure & credit to the original author. Some may argue that I should not quote the whole damn thing, but just providing a recap & the link. Well, well, well...let's take a vote:

1) Yes to the Sir's way (link only),

2) Yes to the Samoht's disputed-way (the whole damn quote & the link), or

3) Don't care.

Best regards
Samoht

This site had a long history of allowing posts that attack competitors of Stanford. Because of that, nearly every BJ author left this site long ago. Now this site has improved since the manager of the site was himself attacked and finally realized the problem. In fact, he was literally stalked by a man that calls himself Stalker and has the habit of posting pictures of players he doesn't like on the Internet. BJ21 Free Pages was taken offline for weeks and completely reorganized as a result. Stalker was banned from BJ21 and Arnold Snyder has now appointed him as a moderator on his site where he freely engages in slander against other players.

Now I don't know why you inserted an odd, completely off-subject attack on Parker. Parker has selflessly given his time to the BJ community for years. Your statement that Parker only OKs 'yes sir' posts and indefinitely delays 'no sir' posts is simple nonsense.

As you know, I'm a huge fan of CVBJ and CVCX/CVData. I plug 'em all the time because I sincerely believe they are a "must have" for any serious 21 player. Also I don't believe I have ever had any sort of disagreement with you on any forum.

However, speaking only of _my_ case, there were problems on ap.com... and the "black hole" idea was true, at least in my case. Don posted here several times that I was warned repeatedly about posts that were too long, and that I was warned repeatedly that if I didn't shorten my replies, I would go back on manual moderation (bypass moderation: no) status. Unfortunately, none of that is true. I was placed back on "no" status, and from that point forward, exactly _zero_ of my posts were approved. Even though I was in the middle of a discussion with bfbagain among others that was not an argument of any kind.

So things are not always as they seem, or as they are told. You can believe my account of this or not, as you choose. Obviously Parker and I are the only two that know what _really_ happened, since he took the action and since it affected only me.

Personally, I'm looking forward to meeting Arnold in a couple of weeks. If he turns out to be a jerk, I suppose I will figure that out quickly enough. To date, with lots of private email conversations, I don't get that impression. I don't visit "the fight club" as that isn't my "thing". I do visit his BJ and player's only fora however, and they have been most informative, particularly things being discussed in the player's only forum.

However, when a beginner says "I'm a $5 min player, which game will produce the smallest bankroll fluctuation, DD or 6D?" and anyone answers anything but DD, I will point out that your CVCX program says that the standard deviation for DD is _lower_ than for 6D. And if someone wants to argue "but at the DD game you would bet bigger because it has a smaller standard deviation, and by betting bigger your bankroll will fluctuate more" that's fine, but it is _not_ answering the question that a _beginner_ asked on the "beginner's page". And that discussion is what got me kicked out. And I really would not return even if asked, as that kind of nonsense just doesn't cut it in my book...

I hope you and I stay on "good terms" as I am a highly satisfied customer of qfit software. And it is nice to see you post in places where I can occasionally respond (here, CC.com, hitorstand.net, etc).

Good luck with new versions of course, many of us are waiting for what comes out next. :)

I have no idea what happened in any particular case. I do know that the implication that Parker does not allow contradictions on advantageplayer.com are nonsense and can point to hundreds.

As for the 'fight club,' it is a shameful stain on the BJ community specifically designed to harm players.

It's a violation of copyright law. You should probably familiarize yourself with a concept called "fair use". Frankly, I'm surprised the webmaster here has allowed your post containing the whole article to stay up. Maybe one of these days I'll get around to posting the entire contents of "Blackjack the Pros' Way".

It's the nature of the internet that links, especially to newspaper articles, quickly become extinct. If a media publisher is going to go to the trouble of archiving all of their old editions for on-line access, they justifiably want something in exchange for that expense. Most of the time, they're "compensated" by people providing personal info when registering at their web-site, or when researchers pay a fee to retrieve old articles.

The owners of LVR-J paid someone to write that story, and they paid someone to post it on their internet site. They pay for the maintenance of the site itself. If you don't think they take the outright theft of their product seriously, I suggest you contact the legal department of the LVR-J for their thoughts on the topic. On second thought, no need to bother. I'll save you the trouble.

At this point, I'm going to guess that you're in your twenties, at the oldest. Older people don't seem to have a problem with the concept of "What's mine is mine, and what's yours is yours". Young people all over the country (and their parents, unfortunately) learned a hard and expensive lesson about copyright laws from the whole Napster fiasco.