A poster who occasionally signs as "stalker" keeps posting a link to an old post of mine, thinking that it will embarass me. His post keeps getting busted because he adds a few choice insults to it. I'll spare the postbusters some sleep and save space by putting it up again, in its entirety.The context : The bunch of malcontents that abuse this website with professional zeal had badmouthed Schlesinger and his work once too often. As one who has often crossed swords with the ol' Don in the past, I felt that a general statement would be useful from someone that wasn't a sycophant. Which is what I did, although, as I already admitted to my "stalker", it is obvious I went a little overboard! As I wrote a week ago, it's never right to praise Elvis by demeaning Jerry Lee.
So, read on, armed with the perennial pinch of salt.
Post script: James Grosjean is now a member of the Masters of Blackjack team that currently hosts the "new and improved" Don's Domain.
There are 3 kinds of texts
that are useful to the advantage player :
1. The texts that contain the whereabouts of a juicy game. Such a text is, for instance, the CBJN when it informs about a 2:1 promo. However, chances are that by the time you are reading this, the game is long gone! Unless it's a private e-mail, forget about it.2. The texts demonstrating that specific casino games are beatable. Beat The Dealer is the prime example: After that one came out, it was no longer a surprise that Blackjack can be beaten. Lots of books followed BTD with elaborations on the theme, offering more powerful systems and more insights, but without anything astonishingly new. A book that demonstrated novel weaknesses in casino games is the relatively recent Beyond Counting.
3. The texts that teach how to attack a beatable game, whatever that game might be. The prime example here is Blackjack Attack, offering insights which apply not just to BJ but to any beatable game.
I am putting all this down just to show the fallacy in the claim that "the pros are laughing with Don Schlesinger's book". Things are like this:
A pro is NOT looking out for text #1 : He is actively seeking out the juicy games himself or through his associates. At worst, through the grapevine, which nowadays may be an e-mail. He is certainly NOT looking to see such information published! As a matter of fact, he is pissed to find out about a good game opportunity on a goddamn internet message board, such as bj21.com, 'cause it means that game's now gone.
A pro is also NOT looking out for text #2 : What kind of "pro" is he when he's waiting from some kinda book to enlighten him about front-loading or legal past-posting?! The pro learns these things the hard way, meaning by himself, by the teachings of other pros or through the school of hard knocks. Grosjean's book did NOT teach the true pros much. It merely brought to the masses of casual players out there the information that the pros already knew - albeit in a very disciplined, concise and precise manner. Any pro who only found out by that book that there's a way to beat craps, was no pro really.
A pro is actively searching for guidance that will help him improve and better materialize his advantage against a beatable game, in other words text #3 : Bankroll requirements, risk taking, risk measurement, elimination of unnecesary work, focus on the essentials, ways to achieve discipline - all these things are vital for the professional player. [Look up the dictionary definition of pro, aka professional player, to understand this better.] Which is why it is laughable, if not completely ridiculous, to claim that "pros are laughing with Don Schlesinger's book"! On the contrary, that book contains precisely what the serious professional player wants to know.
--Cyrus
