Blackbelt in Blackjack : Playing 21 as a Martial Art

192 Pages·2005·16.36 MB·English

by  Arnold Snyder

BLACKBELT IN
BLACKJACK
PLAYING 2 1 AS A
MARTIAL ART
REVISED AND EXPANDED
BY ARNOLD SNYDER
Blackbelt in Blackjack:
Playing 21 as a Martial Art
Revised andExpanded
© 1998 RGE Publishing
All rights reserved. No partofthis bookmay be reproduced ortrans
mitted in any form orby any means, electronicormechanical,
exceptby a reviewerwho may quote briefpassages in a reviewto
be printed in a magazine ornewspaper, without permission in writ
ing from the publisher. Portionsofthis book have previously ap
peared in differentform in the following periodicals: Gambling
Times, BoardwalkerInternational, Rouge etNoirNews, The Experts
BlackjackNewsletter, and BlackjackForum. Copyright 1980-1996
by Arnold Snyder
Published by: RGE Publishing
414 Santa Clara Avenue
Oakland CA 94610
[phone]
FAX: [phone]
Web site: www.rge21.com
E-mail: [email protected]
Coverdesign by Marion Oldenburg
FirstEdition
12345678910
ISBN 0-910575-05-3
FOR JESSE AND CHELI-SE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank:
Nick Alexander
John Auston
Julian Braun
George C.
Clarke Cant
Sam Case
Moe Cash
Anthony Curtis
Bob Fisher
Steve Forte
Al Francesco
Peter Griffin
John Gwynn
Tommy Hyland
John Imming
John Leib
Max Rubin
Don Schlesinger
G.K. Schroeder
Howard Schwartz
Ralph Stricker
Ed Thorp
Chuck Weinstock
Brother William
Allan Wilson
Stanford Wong
Bill Zender
Forvaluable contributions. - A.S.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 1
PART ONE: EARNING YOURWHITE BELT
1. The Great BlackjackHoax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2. Howto Play Casino Blackjack . . . . . . . 20
3. Basic Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4. The Red Seven Count. . . . . . . . .. 37
5. How Much Money Do YouNeed? .. 55
6. Table Conditions. . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
PARTII: EARNING YOUR GREEN BELT
7. The Hi-Lo Lite. . . . . . . . . . .... 72
8. The ZenCount. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
9. True Count. . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
10. Betting Strategies. . . . . .. .... . .. 91
11. The Unencountered Counter . . . . . . . .. 101
12. Idiot Camouflage 116
PART III: EARNING YOURBLACKBELT
13. High Rollers Survival Guide . . . . 121
14. Team Play..... 132
15. ShuffleTracking .. 142
16. SpecialRules . . . . 172
APPENDIX
Complete Basic Strategy . . . . . . 176
Complete Hi-Lo Lite Strategy ... 178
Complete Zen Count Strategy. . . 180
Recommended Source Materials . . 182
INDEX . 184
1
INTRODUCTION TO THE 1998 EDITION
hat's 1998totherestoftheworldis36A.T. (after
Thorp) to card counters. It is remarkable that 36
years after Ed Thorp's Beat the Dealer (Random
House, 1962) was published, the game ofcasino
blackjackoffersgreaterprofitopportunitiesto in
telligentplayersthanatanytimeinthehistoryofthegame. Few
wouldhave predictedthis backthen, when the only state inthe
union where you could legally play casino blackjack was Ne
vada, and blackjack wasn't even that popular a game (adistant
secondto craps).
SincethepublicationofBeatthe Dealer, virtually hundreds
of books on card counting have been published. Dozens of
newsletters and periodicals - devoted exclusively to casino
blackjack - have come and gone. Blackjack systems are
hawkedon'latenightTV infomercials,through audio andvideo
training courses, highpriced seminars, andeven inadulteduca
tion classes in community colleges. There are dozens ofhome
computersoftwareprogramsonthemarket,forpracticing,simu
lating,analyzinganddevisingblackjackstrategies.Anyonewith
a PC can nowreproduce in a matter ofminutes what Ed Thorp
once spentmonths computingonanIBMmainframe. Every ca
sinointheworldnowprovidesspecialtrainingoncardcounters'
tacticsfor theirpitandsecuritypersonnel. Specialty softwareis
also in use in casino surveillance departments for identifying
players who are suspected ofutilizing card counting strategies.
EdThorpdidn'tjustwriteabookin 1962;hetransformedan
industry and altered the consciousness of millions of casino
players throughout the world.
ThisrevisedandexpandededitionofBlackbeltinBlackjack
has not been rewritten from scratch because I still agree with
muchofthe original 1983 textandrecommendations. Itismore
anexpansionofthattextthanitisarevisionofit. Thegamesand
the opportunities havechangedinthe past 15 years, as have my
understanding and perspectiveonthe games available.
Onemajorchangeintheblackjacksceneinthepast 15years
isthatthe casinosare nowutilizinghigh-tech surveillancetech-
2
niques to identify professional players. Computer analysis of
betting and playing strategies - both real-time and post-play
from video footage - hasmade itmore difficultfor bigmoney
cardcounterstofoolthecasinocountercatchersusingtraditional
countstrategieswiththetriedandtrueparlaybettingcamouflage
techniques. Because whole tables ofplayers are now computer
analyzed simultaneously, even low to moderate stakes card
counters, who may have been ignored in the past, find them
selves being identified and barred.
Itusedto be agreatcamouflage technique to alwaysplayat
tableswherebiggeractionthanyourswasonthefelt. Yourrela
tively small bets rendered you invisible to the pit. Many black
jack experts, myselfincluded, advised: "Never be the biggest
bettoratyourtable."Insomecasinos,thisisnolongersuchgreat
advice. Nowadays, ifany player at your table is betting black
($100+)action,youmaybemoreliabletobecaughtinthehigh
techsurveillancenet.Ofcourse,ifthathighrollerhappenstobea
partying fool who has already been rated as a certified idiot by
thepit,thistablecouldbeagreatopportunity.Butthesedays,the
dangerofdetection is increasedsubstantially, because so much
of the surveillance is done invisibly, via video cameras. You
don't always seethe scowling pitboss anymore.
Insomepartsofthecountry,cardcounterscanstillgetaway
withmurderatthetables.EveninNevada,you'llfindvastdiffer
ences in casino attitudes and policies. Card counters can no
longer play strictly according to charts and schedules. You've
gotto learntojudgegamesnotonlybytherulesandthenumber
ofdecksinplay,butbywhatyoucangetawaywith,howpercep
tivetheyare,howcloselythey'rewatchingyou. Seriousplayers
mustjoin the blackjack underground, subscribe to the players'
trade publications, surfthe Internet BJ message boards for tips
and inside information.
So, in this new edition ofBlackbelt, I will concentrate on
some ofthe advanced strategies that the pros are using to get
awaywithbigaction- notably, shuffletrackingandteamplay
(or tracking and teaming). As the casino industry continues to
advancetechnologically,thesetypesofstrategiesbecomemore
importantfor all cardcounters, notjusthigh stakes players.
My approach to these strategies will be similar to the ap
proach I have always taken with blackjack strategies. There is
strengthinsimplicity. Itismoreprofitableto makeafewstrong
strategic plays with accuracy than it is to attempt to squeeze
3
every lastpenny ofprofit outofthe game with complex, brain
straining methods.
I am very pleased to see that the 1983 edition ofthis book,
alongwithmy firsttwo nowout-of-printtitles- The Blackjack
Formula (1980) andBlackjackFor Profit(1981) - have left a
mark.WhenIembarkedonthiswritingcareerasaself-professed
blackjackexpert, Iknewmyideasfaced anuphillbattle.Topro
pose the heresy that a highly simplified set ofsome two dozen
playingstrategyindiceswouldrealizemostofthepotentialprof
its from c~rd counting, or that an unbalanced counting system,
utilizingonlyhalfadozenplayingstrategychanges, byrunning
count, could be considered a "professional-level" system, was
contrarytothethinkingofthetime. Ialso emphasizedthattable
conditions, and especially deck penetration, far surpassed the
system ofchoice as far as potential profits from card counting.
This was a radical ideainthe early 1980s.
Today,thankstotheworkofnumerousotherauthorsandex- .
pertssincethepublicationofthe 1983editionofthisbook,these
concepts and approaches to the game have been further exam
ined and refined, and are no longer even considered controver
sial. Quite frankly, I initially learned about the value ofdeck
penetration from computer simulation results Peter Griffin had
publishedinatechnicalpaperbackin 1975. Bytheearly 1980s,
none ofthe major blackjack authors - Ken Uston, Lawrence
Revere,StanfordWong,JulianBraun,LanceHumble- norany
ofthelesserauthorsatthattime,includingJerryPatterson,Rich
ard Canfield, JohnArcher, StanleyRoberts, andothers, hadyet
picked up onthe immense effectofdeck penetration; orifthey
had,theytotally ignoredthisfactor intheirbooks. Today,no se
riousbookoncardcountingwouldignorethe importanceofthe
shuffle point. And most blackjack authorities today would ac
knowledgethatthereislittleto gainfrom usingmorethanafew
dozenstrategyindices, andeventhatunbalancedrunning count
systems canbe playedat a professional level.
This edition ofBlackbelt, as the first book to describe and
recommend advanced shuffle-tracking techniques, will likely
alsoraisearuckus.Isuspectmyrevelationsaboutusingrounded
"lite" indices will lift a few quizzical eyebrows. And the new
methodsIamproposingfortruecountadjustments,oneofwhich
can even be used accurately with an unbalanced counting sys
tem, should getthe experts buzzing.
4
Littleisknownoftheoriginalblackjacksystems. InBeatthe
Dealer, EdThorp discusses anumberofthe first system devel
opers who had colorful names like "GreasyJohn" and "System
Smitty." They had privately worked out crude but effective
blackjackstrategieswithwhichthey'dwonalivelihoodfromthe
LasVegasblackjacktables. Untiltheearlysixtiesandthepubli
cation of Dr. Thorp's book, however, most casinos felt that
blackjacksystemswerelikeallothergambling systems,alotof
bunk.PriortoThorp,theonlycardcountingsystemthatwasrec
ognizedbythecasinosasvalidwas"casingtheaces,"inwhicha
playerwouldmarkedlyincreasehisbet(likefrom $5 to $500)in
the second halfofthe deck ifno aces had been dealt inthe first
half. Crudeas this counting technique was, itwas effective and
thecasinosknewit. Unfortunately,itwasextremelyeasyforthe
casinos to detect. Because it was such a weak card counting
method, and because the players who used it rarely employed
evenan approximation ofaccurate basic strategy, the huge bet
ting spread was necessary for the system to gain an advantage
overthe house.
In 1956,agroupofmathematicians- RogerBaldwin, Wil
bertCantey,HerbertMaisel,andJamesMcDermott- tediously
appliedthemethods ofstatistical analysisto the game ofblack
jack and developed a basic strategy which they published in a
technicaljoumal for mathematicians. This strategy, iffollowed
rigorously, would narrow the house edge, making blackjack
closetoabreakevenpropositionfortheplayeroyerthelongrun.
Thoughacolloquialversionofthispaperwaslaterpublishedasa
book,PlqyingBlackjacktoWin(Barrows& Co.,NY, 1957),few
gamblers took notice. Gamblers wanted winning systems, not
"breakeven" systems.
One pe~sonwho took particularnote ofthis technical paper
was Dr. Edward O. Thorp, a mathematician. He saw that this
strategyhadbeendevised using old-fashionedmechanical add~
ing machines. He had access to what, inthe early sixties, was a
sophisticated computer. He wrote amorepreciseprogramthan
had been used, and subsequently developed a more accurate
strategy. Baldwin, Cantey, Maisel, and McDermott ·had sug
gestedintheir 1957bookthatwinningstrategiesmightbedevel
oped by keeping track of the cards played, and they even
proposed their "partial-casing" system which advised strategy
changesdependentonwhetherthe lastfewcardsdealtwereten-