STREETWISE BLACKJACK

Double Down

Streetwise Blackjack: Getting it Right

By Peter Ruchman

When I was in Mrs. Quinn's 4th grade class, she came in excited one day explaining that we were in for a treat. Not sure why, but our class was chosen to participate in a grand new experiment. She told us that in addition to the math we had learned up to that point, we were about to embark on a new way of learning that was more fun than the traditional four basic calculations. This new way of thinking also carried with it a different language with new words like sets, subsets, overlapping concentric circles and many concepts others I don't remember.

For 1st, 2nd, and 3nd grades I was blessed with teachers who didn't seem to like teaching, or children, making the experience a lot more difficult than it could have been. I didn't feel like the enemy, but I became one. In retrospect, I still use those same four original tried and true math concepts everyday. If you haven't mastered addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division you probably have a more difficult time in life than if you can recite set and subset theory. The reason I bring up my elementary school learning curves has to do with a couple of new books on the market: Blackjack‹The Smart Way by Richard Harvey and Twenty-first Century Blackjack by Walter Thomason.

Both books have been published in the past 9 months with Harvey's book newly revised in its 2nd edition and both share one characteristic in common: they purport to challenge traditional orthodox blackjack theory with their own methods, more practical for today's playing conditions than the accepted tried and true ways.

Harvey and Thomason cite basic strategy and traditional counting techniques claiming them to be useful in the past and good starting points for the modern day casino, but their proscriptions will provide a far superior path to the window.

Let's start with Harvey's book. He boasts on the cover that he possesses, "the unique and complete new system that posted and 88.24% win rate!" The cover also tells you that the book was, "Created for the average player and designed for today's casino environment."When I saw this book my first reaction was akin to listening to a tout in a sports book proclaim that he hits 88% of his games, an impossible feat. The finest handicappers in the world are thrilled to win 57-60% of the time, and anything greater than that is pure gravy. No one over a season hits 70% unless they play fewer than 10 games. 88% is Tinkerbell territory in any gambling endeavor.

The back cover lists 11 more promises which Harvey claims to fulfill, including, "Insights that are the author's alone‹You won't find this information anywhere else!" Disregarding the overly brash self-promotion throughout, the book boils down to a mix of personal observation and anecdotes, betting strategies using a progression system, mixed with a lot of comparisons between the "old" blackjack and his new approach. Harvey claims that the old won't work any longer because the casinos of today environment are so used to traditional card counting methods as to render them obsolete.

Harvey also makes a case for a good deal of cheating by a number of dealers in a variety of casinos using stories to illustrate and prove his points as he does throughout the book. The most important point in his book boils down to something he calls the "X" factor which he defines as, "how well you are doing against a dealer." To bring this home, Harvey suggests a series of questions to ask yourself while you play to determine your X-factor at the moment which can be reduced to: Are you winning and do you feel comfortable?

There are suggestions concerning how to dress, how to relate to casino personnel; in fact the book purports to offer a complete look at how to conduct yourself in a casino. My problems with this book are multi-fold beginning with the extraordinary boasts on the cover then continuing throughout. While I realize that many complain that the pure mathematics of casino games are researched in sterile laboratories that don't take the casino experience into account, you simply can't ignore the logic of the math calculations as performed over billions of tests by numerous researchers. Q: Why are the casinos so concerned about card counters? A: Because they can win!

Harvey spends a lot of time refuting traditional card counting and even states at one point (p.71), "By card counting, no one (that I know of) means that you actually take note of every card, it's point value and its suit. No, card counting is an approximate method that attempts to predict what cards are likely to come out nextŠ" Harvey doesn't recognize that a trained card counter really does want to make a mental note of every card, exactly.

Harvey's approach can be summed up as a "feel-good" philosophy; he relates that it's okay to use a bit of card counting sometimes, some basic strategy sometimes, and lots of intuition. The problem lies in the fact that the untrained reader is left unsure of when to utilize each. Also, so-called "intuitive play" can lead to dire straits like the notion that "feeling a card is coming," a sure-fire way of losing your money.

All of blackjack, or any casino game for that matter, can be reduced to certain elements: you try to take advantage to the best situations. How does that happen? You have to recognize when those situations arise by understanding the basic math of the game to play higher when the odds are in your favor. The old math works. No discussion of rogue dealers, casino cheats, or countermeasures can dispel the math. It's easy to point fingers at the casino blaming "them" for poor play or bad decisions or bad luck.

I agree that in the "old" days of Las Vegas as well as other places, cheating by the casino was not unusual. For the most part, that was cleaned up a long time ago. The casinos don't have to cheat; most people don't play smart. They willingly give away their money by doing dumb things. And if the casinos see that you are winning too often, they simply ask you to leave. They don't need to cheat.

Keep in mind one basic reality: most dealers are paid a minimum wage and depend on your tips or tokes. If you are losing, how much are you going to tip? Dealing is a monotonous, repetitive and boring job. In my life in Las Vegas, I have known a lot of dealers and can tell you that most are happy to see you win as they stand a better chance of getting that tip.

Like school, the casino doesn't have to be a hostile place filled fraught with evil people. The inherent danger in Harvey's approach is that he views the dealer as the enemy instead of seeing a human being working for a wage. The casino supervisors and floor personnel are simply doing their jobs. There are good and bad and ugly just as there are in any other profession. His notion of having you remember each dealer when you lost and never playing with them again, then only playing with unfamiliar dealers or those with whom you won might leave the average person no one left to play with after a while.

Along with the math, the inevitable cat-and-mouse intangibles of playing blackjack are impossible to ignore. Blackjack isn't any different than life's other activities. If one extends a defensive and antagonistic approach to the world, one shouldn't be too surprised to have it boomerang. You reap what you sow. Harvey's flaw is that he treats the dealers and the supervisory personnel as the sworn enemy, then is dismayed when they treat him the same way. It is a fairly simplistic view to paint everybody with the same color, and this approach surely won't make your casino experience any more enjoyable. Just like school.

This review will continue next week with a look at Thomason's book, which is getting a lot of tongues wagging in the chat rooms.