Product Description

A revised edition of the blackjack player's bible, with complete information on the odds, betting strategies, and much more -- now updated to include the rules of play in Atlantic City as well as international playing rules.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #69575 in Books
• Published on: 1987-03-17
• Released on: 1987-03-17
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

From the Publisher
A revised edition of the blackjack player's bible, with complete information on the odds, betting strategies, and much more -- now updated to include the rules of play in Atlantic City as well as international playing rules.

Inside Flap Copy
A revised edition of the blackjack player's bible, with complete information on the odds, betting strategies, and much more -- now updated to include the rules of play in Atlantic City as well as international playing rules.

Customer Reviews

Good book
Gook book to read on BJ. I hope everyone knows that you cannot make a professional living playing BJ in this country by counting cards. Go checkout blackjack forums first. Again, you cannot make money consistently by counting cards. It's a myth spread by the casinos, not the players. However, you will have an edge, ever slight. BJ should be played recreationally to get as much comps as possible without losing money. At least that's my goal.

Good basic starategy book.
Lance Humble and Clark Cooper, The World's Greatest Blackjack Book (revised edition) (Broadway Books, 1980)

The problem with the classic in the genre, Edward Thorp's Beat the Dealer, is that it's simply too complex for English majors like me to figure out. If you don't have a head for numbers, trying to put Thorp's work into practice is liable to send you to the nuthatch for long stretches of time. Humble and Cooper, after a good deal of expository prose (most of which is long, long out of date-- much of it, they surmise at various times, was probably out of date by the time the book rolled off the press), introduce first a basic non-counting system, then build on that to introduce the Hi-Opt (High Optimization) counting system. As it's a gradual process, it's already easier for boneheads like me to make sense out of. It does get complicated towards the end, of course, but as you're learning it in steps, things certainly seem a good deal easier. Besides, the big fad these days is Texas Hold 'Em, so you might actually be able to find a seat at the blackjack tables for once (or, better yet, at a no-dealer game administered by machine, where you can range your bets without a pit boss getting after you). The expository prose may be outdated, but the system is a "now more than ever" kind of thing. *** ½

A great first book
This is the type of book that, if I were to look at it now after having learned a lot about blackjack, I would probably consider one of the "dumb" or "mainstream" books that try to convince you there's a system you can use to beat roulette. I think the title might help lend it this idea as well.

But in reality this is the book that started it all for me. I don't know why I chose it first, but I learned *everything* about blackjack from this book, except for advanced card-counting techniques (which are here as well, but I chose to learn a simpler system, the KO Count). This book does an excellent job of describing the game for those who are new to it, and it presents Basic Strategy very clearly and concisely. I still refer to it to refresh my memory every time I go to a casino. In a lot of ways it really is one of the greatest books, at least in my experience.