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| The following is part of a series of interviews of notable blackjack figures by Robert V. Lux, produced for the Swedish gaming website, Kasinocentralen. Each piece is of one-half of the total interview, with the complete interview reserved for Robert's future book. | ||
| Question #1: For how long have you been playing blackjack? I began in 1975. My wife and I took out first trip to Las Vegas and my neighbour had given me a gaming book to read on the airplane. It was titled, "Beat the Dealer" by Edward O. Thorp. I actually began fooling with the Hi/Lo Count before I ever set foot in a casino. Q#2: Why did you start playing the game? It was happenstance. Had that first book been on roulette or craps, that's where I may have begun. But after four hours on the airplane route to Vegas, I felt an intimate understanding of blackjack and its intrinsic components. Q#3: Who do you consider the greatest blackjack player or author, ever existed? Explain why. I have scores of blackjack books on my shelf. I can't pick just one author, but I believe that Thorp, Revere, Wong, Snyder and Schlesinger have combined in my brain to define the strategic landscape of blackjack more clearly than the others. As for the greatest player; he's probably a totally unknown entity whose ambitions are not divided by the desire to inform and educate others. He's likely to be unmarried with no stationary home address. His self serving agenda can be completely mercenary with no mitigating interferences from outside. He may have blackjack winnings that dwarf that of all the famous "experts". I imagine he has an empty and lonely life. Q#4: What do you consider your strongest area in blackjack and why? I'd say it's my quantitative understanding of mathematical advantages and how they apply to the game. This extends to areas of blackjack either not considered or not mentioned in blackjack literature, such as interacting with other players' hands. Suppose for example, that the player next to you doubled down for less (in a neutral count) with 9 against a 7. Should you fill in the rest of his double with your own chips? Or what if he has 7/7 against a 3 and is reluctant to split. Should you offer to buy one of his 7's and play it? You may be surprised that the answers are; yes and no respectively. This is a whole neglected strategy realm that would come in particularly handy for non-counting basic strategy players. Q#5: What&Mac226;s your greatest and worst blackjack memory? Perhaps my fondest memory was back-counting an 8 deck shoe, stepping in and doubling for an extra $2 with 12 against a deuce to successfully chase the other two players from the table -- then proceeding to win roughly 120 base units on the shoe. My worst came later that same year on a nine day Vegas trip where I lost all nine days, played for table minimums on the last two days and arrived home with about $9 in my pocket. Q#6: When and why did you begin writing books on blackjack and poker? I began writing in 1995 soon after the gambling riverboats opened in my locale. My inspiration was that so many gamblers were needlessly throwing their money away at the blackjack tables. I felt the desire to become a blackjack "evangelist" of sorts. First I began a Riverboat Gaming column in the local newspaper, then did some monthly B/J articles for magazines and finally decided it was time to write a "how to" book. Q#7: What was your intention when you wrote Blackjack Bluebook? What did you want to teach the reader? Plenty of good blackjack information was already out there, but the legitimate strategies weren't written at your "brother-in-law's" level, or for your next door neighbor. There was either the bogus "money management" snake oil, or there was the all too scholastic "real deal". So naturally, the average Joe went for the bogus money management stuff. But you don't have to be a scholastic geek to learn how to play the "real deal". You just need to be talked to at the gambler's level. Gambler's are impetuous, have short attention spans and hate technical mumbo jumbo. I wanted Blackjack Bluebook to fill that void. Q#8: What makes Blackjack Bluebook unique? It does not contain much never-before-published material. I like to think that the "down home", descriptive way in which I present the facts forces comprehension into the brains of all the "working stiffs" who got little or nothing out of the more technical manuals. I went to greatly illustrated lengths to explain why third base's play doesn't affect your own chances, why quitting when you're ahead doesn't do diddley squat, and why high cards favour the player, etc, etc. Q#9: For what reasons do you prefer to tutor the reader with not very famous and used card counting systems? Wouldn't it be easier to stick with any of the popular counts, such as hi-lo, KO, etc? This way, the information presented in your book would be exploitable in more situations, which would create a more generic position. A typical example is that the numbers in the variation charts, listed in the Mentor Count chapter, is not utilizable to any other book. Most blackjack authors prefer to stick to hi-lo for the simplicity. Therefore, the information and numbers provided by, say Schlesinger (who uses hi-lo in BJA), can be used when reading other pieces of literature that deal with hi-lo. One of the most common inquiries I receive from readers of my newspaper/magazine columns is; "I know all my basic strategy -- Now what???" In current B/J literature, there's basic strategy, and from there you leap all the way to the Hi/Lo or the KO. But the fact is, there's lots of ground in between! Most folks are simply not cut out to be full blown card counters. In my new book there's something called the "Ace/10 Front Count". It requires about 20% of the effort and skill of the Hi/Lo, yet will take you about 60% of the way towards the Hi/Lo in terms of EV improvement over basic strategy. The Hi/Lo is a viable blackjack tool for a chosen few. The Ace/10 Front Count is a viable tool for anybody who knows basic strategy and can count straight forward up to 42. My intent with both B/J books was to bring previously undiscussed, yet practical winning methods to the inquiring player. Q#10: You have written a new book on blackjack that will be released April 1st. To what level of players does it aim at? It covers the gamut from basic strategy to multi-level card counting, utilizing the results from 11 billion computer generated hands along the way. But its main two thrusts are to exploit previously ignored strategy realms, and to simplify and optimize the performances of unbalanced card counts. These counts can be simplified by setting their IRC's (initial running counts) at a positive number with the "pivot" being the same for all numbers of decks. Then they can be optimized with more accurate index tables and convenient rules of thumb for knowing how to casually "fudge" those indices according to current penetration. Q#11: You gave me some preview on some topics that Blackjack Bluebook II will contain. Is that piece of information one of its kind, or is it already existing topics discussed from your own perspective and experiences? I've scarcely if ever seen anything in blackjack literature about "Hand Interaction". Nobody ever seems to pay attention to it, yet it's right in your face every time you play blackjack. This involves things like buying another player's blackjack against an Ace up; or selling one of your 7's against a dealer's 3 to the player next to you; or buying his 18 against a dealer's 8 for a small premium; etc, etc. The new book contains an entire section on this. Q#12: Only lately have I seen your name around on blackjack homepages. Have you been using aliases, like so many people do, or are you still a rookie regarding Internet discussions? What do you think about blackjack forums on the Internet? What homepages do you regularly visit? I have not used aliases, but I don't spend a lot of time cruising the internet. I check in about weekly on AdvantagePlayer.com, B/JMath.com and Rec.gambling.com to see who has what to say. Sometimes I think I can offer a helpful post, and do. |