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Beat the Dealer: A Winning Strategy for the Game of Twenty-One Review
User Submitted Beat the Dealer: A Winning Strategy for the Game of Twenty-One ReviewsJuly 31, 2008 Blackjack for dummies! This was an entertaining read. Edward Thorp did a lot of research :) and his stories are hysterical. His method of playing blackjack is easy to learn...even for somebody over 50! :) June 4, 2008 A Classic I find the story surrounding this book to be just as interesting as the book's content. [...] Few books are ever this popular, never mind this popular for decades. Beat the Dealer is approaching 50 years of incredible popularity among readers. This is reason enough to check it out. This is the best book for anyone eager to dive in to blackjack and move beyond the game's basics. It's not for a passive reader. It's also for anyone interested in gambling in general, or the history of gambling. This book is a classic. August 27, 2007 This book and your own brain are all you need....well...a team... Next stop Macau Still the classic for the high-low method, but nowadays you need to work in teams and with the perpetual continuous shuffle machines/decks the method has become harder to deploy in lots of casinos. Which is why those who use this with refined forced-card deck cutting are in the current gravy boat, although their day in the sun will also pass. Most folks can intuitively understand card counting and shoe-skew. There are plenty of books on the topic of card counting. However, Thorp's original work is best and overlooked on several important points by most folks. The first point is: rigor. Thorp has backed up his method with solid empirical and theoretical underpinnings. This gave confidence to generations of card counters who refined his method. The second point is: clarity. Thorp is a first-string mathematician and easily could have stayed conversing with peers in jargon, or he even could have purposefully employed obscurantism to keep tables thin. Instead his prose style is lean, direct, and clear. Such is his brevity and Wittgensteinian exactness that you may need to re-read a few sentences here and there to absorb what he is saying, but on the whole this is an accessible narrative written by a mathematician for an intelligent audience. A wonderful gift that opens up a new world combining math, fun and money. Now about Kelly criterion in betting strategies...... March 7, 2007 The Book that Started the Blackjack Revolution Edward O. Thorp started the blackjack revolution way back in the early 1960s with a difficult but successful card counting system. This book explains that early system and why blackjack is a beatable game. There are now many easier card counting systems such as the Hi-Lo, the KO, the High Opt and the easiest of all Speed Count. Thorp's book is a must have for your gambling library as he started it all. Frank Scoblete: author of Golden Touch Dice Control Revolution! January 22, 2007 The Grandfather of Blackjack Strategy Beat the Dealer: A Winning Strategy for the Game of Twenty-One by Edward Thorp started a craze toward card counting in casinos, prompted several rules changes including increased numbers of decks, shorter cuts, and more frequent shuffles. It's the grandfather of Blackjack strategy books and the first mathematical analysis of the game published outside academia. For those reasons alone it's worth having and studying even if its effectiveness has been diminished by the rules changes I noted above. The other advantage that Thorp's book has over the dozens of blackjack books available is that it includes the probability charts. You can take the numbers from the appendix, see where the strategy was developed and make your own adjustments based on the conditions you encounter at your local game or casino. It's tricky, his counting system and strategy, but once you have the hang of it you can be assured a fair game with a casino. And, all told, it's not that difficult a system to master with some practice ahead of time. Don't read this volume on the plane flight into Vegas and expect to beat the dealers in a day, but spend a week or two with some decks of cards, practice, go online and play, then take your shot against the pros. Good luck. - CV Rick January 21, 2007 Used it and won--when they didn't cheat! The book was very useful in understanding how much to bet given your hand and where you are in the deck. The casinos do still cheat, so I would advise watching for opportunities to play at a fair table (then clean their clocks with these methods). July 24, 2006 Must read, but not all praise If you were ever interested in card counting this book is for you. Not because it guarantees the edge against the casino with 10 simple rule, because it doesn't, but because it outlines several good strategies to maintain a small edge (or in some cases a smaller disadvantage) over the casino establishment. I gave this book 5 stars for a couple different reasons. Although requiring a lot of practice, the ten count that thorp teaches should more than pay for the book. The stories, although providing little insight into the world of current gambling, provide comical relief for an otherwize stale and mathmatical book. Although a person can find easier to use systems and basic strategy tables on the internet, Thorp's main assistance to me came in his in depth modification to the tables based on what the count reflects. The short comings of this book are numerous however. For one, thorp dedicates a significant (not to mention hilarious) portion of the book to end play. A system where by busting certain hands and standing on others effects the composition of the deck post shuffle. That is, by busting all hands with aces and tens when the deck appears to be running out, the aces and tens are reshuffled with the remainder of the deck while the low cards are not, giving the player a small advantage. Another dissapointment is that thorp doesn't go into the deep mathmatics of his strategy or the simulations, he simply states nearly undunderstandable percent advantages and assumes the reader will trust him. (for owners, this is reference to the page where he outlines the percent advantages with different numbers of tens in the deck where no pattern is visible) To splice in some praise, I would recomend this as a first book. A lot of information about advantages and disadvantages with different casino play is not included, but the basic outline presented, the expanitory style in which each of his 4 counts are explained, and the excitement in practicing "beating the dealer" make this a worth while read. November 21, 2005 Mixed feelings Great book on this classic strategy. Thorp got even richer using a similar system in the stock market. (Although it was during the bull years...) Not suited for the less then occasional player or in general any player who's familiar with the game's rules in other languages. December 19, 2003 Classic blackjack! One of the best books written on blackjack! This is the book that started the whole counting craze! A must read for all serious players. October 24, 2003 Gotta have this book in your gambling library The fact that this book, which was originally published in the 1960s, is still ranked so high in the bestseller lists says something about its historical value in the gambling world. If you've ever had any interest in card counting (which accounts for many people since the successful ride of "Bringing Down the House"), this book is definitely worth picking up -- especially at its small price. Much of the information is outdated, but to actually relive the earliest stages of basic strategy and card counting is pretty freakin' cool. For the blackjack enthusiast, this book won't disappoint.
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