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Blackjack Book by member

Larry D. Haight PhD

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39
HAIGHT ON CASINO BLACKJACK, the Art of Investment (Kindle as eBook, Amazon as paperback) author Larry D. Haight PhD describes Casino Blackjack as the toughest of casino table games. The quality of player card play can influence the chances of winning. Casino Blackjack is a binary game but the only player option is to bet to win. Opposition betting has not been considered possible. Card counting is mostly an exercise in futility. Slight advantage plays may be isolated in some few games but the published betting algorithm sucks. Ken Uston said it as well as possible, "Bet the true in green." There are some bright spots. You can learn minus true count basic strategies. You can bet in Round Robin Rotation format. You can define the value of the dealer bet, factor it with your own and bet the difference. Betting casino Blackjack has recreational value on par with playing chess. The good news is that consistent winning is possible. The bad news is that the winnings tend to be modest. amazon.com/author/larryhaight
 

Stealth

Member
Messages
150
The good news is that consistent winning is possible. The bad news is that the winnings tend to be modest.

OK, you got me. You want to elaborate on "consistent winning" I find the implication to be very misleading to the potential new player.

I have in the past managed teams of blackjack players and we keep copious data on each session. I have a database of the conditions and results of over 6,000 blackjack sessions by over 25 different certified players. I can speak very clearly about win rates, variance, streaks, etc.

Consistent winning does not show up! Words are funny things and consistent may not mean the same thing to you?
 

bienamie

New Member
Messages
55
A potential new player will definitely get confused or exhilarated or both. Whereas I cannot speak for all new players, most of them are fond of checking everywhere for any literature that gives them hope against all odds.
 

Larry D. Haight PhD

New Member
Messages
39
OK, you got me. You want to elaborate on "consistent winning" I find the implication to be very misleading to the potential new player.

I have in the past managed teams of blackjack players and we keep copious data on each session. I have a database of the conditions and results of over 6,000 blackjack sessions by over 25 different certified players. I can speak very clearly about win rates, variance, streaks, etc.

Consistent winning does not show up! Words are funny things and consistent may not mean the same thing to you?

Every person takes to every game a different personal perspective, a different level of expertise and they arrive at a different set of random occurences. I can only ask have you read the presentation in my book? I believe that I made it clear that Blackjack is the toughest of the big four casino games. I did not know this in my youth. I have bet more Blackjack than any other casino game. I think that I am ahead, but I do not have records to sustain this.

\I did document one series of 17 consecutive winning sessions (one was four hours long and I left with a net gain of $2.00). The 18th session was murder. I don't remember the base bets to the system that I was betting, but I bought in at the table with $750. I lost steadily. On the next to last hand, I had a $165 bet, the dealer showed a 6. The floor manager had been watching my game. I told him, if I don't double, they will kick me out of the club. I doubled, the dealer out drew me. $320 down the tube.

I was betting in Round Robin Rotation and my next bet was $135. It lost. I picked up the remainder of my chips, told the floor person that it was to rough for me and went to the concession for the $1.49 strawberry shortcake. I left the session with about a $500 loss. I still had a profit from the earlier sessions. The only thing that I can tell you beyond this is that this was about 15 years ago and that nce that I started writing about betting systems, I integrated quite a bit of thinking.

My Blackjack book is the best that I have ever seen. Casinos are not nailed to the barn door and they are not going to be. If the guidelines that I laid out in my book are followed, I believe the average bettor can achieve consistent winning sessions. Consistent means that there will be more winning sessions than losing ones. There is not a single "!" in any of my books unless as part of a quotation.

Yes, I want to sell my books. I do not want anyone to pay for one of them unless they receive full value. The book in question is probably 250 pages (one of my short books because there is only so much that can be done with Blackjack) and I cannot reproduce it in a couple of paragraphs. I do not seek to convince you of anything. I speak to you as one professional to another. If you have any specific question that I have not fully detailed in my book (and there may be many), I will do my best to help. My email is drlarryhaight@yahoo.com
 

Stealth

Member
Messages
150
Ok, I can tell you that historically, you can win about 60% of the sessions you play if you are counting cards and have information to improve your betting and playing decisions.

Winning 17 sessions in row is a huge outlier that is so rare it is not worthy of mention. I do not need you to answer anything for me regarding blackjack, my comments were about the potential, perhaps unintentional, misrepresentation of the modern game and its potential range of results to the new players.

I have played and bet thousand of rounds at greater than 2 hands of $500 each. There are no betting schemes or other means to win at blackjack other than counting cards. Hole carding and shuffle tracking excluded.

I am willing to bet that your system (unless it is a legitimate counting system) will NOT result in a consistent winning record and if you want to describe it, I will simulate it with a billion rounds (yes a billion) of blackjack and provide the answers.

If I am wrong, then I will buy your book and I will write a positive review recommending it.

I will send you an email with my contact data should you choose to pursue.
 

Larry D. Haight PhD

New Member
Messages
39
Ok, I can tell you that historically, you can win about 60% of the sessions you play if you are counting cards and have information to improve your betting and playing decisions.

Winning 17 sessions in row is a huge outlier that is so rare it is not worthy of mention. I do not need you to answer anything for me regarding blackjack, my comments were about the potential, perhaps unintentional, misrepresentation of the modern game and its potential range of results to the new players.

I have played and bet thousand of rounds at greater than 2 hands of $500 each. There are no betting schemes or other means to win at blackjack other than counting cards. Hole carding and shuffle tracking excluded.

I am willing to bet that your system (unless it is a legitimate counting system) will NOT result in a consistent winning record and if you want to describe it, I will simulate it with a billion rounds (yes a billion) of blackjack and provide the answers.

If I am wrong, then I will buy your book and I will write a positive review recommending it.

I will send you an email with my contact data should you choose to pursue.


I thank you for your offer. Winning 17 sessions in a row is not amazing. That was just one weekend that I clocked. I normally bet to never leave the table as a loss. One of the sessions took four hours and I finally recovered to a $2.00 win. I never made an effort to count cards as the gains that might be obtained were too minor to bother with. I have played at tables where card counters were working and they later thanked me because the pit was watching my betting instead of theirs. I do not believe that situational accounting based betting of blackjack can be programmed and simulated with 100,000 hands, let alone a billion. To start with, I bet in Round Robin Rotation format. Bets rotate position after any loss. I use biased algorithms with variable interval loss recovery. After any cumulative bank gain, all bets are reset to base. I generally use a minus 3 true count card play strategy but after a couple of losses (especially if the rest of the table has been losing), I would use a minus 6 true count card play. I do not use a card count.

Striving to bet a minimum amount during minus counts and larger amounts during plus counts completely ignores that accounting can readily compensate for having fewer wins than losses. Yes, I read Arnold Snyder (Bishop, First Church of Blackjack - "All we are saying is "Give Greed a Chance."") and his writings on shuffle tracking. I believe that he said that not three in one thousand would be able to master the technique. I am not one of the three.

I was surprised to see one of Snyder's articles where he described Hoyle's Press (but he called it Oscar's Grind) as being the safest method of someone not having a loss at Blackjack over a weekend. After all, Oscar told Dr. Wilson that he had used the system for years and never had a losing weekend. Hoyle's Press has some value but I never cared for it.

Frankly, I don't care if you buy my book nor do I care about a review. I believe that card counting and betting minimum bets while the shoe is neutral or negative and increasing bets during the brief times that the shoe is positive is a monumental waste of time. The shoe being positive does not mean that the dealer has less chance of making a good hand. The betting algorithm sucks. No, I don't know how to improve on the algorithm when it is used as described. It is terrible, but possibly cannot be improved.

No one on planet earth will ever bet one billion hands. One billion is a microscopic slice of infinite randomity, but is of such a dimension that such a study is pretty much meaningless. I have had many sessions of 100 bets where I lost 60 of them (I don't remember ever winning 60 of the 100). If a small sample of 200 bets has percentage results approaching that of a one billion event sample, the results are coincidental. My betting sessions were normally 50 to 100 bets and I am only concerned with not having a session loss. Betting of Blackjack is similar to playing chess. It requires thinking and judgment.

I say my sessions were - I am 75 years old and live far away from a casino. I may never play another hand of Blackjack.

Call for your one billion sample if you wish (I don't believe situtational accounting can be programed) but I am frankly not interested. My book was designed for someone to learn how to earn some money while enjoying recreation. I did not misrepresent the potential of betting Blackjack for new players. I did suggest that if someone were new to the game, that they would do well to throw all of the card counting technology in the trash. It will not help the vast majority of bettors.

Thank you for sending your comments.
 

Stealth

Member
Messages
150
Dr. Haight,

We will need to agree to disagree. Your comment that card counting is useless is, in my opinion, simply wrong and offensive to those that know better.

I do agree with your comment that card counting will do little to help the vast majority of players (recreational). They must start with the use of Basic Strategy to minimize their exposure to the casino. Even card counters are hard pressed to be successful as most have inadequate bankrolls to withstand the swings. But it can be done.

Computer simulation dealing over a billion rounds and utilizing random number generation for dealing is not only possible, but has been used extensively (and is readily available) to test for every rule variation, deck variation and cut card penetration variation. In doing so, the software can and does also produce optimal betting structures.

I have no intent on engaging on a one sided debate about your proposals so I will buy your book (already have library of over 150 blackjack Books) and read it. I am a student of the game and its attributes, so I look forward to being enlightened with new material. I will then have more definitive comments.
 

Larry D. Haight PhD

New Member
Messages
39
Thank you for stating your fair and reasonable position. You have extensive data that purports to prove that the only way to beat the game of Blackjack is some variation of card counting, modifying card play based on the true count and increasing bet sizes when the true count is positive. I do not challenge the work, skill and testing that has been done. I challenge that card counting and its derivatives is the only route to beat the game. The card counter's basic primise is an untested hypothesis. That extensive card counting data are present does not mean that other accounting routines were tested.

In fairness, if you read almost any modern review, you will find an authoritative discussion debunking some "progression" that has not been used by investor bettors in the last 300 years. Accounting based betting techniques are not available to the reading public. An action of a 1,000,000,000 event test that appears to produce a .01% gain is spurious accuracy with no real world applicability. The results of a 200 event decision tree is often quite different than expections from a 1,000,000 decision tree.

Blackjack writers have indicated that even with perfect play, only a minor advantage over the casino is gained. It is not rare to have swings of capital, both upward and downward. A card counter may be under water for a week or more. Additionally, card counting has no applicability against a CSM (continuous shuffle machine) or an electronic deal (there may be an eight deck shoe, shuffled after every deal) and very slight applicability in a shoe game when the cut card is not deeply placed. A bettor does not need to know the results of the 1,000,000 decision tree with exactitude, only accouting routines that will safely carry through the next hundred or so decisions.

Someone initially confronting a Blackjack game is more concerned with the next 50 bets. My approach is that accounting can defeat the Blackjack game. Accounting routines are developed for the worst probable circumstances. An initial visitor to casino Blackjack will be better served by reading my book than any of the 150 or so books that you have in your library. Some of your books are by authors such as Charles Einstein, Lawrence Revere, Stanford Wong, Arnold Snyder, John Archer, Leon Dubey, Ken Uston, John Scarne, Jerry Patterson, Cooper and Humble, and so on. The idea of card counting is fairly new in the United States, perhaps only 60 years old. The art of card counting is much older. Card sense, card recognition and casing a deck were skills the preceeded the modern ideas of card counting. Victor Bethell described card counting (but not with Blackjack) circa 1900.

You will not like my book, it disagrees with many of your fondest beliefs. I do not reccomend that you buy it.
 

Larry D. Haight PhD

New Member
Messages
39
Thank you for stating your fair and reasonable position. You have extensive data that purports to prove that the only way to beat the game of Blackjack is some variation of card counting, modifying card play based on the true count and increasing bet sizes when the true count is positive. I do not challenge the work, skill and testing that has been done. I challenge that card counting and its derivatives is the only route to beat the game.

The card counter's basic primise is an untested hypothesis. That extensive card counting data are present does not mean that other accounting routines were tested. In fairness, if you read almost any modern review, you will find an authoritative discussion debunking some "progression" that has not been used by investor bettors in the last 300 years.

Accounting based betting techniques are not available to the reading public. An action of a 1,000,000,000 event test that appears to produce a .01% gain is spurious accuracy with no real world applicability. The results of a 200 event decision tree is often quite different than expections from a 1,000,000 decision tree but a study of a betting routine during an unfavorable decision tree is of far more utility than the spurious

Blackjack writers have indicated that even with perfect play, only a minor advantage over the casino is gained. It is not rare to have swings of capital, both upward and downward. A card counter may be under water for a week or more. Additionally, card counting has no applicability against a CSM (continuous shuffle machine) or an electronic deal (there may be an eight deck shoe, shuffled after every deal) and very slight applicability in a shoe game when the cut card is not deeply placed. A bettor does not need to know the results of the 1,000,000 decision tree with exactitude, only accouting routines that will safely carry through the next hundred or so decisions.

Someone initially confronting a Blackjack game is more concerned with the next 50 bets. My approach is that accounting can defeat the Blackjack game. Accounting routines are developed for the worst probable circumstances. An initial visitor to casino Blackjack will be better served by reading my book than any of the 150 or so books that you have in your library. Some of your books are by authors such as Charles Einstein, Lawrence Revere, Stanford Wong, Arnold Snyder, John Archer, Leon Dubey, Ken Uston, John Scarne, Jerry Patterson, Cooper and Humble, and so on. The idea of card counting is fairly new in the United States, perhaps only 60 years old. The art of card counting is much older. Card sense, card recognition and casing a deck were skills the preceeded the modern ideas of card counting. Victor Bethell described card counting (but not with Blackjack) circa 1900.

My book is not an argument against card counting. It is a statement that card counting is largely ineffective and that other betting routines have superior results.

You will not like my book. It disagrees with many of your fondest beliefs. I do not reccomend that you buy it.
 

Stealth

Member
Messages
150
It is a statement that card counting is largely ineffective and that other betting routines have superior results.

Dr. Haight,

I am not a blackjack writer, I am and Advantage Player, and your comment is blatantly wrong.

You should understand that I use simulations with large numbers of rounds to provide optimum playing and betting decisions at all points in a game. It is the design of my playing protocols that insure success OVER TIME. I then measure my actual results against those results, both by sessions and cumulative, and determine if I am performing with normal variances.

In regard to your suggestion that I will not like your book, I do not allow others to control what I think or how I feel, so I will read your book and report back.

I do not have to like it to contrast it to my reality.
 

Larry D. Haight PhD

New Member
Messages
39
Dr. Haight,

I am not a blackjack writer, I am and Advantage Player, and your comment is blatantly wrong.

You should understand that I use simulations with large numbers of rounds to provide optimum playing and betting decisions at all points in a game. It is the design of my playing protocols that insure success OVER TIME. I then measure my actual results against those results, both by sessions and cumulative, and determine if I am performing with normal variances.

In regard to your suggestion that I will not like your book, I do not allow others to control what I think or how I feel, so I will read your book and report back.

I do not have to like it to contrast it to my reality.


It is my opinion that many of your comments are blatently wrong. An investment bettor is not impressed by minor changes that insure success over time. An investment bettor at casino Blackjack is in much the same position as a tournament chess player that has an armada of techniques available but is in a game that is biased against him. An investor is concerned with the flow of money and his concern is of the increase of decrease of capital over a period of bets. Advantage betting does not have a resoundingly successful history. As I recall from one of the monographs of Arnold Snyder, to gain an advantage in an eight deck shoe requires a 12 to 1 betting spread. The betting capital required for a "counter" to expect to make a living betting blackjack is about $150,000. A counting expert, over a lengthy time, might achieve a 1.5% edge over a casino but must expect lengthy capital swings. An investment bettor simply cannot sustain a winning position when a buy-in required bankroll is expected to be 1,000 to 1. This equates to $5,000 to $5 for a five dollar bettor. With a 1.5% edge and a base bet of $5, the five dollar bettor will not have significant earnings betting casino Blackjack. It's just not "in the cards." I advocate forgetting plus count basic strategy (the source of advantage betting) and to only use a zero true count basic strategy with an electronic or CSM deal. A minus three true count basic strategy is the basic strategy of choice in all other deals but may be modified to a minus six true count based on observed table conditions. You search for advantage plays, investors are more concerned with handicapping the flow of money. My approach is that of an accountant, adverse to unprofitable risk of money.
 

Larry D. Haight PhD

New Member
Messages
39
I am not concerned with green or black betting. I present exhibits in $5 chips for a betting buy in bank of $200. This is the casino table game betting by the majority of casino patrons. For bettors of Green or Black, changing the exhibits is a simple matter of multiplication. Most at casino Blackjack are defense bettors and most lose moderately. Round Robin Rotation is the betting format of the casino. It is easy of use by a defense bettor and, with the use of cumulative bank resets, tends to remove losing sessions. Round Robin Rotation is accounting based, not counting based.

Attack bettors do better with lineal (stimulas response) betting, if they have a good betting algorithm. Opposition betting (where the bettor defines the bet of the dealer and bets to exceed it) is a new area in casino Blackjack betting. It shows great promise but is still under development.

HAIGHT ON CASINO BLACKJACK, the Art of Investment does not support a rehash of marginal technology. It presents a modified basic strategy, little recognized betting algorithms and betting as a game of skill.
 
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