Blackbelt in Blackjack : Playing Blackjack as a Martial Art

Rating:
Summary: Worth the price.
Review: Although the above reviews state some misgivings about this book, I read this book and I recommend it wholeheartedly. This book offers variety of insights to blackjack and provides information for all levels of players. It is a great reference book and a good start off book for the beginner. For the proficient player, it offers a great level 2 system. But, then again, if you're good, you already have this book, don't ya?

Rating:
Summary: Great introductory work on card counting
Review: As a former Financial Analyst/Games Analyst for the Tropicana in Las Vegas, I used to spend a huge number of hours reading and studying blackjack. I did a lot of research work for the casino whenever they wanted to offer special promotions or make rule changes to table games, so I had to be familiar with a broad range of gambling theory. While gambling books range wildly in quality, "Blackbelt in Blackjack" was one that stood out in my mind. It offered simple - yet powerful - card counting systems such as the Red Seven Count. While other blackjack books touted more complex higher level multi-parameter systems, Snyder was one of the first to advocate simpler systems. He reasoned that while the more complex systems could theoretically make more money per hour, the higher error rate due to mental fatigue and complexity often more than wiped out the gains over simpler systems which resulted in fewer errors. Snyder is also refreshingly honest in terms of expected win rates and the chances of a beginning card counter succeeding. He understands that most players are not looking to turn professional - they have full time jobs and thus cannot be expected to devote all of their waking hours to blackjack. They want to improve their game, enjoy the intellectual challenge of taking on the casinos, and hopefully make a few bucks and earn some comps in the process. If this is you, "Blackbelt in Blackjack" is a great book. If you are a full-time professional and don't mind spending a huge amount of time learning more complex systems and want to extract the absolute maximum win per hour from a blackjack game, then this book may not be for you. My experience is that the former outnumber the latter by a significant margin. The book covers topics from the rudiments of basic blackjack play (including a set of 10 rules that will cut the casino's edge to about 1%) to basic strategy to card counting (including the Red Seven Count and Zen Count). He also discusses bankroll requirements, how to evaluate table conditions, and camouflage. Please note that even a relatively simple system such as the Red Seven can't be learned in a day - it will take many days of hard work to become accurate and comfortable enough to play in a casino.

If you want to learn card counting there are a lot of classic works that you should read, and this book is a great place to start.

Rating:
Summary: You won't have a blackbelt after this book
Review: The title of this book is misleading. It's a book aimed at beginneres by the time you've finished you certainly won't be a blackbelt at blackjack. The systems offered are not the most powerful available.

The blurb of the book states that the main advantages of the modern player are shuffle tracking and team play. Unfortunately, automatic shuffling machines make shuffle tracking impossible. Furthermore if you're just beginning blackjack there's a good chance that you'll be going solo and won't have the luxury of a team.

A few things I'd like to see included in this book
(a) Risk of ruin - i.e the chances of losing your bankroll given certain playing conditions
(b) Realistic expectations of where you can expect to be monetarily e.g. in the long term 68% of you will be within one standard deviation of the mean, which given xxxxx playing conditions should place you somewhere between -$yyyy and +$zzzzz
(c) More in depth statistics about the power of his playing systems e.g. playing efficiency, betting correlation
(d) More in depth card counting drills

However all in all it's a great book it covers a lot of the basics including betting strategy, counting systems, rudimentary counting drills

Rating:
Summary: Blackjack as a Martial Art?
Review: Tom Synder being the overconvident blackjack player and writer that he is updated his 93 classic but still does not stack up to the book Blackjack as a Business by Lawrence Revere. Read that one and then you'll know what blackjack is all about. Borashi