Black Jack Strategy Part 2

Casinos Clamp Down on Black Jack Strategy

Once Edward O. Thorp's famous book became widespread, casinos began to change their Black Jack rules. They intended for the new rules to make it more difficult for players to win by counting cards. Instead, casino customers stopped playing Black Jack altogether, preferring to stick to games that were easier to win. At that point, most casinos got rid of all of the new rules except for one - instead of using one deck per game, they would use multiple decks and shuffle frequently, making it difficult for card counters to make their calculations.

Team Play as a Black Jack Strategy

With this change came a new wave of black jack literature, one that attempted to address the problem of multiple decks. One of the first was Ken Uston's book, The Big Player, which described the author's winning Blackjack exploits. Uston discovered that card counting was easier to use and more lucrative when implemented by a team of players. Uston won millions of dollars using his newly refined Black Jack strategy.


Later on in the 1990's, a team of MIT students grouped together to form what they called a Black Jack Club. This Black Jack Club used team card counting to win millions of dollars at Vegas casinos. Lead by Mickey Rosa, who funded and educated the team, they discovered that dividing the card counting responsibilities amongst several players distracted the dealer from their methodology. When the casinos finally caught on to their strategy, they made it virtually impossible for the team to play.


You can read about the adventures of the MIT team in the book Bringing Down the House, by Ben Mezrich. Mezrich describes the strategic inner workings of the MIT black jack team, and tells the detailed story of how a several intelligent university students were able to win millions playing cards.

Wonging: A New Black Jack Strategy

In 1975, at around the same time that Uston's book on team playing was published, a big Black Jack breakthrough was made by author, Stanford Wong. In his book, Professional Blackjack, Wong describes in detail the Hi-Low method of card counting, and how to implement it in a game of Black Jack. Wong is perhaps best known for his popularization of a technique known as "wonging." This method involves watching a game of Black Jack without actually placing any bets, until the card count becomes advantageous. New rules in most casinos make this method obsolete - most Black Jack tables do not allow mid-round entry into the game.

Shuffle Tracking Strategy

The next big name in Black Jack strategy was Arnold Snyder, whose book, The Shuffle Tracker's Cookbook, introduced a new and controversial method of Black Jack strategy. The technique, called shuffle tracking, involved taking note of where excess large or small cards were placed in the discard pile, and using that information to determine where they would end up after shuffling. While much more difficult to implement than card counting; shuffle tracking allowed players to play strategically in a way that was undetectable by casino management.

Taking Black Jack Card Counting to a New Level

Today, when you browse the shelves of card playing literature, you'll find hundreds of new and improved books on Black Jack card counting strategy. For the most part, these books take Thorp's original counting methods and develop them to suit Black Jack tables of today. The Black Jack Bluebook II, by Fred Renzy, is one of the most popular books on Black Jack strategy. This simple guide to Black Jack describes in detail both Basic Strategy and many high level forms of card counting. Another popular variation on Thorp's methods is described in Knockout Black jack, written by Ken Fuchs and Olaf Vancura. This method, called the K-O method, is a new and powerful card counting system, which works well for long Black Jack sessions or at densely populated tables.

Black Jack Strategy Books Can Improve Play!

So, did the casinos manage to break the will of Black Jack strategists? Certainly not! But they did discover that most people aren't willing to put the time and effort into perusing the vast selection of Black Jack literature currently available. Most casual gamblers are content to play without reading up on the latest black jack strategies; which means that casino income from Black Jack tables has remained virtually the same.
But thanks to Edward O. Thorp, and all of the great writers and strategists who followed in his footsteps, players can learn to beat the dealer. One quick read through any of these phenomenal Black Jack strategy books is sure to improve any player's game technique.