Blackjack Attack: Playing the Pros' Way

Blackjack Attack: Playing the Pros' Way

This third and final edition of Don Schlesinger’s essential blackjack tome, now in softcover, is the biggest and best ever—a massive 533 pages that contain more than 400 tables and charts. The softcover edition also includes a major addition: a new appendix with “effects of removal” for playing and betting. These tables revise and expand the original work done by Peter Griffin in The Theory of Blackjack . Blackjack Attack is one of the most important books available to blackjack aficionados, and has been praised by every prominent blackjack expert. In it, Schlesinger answers virtually all of the thorny mathematical questions that have puzzled serious players for years: optimal betting, camouflage, risk analysis, team play, systems comparison, and much more. With twice as much material as its predecessor, this third, Ultimate, edition contains new studies that will intrigue even the most knowledgeable pro, including a complete reexamination of the late Peter Griffin’s work on expected values, and the publication of the most accurate basic strategy charts ever devised. Loaded with a stockpile of strategies, innovative analyses, and unique insights into the game, Blackjack Attack is the “Ultimate Weapon” in the blackjack player’s arsenal. Don Schlesinger has been involved with blackjack as a writer, lecturer, teacher, and player for more than 40 years. He holds a BS degree in mathematics and an MA and M.Phil. in French from the City University of New York. A former teacher of mathematics and French in the New York City school system, Don changed professions in 1984 and, until 1998, enjoyed a successful career at one of Wall Street’s most prestigious investment banks, where he was executive director. Now in semi-retirement, he continues to pursue business ventures in the financial community. The adrenaline starts pumping the night before the trip down. The dedicated perfectionist leaves no chance for sloppy or inaccurate play. I can recite 165 index numbers in my sleep and can count down a 52-card deck starting from a face down position (no scanning several clumps of cards at once) in under 14 seconds. No matter. There is practice to be done. Hands are dealt at lightning speed. Cards are flipped over. Indices are recited. This is a discipline thing. You either do it right or you don’t do it at all. At least that is my approach to the game. The practice completed, I get a good night’s sleep. It’s going to be a very long day. I have eschewed the junket approach for my entire nine-year playing career. I am very much a loner by nature and I have an infinite capacity for playing the game. I don’t care a lot about the freebies if accepting them cramps my style. I like getting the money and doing it on my terms. I have never uttered my real name in a casino. I have never established credit anywhere. Central Credit Agency doesn’t know I’m alive. I use different names in A.C. from those in Las Vegas and, for various reasons, have established more than one pseudonym according to the casino in question. Thus, Caesars Palace can’t cross-reference a name with Caesars A.C.; ditto for the two Trops, the two Sandses, etc. It pays to be careful. I have tried to impart to all of my students that the cardinal rule in this game is not to win as much money as possible. Rather, it is to win as much as you can, consistent with being welcome back in the casino the next time. There is a very big difference. If improper money management is the greatest destroyer of potentially successful card counters, then certainly greed and impatience are close runners-up for that top honor. If you can’t learn to win (and lose , for that matter) with both style and grace, then a) you probably won’t last in this game, and b) you will eat yourself up inside while trying. And so, I drive down the Garden State Parkway. Two and three-quarter hours later, I’m in my first casino, Caesars Boardwalk Regency. It is 12 noon. The battle begins! Packed with Strategies, Analyses, and Insights Essential Blackjack Book Since 'Beat the Dealer' Schlesinger Answers Players' Mathematical Queries New Studies for Enlightened Players Revisiting Griffin's Work Precise Basic Strategy and Removal Charts