Don Schlesinger: BJA2 Corrections

[Don Schlesinger]

I was asked, on the Red page, to list any corrections to BJA2. The following is the most current list. Any additions (no matter how minute) are cheerully accepted!

Some of my comments are actually directed to Arnold Snyder, hence the conversational tone.

Most of the technical,typographical stuff you won't care about at all. But, mixed in are some important things.

Corrections to BJA2:

1. In the Table of Contents, the Preface should be p. xvii, and not p. xiv.

2. I think you may not have fixed the kerning on the y's in the very early the Acknowledgments
and other sections, you'll see some examples of the old problem.

3. p. xix. "Highly-regarded Chapter 10" doesn't need the hyphen. I eliminated it in such constructions on other pages.

4. P. 139. Picture is too high.

5. P. 140. The negative sign in the exponent of the first formula should be an en dash, not a hyphen.

6. P. 195. Next time John changes the chart, we need en dashes for all the negative signs.

7. Marcus's BJ 678 actually has raised dots between the 67 and the 78. That's the way he writes it. I used hyphens (6-7-8) on pp. 191 and
342, and then, to compound the problem, you put 6,7,8 in the Index! Remember, we even commented on how it looked funny, coming after the word "Blackjack"? I should have picked up on that, but I let it go by.

8. P. 295. This is a bad one. It wasn't in the original article, but when you retyped the charts for SCORE, Table 11.21, second line, reads
"TC?RC," instead of "TC/RC." You hit the caps key, and the "?" is on top of the "/." But, I missed it, in proofreading, and so did everyone else.

9. P. 312. There seem to be some stray marks in the last full paragraph. Wonder if this is just my copy or everywhere.

10. P. 23. The (h-1) terms, to the right, should be en dashes, and all of the TCs, to the left, should be en dashes.

11. P. 50. Bad one. Next-to-last line of first paragraph: "your true count" doesn't start with a capital!!

12. P. 153. All my fault, since the ORIGINAL article in BJF! Hard to believe. Wrong in the article, wrong in both editions, and NO ONE saw
it. Last paragraph, right in the middle: "At the end of 1,000 hours" should be "1,000 HANDS"! How could I have possibly missed that?

13. P. 317. 12 v. 5 index, for the EV, first column, lost its negative sign!!! It was there, in the original.

14. Pp. 3, 6, 12, and 13. All have small y's.

15. P. 116. Picture is too large.

16. P. 306. En dashes for bet spreads.

17. In BJF article, Fall 2000, p. 19, change Carnegie Mellon Institute to University.

18. Dedication. Extra space: "memory of four"?

19. P. 34. Change rounded percentages to 6.55% and 10.07%.

20. P. 275. Page references are 18 numbers too high (weird!).

21. Chapter 10, 8-deck corrections from Norm Wattenberger:

There appear to be a few minor errors in the Chapter 10 eight deck tables.

For example, on page 254 if you take the TC frequency column, multiply by the %W/L column and multiply by the sim bets, divide by 100, you should get the average %W/L. This works for 1, 2 and 6 deck tables but not eight deck tables. The problem appears to be one number in each table. The EV %W/L for TC <=0 is incorrect. The number that you have is the %W/L for a TC of 0, not
TC <=0. The results all appear to be correct.

There also appears to be a problem with the tables on pages 268 and 269. The average bets don't come out correctly. It appears that the values that you have for a spread of 1-8 are the values for 1-10 and the values for 1-10 are the values for 1-12. I don't know about the other results. Fortunately,
eight deck H17, DAS, LS has got to be a rare game.

22. P. 345, surrender pages should be 71-73, not 71-74.

Of course, the above are in addition to the things we already know, to wit:

1. "way" instead of "Way," on spine of book cover.

2. Need to center spades on back cover, and, in my opinion, change the blurbs font, which is very hard to read (too narrow).

3. If we redo Chapter 10 charts, use en dashes and correct "greater than or equal to" and "less than or equal to" signs everywhere.

4. Pp. 328-9. Center title of "Spread 2" in all boxes, by spacing once to the right.

5. For Chapters 6 and 10, need quotes around the chapter titles on each odd-numbered page.

6. P. 270. Picture much too dark.

When I tell you that dozens upon dozens of hours were spent by numerous people proofreading, you can imagine my frustration. After all of the above is corrected, let's hope the third edition will be relatively error-free (anyone wanna bet?!).

Don

[Don Schlesinger]

> I was asked, on the Red page, to list any
> corrections to BJA2. The following is the
> most current list. Any additions (no matter
> how minute) are cheerully accepted!

Make that "cheerfully"!

Don

[Tina]

Don,

Thanks for the errata list! I was also curious about the Avg Bet column on page 70 (BJA, 2ed) ... it shows 2 units for index 0 for 16v10, and 1 unit for index 0 for 12v4.

Shouldn't these average bets be the same given the same index?

???

[Don Schlesinger]

> Thanks for the errata list! I was also
> curious about the Avg Bet column on page 70
> (BJA, 2ed) ... it shows 2 units for index 0
> for 16v10, and 1 unit for index 0 for 12v4.

> Shouldn't these average bets be the same
> given the same index?

Good question! I actually made a mistake with this the first time I wrote the draft of the article, and when I sent my work to Peter Griffin, he pointed out my error, which is your error (so, you're in good company! :-))

Basic strategy for 12 v. 4 is to stand, so when you make a departure from basic, it's because the count is LESS than zero (and you hit), hence the one-unit bet.

But BS for 16 v. 10 is to hit, so when you make a departure, it's because the count is MORE than zero, and hence, you're going to stand. So, the average bet size includes bets made at all counts ABOVE zero in the one case (16 v. 10), but BELOW zero in the other (12 v. 4).

Got it?

Don

[Tina]

> Got it?

> Don

I do now!

Thanks!