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You can read both Al's & Darryl's interview at my site as well as Keith Taft who also had comments on Uston.
http://www.richardmunchkin.com/search/label/Interviews
When people ask me about learning to count I usually tell them to start with Arnold's BB in BJ.
Sorry, I just realized that the Taft interview is not there. I'll have to get that up later.
Last edited by RWM; 11-20-2012 at 10:32 AM. Reason: additional info.
Originally Posted by RWM
In BBBJ, the author says he discarded the KnockOut count as a possible candidate as a legit system because it was too inefficient. He has also trashed Spanish21 as a sucker game implying it couldn't be beaten with counting. That in itself aroused my suspicion.
I usually point the aspiring player to Blackjack for Blood. That's the book that initially piqued my interest in the game. But of course the game is not about books or even counting but a host of other salient topics that require years of discovery and assimilation.
Opinions are like ***holes, everybody has one but they all stink. I just look at the numbers (system ratings based on statistics). I could care less the doctrine of the guy, because the truth is that there are differences of opinions about aspects of the game, even among the "experts." With that said, I use his Red 7 system and have no problems with it, nor does its math disagree for the level I am playing at.
How could Uston Not be a winning player?? If you can count, which I assume he could.. Have a sufficient BR, which I assume he did.. How could one not make maoney playing as long as he did??
Yes, one could squander his winnings on various vices but that wouldn't mean one is not a winning player??
I am confused about that statement. Did you hear he couldn't actually count cards or??
How do you know Revere invented it? Since Revere and Francesco were friends, and Revere was a known thief and con man isn't it possible that he stole credit for it from Francesco?
Both Al Francesco and Keith Taft were pretty negative about Ken. Darryl Purpose in his interview saw him as a very troubled guy with serious alcohol and drug problems. I believe it was the Darryl interview where he said that most of the money was won by other members of the team.
There was also the Cat Hulbert interview (in Gambling Wizards) where she said that Ken would often have to ask her the count because he was busy schmoozing the bosses while trying to use his 3-level count.
I used to see Jim Brown playing back then but he played very small stakes and would never play against anybody good at all. Don Adams (Get Smart) was the same way.
I know that Al and Revere knew each other in the 60s, had a Mexico trip together that may or may not have made it into the interview. (I don't remember.)
Arnold has written some about the origin of the big player concept. I think it's in The Big Book of Blackjack, but I'm not sure and I don't have the energy to track it down. Anyway, it's likely that the idea dawned on many different players independently. What deserves far more credit, in my opinion, is having been the first to develop it into a method that successfully won large amounts of money at high stakes, and having continued to apply the method successfully for the longest time. We all know who that was.
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