Brief book review: The 21st-Century Card Counter by Colin Jones

[21forme]

Recently read the book. It's well-written and easy reading.

The book would be valuable to the newish card counter (and Zee, as many of the questions he asks repeatedly are addressed). As I've been doing this for a long time, for me, not so much, but it was still an entertaining read. It covers pretty much everything you need to know to get started and refine your game. There's a fair amount of self-promotion of BJA and the bootcamps. Also, if you regularly listen to GWAE, you've already heard many of the interviews in the book, from players like Joe, Semi-Pro, SD1, etc.

For full disclosure, I've never been a BJA member nor attended a bootcamp. I met Colin once, purely by accident. He jumped in on my table and we got to talking. He politely left my table shortly thereafter.

[ZeeBabar]

Colin seems a nice enough guy but his intolerance of anyone on BJA even suggesting that someone consider starting part time, suggesting anything slightly negative (like full time play may be a grind), that early success in local casinos may not last (and traveling adds cost) and you get banned (though very politely).

My guess was was that it would be a good book but perhaps has very little of the negatives that are found in other books. One of the things I like about Don’s book is that it does not push full time BJ play and other entertaining books cover backoffs and the grind of the vocation.

[PinkChip]

I have just received the Colin book and am going to read it (from a novice counter perspective) over Christmas till start of January (but still am busy with daily job and reading Million Dollar Blackjack by Ken Uston, so it might take a while).

[Eye of the Eagle]

Maybe ZeeBabar could also give us a review on the book he was interested in?