Which Blackjack Book??

[Peter666]

The Knock-Out count is just a "knock off" of the Red Seven count first presented by Snyder. Plus, you have lots of additional strategy and a couple more advanced counts presented in the Black Belt book. It is the book that encompasses everything you need in one package. If I could only have one BJ book, it would be this one.

The other excellent book that should be read after introductory books is "Blackjack Attack" by Don Schlensinger.

There are a handful of excellent BlackJack books including ones by Malmuth and Sklanksy that you can find reviews in "Gambling Theory and Other Topics" by Malmuth.

[Skipbidder]

My copy of KO is currently on semi-permanent loan. I only used to play when I was playing B&M poker, which I haven't done in 5 years or so.

Am I misremembering? I seem to recall that KO had nice strategy matrices that included many of Schlesinger's plays (in a much easier to use form than Snyder). Their simulations had KO with an edge over Red 7s (which is what we are talking about, right?)
Were those sims wrong/disputed?

[Peter666]

"Were those sims wrong/disputed?"

Yes, as I recall the claims were found to be greatly exaggerated. The authours later revised it in later copies of their book. This is actually discussed a bit in the Third Edition of Black Belt in BlackJack.

The end results in edge between using Red 7's or the KO system is basically nil. I find it easier to count the Red 7's myself, and also I don't have to start the count from a low negative or more abstract number like KO. For me Red 7 is just simpler and better. Also, Snyder has an "Advanced Red 7" with a few strategy tweaks that improve it even more. And the simplest and best advanced count is the Zen Count, also found in the BlackBelt book. I recall Malmuth and Snyder exchanging opinions on the subject and this was Malmuth's conclusion too.

[Skipbidder]

Thanks