Michael Benson's Blackjack Strategy is another book which aims to teach a blackjack player how to go from being a complete beginner to a winning card counter. Of course, there are many other books on the market that attempt the same thing. How does this one compare to the rest of the field?
The book begins with a description of the mechanics of playing blackjack, written so that even someone who has never played the game in a casino can understand what will happen at a table. This is followed by a description of basic strategy, including some explanations as to why some of the plays that might at first seem non-sensical are, indeed, correct. Then, the reader is instructed on how to count cards. The method used in this book is the High-Low, even though it's not mentioned by that name. This is a reasonably good counting system, is the same system that Stanford Wong recommends in his books, and is probably the most commonly used card counting system in the world.
Up to this point, the author hasn't stated how he arrived at the numbers and strategies he advocates in his book. We are unsure whether these have been calculated by the author himself, or if they have just been copied from other sources. However, the cat is pretty much out of the bag in the next section, which covers modifying basic strategy according to the count. Here the author notes that of the list of all the adjustments that need to be made, there are 18 which are more important than the others. Certainly, every well-read blackjack student has heard of Don Schlesinger's "Illustrious 18", originally discussed in Blackjack Forum back in 1986 and reprinted in Schlesinger's excellent book, Blackjack Attack. Schlesinger's work is not referenced anywhere in Benson's book. If the author has arrived at these numbers and selections independently, that would be quite a coincidence.
The book then discusses money management. Some of this is good advice. For example, Benson states that any system which relies on a money management alone as its key to success is not a winning system. Some of the advice isn't so good, such as Benson's advice that one should set a limit on a session loss, but not on a session win. In fact, I believe I could come up with a very good rationale for the opposite advice, and the streakiness of the cards has nothing to do with the reasons why that would be a good idea.
The book then gives information on conditions at various casinos and in various jurisdictions around the world. This information was very much out of date when the book was printed, and at this point it has become mostly irrelevant. The last section of text in the book is an interview with a professional card counter. This is somewhat interesting, even though there's not much here that well-read blackjack students won't have already heard, but it's interesting to note that even this professional has some significant misconceptions about where his advantages come from. The book concludes with a glossary and a series of basic strategy tables for various game conditions. These aren't too bad even though some are identical (such as the 8 deck and 6 deck strategy tables for the same rules), and they contain a couple of significant mistakes, most notably the author gives incorrect advice about when a player should invoke the surrender rule.
It's entirely possible for someone to sit down with this book, read it, practice, and become a winning blackjack player, but if this is the goal, I think there are much better books on the market. Blackjack Strategy contains some bad advice and will likely leave the reader with some misconceptions that they'd be better off without. Further, it doesn't talk nearly enough about what betting spreads are necessary to become a winning player, probably leaving the reader with the impression that a 1 to 4 unit spread on a six deck shoe is sufficient to beat the game, and it's almost certainly not. In my opinion, someone who wants to learn the same system from scratch would be better off reading Stanford Wong's Blackjack Secrets or learning the High-Low Lite from Arnold Snyder's Blackbelt in Blackjack.
While its possible that a player could become a winning blackjack player after reading Blackjack Strategy, there are several books out there that I believe are much better sources for this information. This book contains an unfortunate number of misconceptions, and I believe it's quite likely that the author assembled this information from other uncited sources rather than verified it on his own. A few bits of extra information it contains are mildly interesting, but in my opinion it's not enough to justify the purchase of this book.
Note: I received a free review copy of this book from the publisher. I have no other interest, financial or otherwise, in the success of this book.
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