Customer Reviews

Cutting Edge Blackjack

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1 star:		(3)

 

 

I attended a recent seminar by Mr. Harvey at which we discussed the negative reviews on Amazon that appear to be written either by disgruntled competiting authors (whose books have been made obsolete by Mr. Harvey's books) or casino types who don't want readers to learn how to beat the house. I went home, then, and read the reviews and I have to say I'm appalled that the snakes who write under fictitious names and post critical comments that have nothing to do with the content of Mr. Harvey's books should be allowed to post self-serving remarks that are filled with lies. There is not one true remark in all of the pretend critical comments on this site. I encourage you to pick up the book and see for yourself. It's a shame that Amazon doesn't police these "reader" reviews and remove the offensive and self-serving ones that do an injustice to such great books as this one.

Having already read his first book, Blackjack the Smart Way, I knew what to expect with Richard Harvey. Much like his first book, I love the fact that he doesnt portray the game to be a lesson in quantum physics and understands that the things he teaches have to be practical. He understands that the game is everchanging at the table and being able to quickly employ a quick but educated decision with a strong foundation in basic strategy is vital. Rather than inundate the reader with twenty charts to memorize knowing full well the average player is going to draw a blank in the casino environment if this is the extent of their knowledge, he concerns himself more with helping the player think on his feet but keeping a strong foundation in basic strategy.
The bottom line for me is how comfortable the system makes me at the table and results. I feel much more comfortable at the table than I did a few years ago and the results paid for the book a hundred times over in five short visits. The book is a refreshing mix of Revere and Thorpe with modern day innovations for todays game. I'd recommend this book whole heartedly.

This book is very odd. It talks way down to blackjack-savy readers although it's an advanced appendix to Harvey's earlier book, Blackjack the Smart Way. It says obvious things that most players already know: for example, that even when the dealer has a 6 there's less than a 50% chance of him busting. On the other hand, it gives advice on how to count other player's face-down cards. This is odd because the book never covers counting itself! Apparently he uses a simple hi/low count, but who can tell? It cetainly doesn't cover strategy changes based on count. Therefore it's bad for both beginners and advanced players.

For being so long, it's almost devoid of any practical playing advice. The author commits 26 pages-two for each card-showing how dealer up cards can be "absolute ducks" or "absolute bucks". But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that the dealer has a weak hand if a 6 hides under his strong ten. Harvey just includes these simplistic charts "to teach you just how variable up card behavior is." (pg. 180)

Much of the work is polemical. Harvey takes gleefully unorthodox positions and ridicules conventional wisdom by deliberatly mispresenting its arguements. For example, he dismisses the possibility that playing head-to-head against the dealer is a sure way to see all preceeding cards. He says you only see a few cards simultaneously at the table head-to-head whereas in a multiplayer game you see many. (Actually, you don't because they're face down, but Harvey says that's OK because you can predict what they are!) At any rate, in a later section he shows he does understand the arguement for head-to-head play: that a more acurate count is achieved for play decisions. He just chooses to take pot-shots at his opponents.

A megalomaniac, every chapter features "inventions" and "discoveries" by Harvey. Most pathetic is his "Circle of 13" (which he always capitalizes, just like that) showing how you can predict the remaining cards when you have a deck of 13 cards. Duh. This might cut it in yuppie seminars, but brainless demonstrations with stupid names are no help to the serious gambler.

Finally, I would recommend against playing with what little advice Harvey conveys. Why? Because he has no understanding of probability and statistics, the math upon which gambling is built. He argues at length that different seats at the blackjack table have unique trends. This begs the question: if someone get up and leaves, might you suddenly be sitting at a "bad" seat? At any rate, he cites evidence for these trends by showing charts with "sine waves, plateaus, up-swings and down-swings." But these are to be expected in the course of random play. He also cites simulations. For example, a computerized player has a strong up-trend for a number of hands. Over time he recieves 70 cards, but never gets 9 cards from the deck--mostly low cards, accounting for his up-trend. This is supposedly because there are "orbiting cards" that gravitate toward certain players at a table. Harvey says that statistics say "we should find...at least each of the 52 different cards represented" in these 70 cards (pg. 115). That's flat wrong! Think of this: you roll a die 8 times. The odds are actually against you having rolled all six numbers. Likewise, for 70 cards dealt, the number you would expect to be unrepresented is (52 cards * (70nCr0)*((1/52)^0)*((51/52)^70)) = 52*1*1*0.256849 = about 13 cards! In otherwords, Harvey's example shows the reverse of what it purports to. In another example, he says there were 10 cards undealt in a run of games lasting 88 cards. The average is 9! Harvey's numbers actually show his simulated players are getting random cards! This invalidates half the book. It also proves Harvey is less qualified than your average statistics student.

I recommend Blackjack for Blood by Bryce Carlton. Not only does it give you a wealth of practical playing information, it also gives realistic expectations about the capital and patience you need to win. Such sober-mindedness is completely absent in Cutting Edge Blackjack. I wouldn't recommend anyone buy this tribute to Richard Harvey's vanity.

Imagine you have a goal. Imagine that goal is to walk into a casino, play blackjack, and leave with more money than you had when you entered. How do you achieve this goal? By utilizing the correct tools. Richard Harvey's Cutting Edge Blackjack is a toolbox crammed full of new and exciting tools that help you achieve your goal. Richard has developed and refined these tools with the loving care of a true craftsman. Some of the tools are difficult to handle, some of the tools may not make sense to you right away, some of the tools may require years of practice to utilize properly, but the tools are there. The tools themselves were crafted by hand. Instead of relying on and rehashing computer simulation, Richard used real cards to discover trends and card behavior patterns that computer simulations ignore. These patterns tend to repeat and offer insight never before realized at the tables. As an attendee to one of Richards's seminars, I witnessed the power of some of these tools. I was especially impressed by his ability to predict the value of the hole card at a pitch (face down) game. Impossible you say? Not when you use the tools in Cutting Edge Blackjack. I didn't say it was easy, I didn't say I could do it, but knowing it can be done is inspiring. Cutting Edge Blackjack debunks some popular myths, makes some bold assertions, but mainly shows advanced blackjack players ways to have profitable outings. Study and practice are required to attain most of the skills taught in the book, even advanced players may struggle with some of the methodology, but the tools are sound. I highly recommend this book for blackjack aficionados.

This book is, hands down, the best thing to come out in many, many years. Cutting Edge Blackjack will earn Richard Harvey a place in blackjack history as one of its greatest innovators, and, with this book, it is clear that he is undoubtedly the world's pre-eminent authority on blackjack. He's certainly the first in many decades to do original research that not only corrects the mistaken premises behind the old research of the past, but that has resulted in startling new discoveries and concepts that turn the old truths on their heads.
Believe me, once you read this book, you'll realize how outdated the others are. I read this book initially because of a recommendation I'd read by Howard Schwartz, one of Las Vegas' bright lights, and he's right: Harvey is alone in charting new territory. I never realized before how the number of betting spots being played affects your likelihood of winning; no one before Harvey had tested this out.
I hadn't been happy with the results I'd gotten from recent books written by the likes of Frank Scoblete, Bryce Carlson, et. al., which I felt were really just rewrites of what I'd read in Thorp, Revere, Uston, Griffin, et. al., decades ago.
In contrast, the material, the concepts, the methods in this book are fresh and powerful. The math in Cutting Edge Blackjack, as well as the research discoveries (explained in detail for anyone to understand), the logic, the new methods, not only make sense, but they work at the blackjack table.
No one else has ever come up with a way to identify the facedown cards at the 1 and 2 deck tables; Harvey's methods give you a huge advantage, as Howard Schwartz had pointed out, I might add. I didn't even realize there were different catagories of facedown cards before I read this book. No one had ever made that discovery.
Anyone who's had a taste of shuffle tracking is aware that the cards don't change much with the dealer's shuffle. In this book, Harvey has laid down the reasons for this, for the first time ever. Every player has noticed repeating patterns, but Harvey has come up with the mechanism for these, as well as how to profit from what he calls repeating phenomenon.
His statistical analyses of how far is up (in other words, how to detect a peak and get out before throwing back your winings)and how far is down (in other words, how low you have to go before it's statistically improbable you'll ever come back up to even) are monumental achievements, which remove the uncertainty when it comes to knowing when to leave.
Just the sections on card analysis vis a vis how to detect when the dealer is strong or weak will make you a lot stronger player.
This book is loaded with math (which won't overwhelm you, like some other books), charts and illustrations, and it's got so much in the way of material that's new to the world of blackjack that you'll be going back to this as a reference book for many, many, years to come, and, if you're like me, each read will make another lightbulb, so to speak, go off in your head.
Another thing about this book is that it identifies where the researchers behind basic strategy and the old card counting systems went wrong; understand this, and you'll see for the first time why you've been struggling to win with the methods that have been around since 1961.
And I'm just scratching the surface here; some of the many other great aspects of this book include its chapter on shuffling (which should really open your eyes about where the cards go and how to follow them through a shuffle), true penetration (which explains how things change with differing numbers of players at the table), auxiliary betting factors (which provide you with your probability of winning in the next round, hence, how you should bet), strategic card analysis (which enables you to pick up on what the cards are telling you about how to play your cards), and the chapter on "What's Your Up Card IQ?" should answer, for once and for all, every question you've ever had about each of the dealer's up cards (unlike other books, this one seems to nail it on the head, because of the way Harvey did his research; he used real cards instead of allowing his computer to simulate the game with a random number generator, which, duh, produces random results!).
I mean, there's much more in this book that you'll find in absolutely no other. You have to read this for yourself.

Much like the last reviewer, I'm not sure what to make out of Mr. Harvey's book. His method to the game, although fresh and creative, doesn't bring enough confidence where I would want to use his system in a game. The Circle of 13 seems to be ingeniously written- but all its hyped up to be are spreadsheets on probablities to win or bust on hands.

For example, he states that by having an A & 2, I can draw 5 cards which would help me win the hand. However, my odds on getting one of those 5 is slightly over 38%. Well yeah- no kidding. Based on his Circle of 13, 5 divided by 13 is a little over 38%. So what's so informative about that ?

Another issue I had is this model doesn't give much emphasis on hi-low card-counting, a system that I religiously rely on whenever I play. For anyone who does truly card-count, they would know that your seating position or the number of people at a table is irrelevant to your chances of winning. That's because you're relying on bet placements, which means you're betting at certain times when the card count gets high enough (or positive as some may say) that the odds swing in your favor where you increase your wage. Harvey practically neglects this in his book. He is so enthralled by his system that I don't believe he gives enough respect much less credibility to more realistic and systematic card theories of blackjack. The only information that I did enjoy was on shuffle tracking. His charts gave good examples on shuffles and their patterns.

Lastly, there are way too many intangibles in his system to keep track of, i.e., counting the Aces exclusively, determining the hole card of not just the dealer but other players (as if I'm going to sit there patiently and calculate my predictions on that!) and "repeating phenomenons". This is just a plethora of information any savy card player does not want to take with him to the table. Ladies and Gentleman, unless you have a photographic memory or are regarded as a scholar of mathematics, the speed of the deal is fast enough where you won't be able to take into account all of what Harvey is asking you to do.

I would recommend Knock-Out blackjack, which has tremendously improved my game and more importantly given me the confidence I need to beat the casino each time I go. There theory is not too simplistic yet not too technical and gives you a realistic method of how to beat the game. I have heard of good things on Wong's book and that will probably be my next purchase.

I am always astounded at the absolute lack of logic of most blackjack players I sit at the table with as illustrated by this common occurrence.

Someone makes an incorrect play at table and someone else (as often as not, the entire table) gets their knickers in a knot, thinking it will affect the probability of their own positive outcome.

Of course, a moments critical thinking will reveal that the change in card order could as well help the players as hurt them. (though I am sure someone will want to argue this with me).

So when I opened this book at B&N for a quick scan...there it is...don't play at tables where the other players don't play correctly, and a long senseless explanation as to why this would hurt your chances.

Yikes...and all down hill from there.

I actually feel ripped off just having scanned through this book for free.

And as for the review by "Kenn Richardson" starting with:

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This book is, hands down, the best thing to come out in many, many years.
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C'mon, Mr. Harvey....use your own name.

This book advises using strategies that are proven NOT to work. Stay away from this scamster progression book, and keep with the books that utilize sound mathematical and stastical theory.