Customer Reviews

Scarne on Card Games: How to Play and Win at Poker, Pinochle, Blackjack, Gin and Other Popular Card Games

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This is a Dover reprint of the 1965 edition of Scarne on Cards. However, the photos showing card cheating techniques are missing. Also, the reprint is the abridged paperback version by Mass Paperbacks. While Dover is famous for printing its books on high quality paper that are signature-stitched so that it can last a lifetime (and possibly be rebound), none of this is present. The paper it's printed on is like the paper of a low-quality paperback and not signature-stitched. I was hoping that it would have come out much better and unabridged.

Scarne does it again! First I discovered Scarne invented poker. Now I learn that he invented every other popular card game out there. Don't waste your time or money reading this book. Scarne wastes most of the space, as he does in his other books, bragging about himself. The book is over 400 pages long and it only addresses NINE games: Gin Rummy, Black Jack, Poker, Pinochle, Cribbage, Pitch, Casino, Kalabrais, and Hearts (including, of course, "Hearts According to Scarne"). Now, if you really really wanna learn how to determine if someone's cheating you in Rummy or determine if the cards in your Pinochle game are marked, I guess you can read those chapters. Much of the stuff in this book appears to be little more than cut and pasted from Scarne's other books anyway.

Overall, very little useful information and Scarne is so arrogant throughout the book that you'll quickly grow weary and turn the TV on.

John Scarne is the most authoritative author on gambling in print. His Blackjack 21 analysis alone is worth the book. The casinos turned to him to counter card counters in Blackjack and his ideas and suggestions have been implemented by casinos to this day and have affected the game. Yet his mathematical analysis stands today just as it did at the time of first print. The cards themselves and basic rules of play are the same no matter how many decks are used, his combinatorics are the best in print.

His influence is also felt in many other casino games worldwide and governments also turned to him to educate the public and understand the odds and house advantage of gaming. This book is a must for anyone wanting to understand card games in general and the mathematics behind them.