15. Blackjack Essays
Author…………………….Mason Malmuth
Published………………..1987
Publishing Com………Two Plus Two
Mason Malmuth will be the first to admit that he is not renowned as a blackjack writer. But yet anything that is produced by the 2+2 publishing company is always going to be of exceptional value.
Of course the two biggest names in the 2+2 brand are David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth. For thirty years they have provided the world with some very thought provoking and at times…..totally unique material.
When Blackjack Essays first came out in 1987, I did not even know what blackjack was let alone how to play the game. While this book cannot compare to some of the really great blackjack books that have been produced, there are elements to this book that are of immense value.
But what I find really good about this book is in how it breaks the mould of conventional blackjack books. Like it says on the back cover, “the days when you could master a count and expect to be a winner do not exist anymore”. So for Malmuth to be saying this in 1987 shows not only the foresight of the man but the courage to write about techniques that few others agreed with.
It is kind of strange in a way because when my own book came out in 2006, I was merely quoting facts and was slated for it but yet Malmuth said exactly the same thing nearly twenty years earlier.
It is a sad fact of life but visionaries will always be attacked and they will be attacked for the simple reason being that they have seen something that few others have so very few people will agree with them.
While many of the techniques in this book are not workable in many European casinos, that should not detract anyone from reading this book and any serious blackjack player should get this book.
RATING…………….9/10
Carl “The Dean” Sampson
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