Betting on Blackjack by Frits Dunki-Jacobs

[Caesar]

Has anyone read or used the betting strategy he advocates?

[tallmanvegas]

Never heard of him. What's his program

[Turtleman]

I'm semi ashamed to say that I have his book, "Betting on Blackjack;" and as you can guess, don't think very highly of his strategy. While a lot of the introductory verbiage sounds terrific, I found his CLB (Current Loss Balance) betting methods . . . well, it's kind of hard to describe, at least if profanity is to be avoided! Essentially, his methods utilize a mix of positive and negative progressions, which I found fairly sane . . . up to a point. However, once the losses get to that point, the CLB kicks in at the "magic trigger point" calling for a much more sizeable bet. It doesn't risk the entire farm, but in my humble opinion, it's what I call a "hail Mary bet!" Not surprisingly, these bets are usually won in the author's lengthy "random run" examples. Is that enough?

[johndoe]

From Turtleman's description, it sounds like an atrocious "system" that is bound to make you a loser.

[Turtleman]

I won't say I've tried every system out there, but the number is way more than I'd like to admit! However, I've read precious few books that haven't provided at least some entertainment and a few ideas, and "Betting on Blackjack" is certainly among them. Testing his system on my custom simulator produced very nice results . . . except (insert drum roll) . . . when there were a series of consecutive losses and the CLB "hail Mary bet" was lost . . . more than once. And that's the problem with every system – they all produce good results . . . sometimes, and they all fail miserably . . . at other times.

To be fair, his progressions are limited to "reasonable" amounts and he does stress the flexibility of making changes to suit the individual. There's a lot of good advice in the book and this post has prompted me to take another look before my upcoming Vegas trip. No, this system can't guarantee winning, but I haven't seen a system yet that does . . . including card counting!

[johndoe]

Sure, all systems work great when you win hands.

At least with card counting you have the expectation of winning. With all of these progression systems you have the expectation of losing.

I highly doubt there is any good advice in that book. There are plenty of other resources available to actually have an edge. Why not use them?

[johnnyb]

Originally Posted by Turtleman

I won't say I've tried every system out there, but the number is way more than I'd like to admit! However, I've read precious few books that haven't provided at least some entertainment and a few ideas, and "Betting on Blackjack" is certainly among them. Testing his system on my custom simulator produced very nice results . . . except (insert drum roll) . . . when there were a series of consecutive losses and the CLB "hail Mary bet" was lost . . . more than once. And that's the problem with every system – they all produce good results . . . sometimes, and they all fail miserably . . . at other times.

To be fair, his progressions are limited to "reasonable" amounts and he does stress the flexibility of making changes to suit the individual. There's a lot of good advice in the book and this post has prompted me to take another look before my upcoming Vegas trip. No, this system can't guarantee winning, but I haven't seen a system yet that does . . . including card counting!

I don't like seeing books made to provoke progressive systems upon gamblers. It's just inhumane to try and sell bogus advice that doesn't realistically work in the long term. However, you say card counting can't guarantee winning? You're thinking too much over the short run. It's over the long run that matters and could definitely guarantee winning with a large BR to widthstand bad variance and a nice bet spread, it's just a matter of time because TIME is relative. These are the basics, I'm sure the more experienced players here understand this ( and I'm not very experienced! ).