Review of Blackjack Secrets

Title:

Blackjack Secrets

Author:

Stanford Wong

Publisher:

Pi Yee Press

Date:

1993

ISBN:

0-935926-20-8

Pages:

256

Price:

$14.95

Reviewed by Nick Christenson, npc@lvrevealed.com

August 27, 1997

There are a lot of books on Blackjack card counting of varying quality. Wong's Blackjack Secrets is simply one of the best. Even though Wong doesn't go into as much depth on some topics as other books, he does cover a truly staggering amount of ground in a mere 256 pages.

Chapters 1 and 2 contain the standard introduction to Blackjack and explanation of basic strategy. This has become obligatory for any book that teaches a card counting system. The great thing about Blackjack Secrets is that Wong covers this material in less than 25 pages. The information presented on these topics is up to Wong's exacting standards of completeness and accuracy.

Chapter 3 covers the Hi-Lo card counting system, one of the simplest and most powerful available. Here he covers the count, true count adjustment, strategy variation, and gives other advice on learning counting systems. Wong covers this material more thoroughly (almost pedantically) in Professional Blackjack, but his coverage here is more than adequate.

The book would be worth the price tag with just the coverage thus far, but with Chapter 4 we really get into the meat of the book. Here we have about 50 pages of some of the best advice ever written about how to win while not getting barred. The tactics mentioned here were not all devised by Wong, many of the best known and most successful names in card counting contribute. I guarantee that nobody plays Blackjack so well and has given the game so much thought that there won't be a lot of material here that's new and valuable. It's that good.

The next chapter, "Winning Faster", is equally as good. At a game with such a small edge, anything that can increase your advantage by a few tenths of a percent can lead to a lot of money. On a similar vein, Chapter 6 covers the advantages and disadvantages of toking dealers.

Chapter 7 probably won't win one any money, but it's a very entertaining explanation of several specials Wong and his associates have discovered over the years. More often than one might think, a casino comes up with a new promotion that gives the savvy player a large edge. Some of these are... stunning.

Chapters 8, 9, and 10 cover comps, examine the question of whether a Blackjack player should turn pro, and possible cheating by dealers. All of these contain very good information, little of which is presented elsewhere in the literature. The last chapter covers Double Exposure Blackjack, which is rare at casinos these days, but can be a profitable game when it can be found. This information is covered in much more detail in Basic Blackjack, and I would urge folks to read that book before tackling this game, but the coverage in Blackjack Secrets is great for a refresher. At the end of the book is a list of "Selected References" which is simply outstanding as an enormous recommended reading list.

As I said before, Wong packs a lot of information into a remarkably small number of pages. Despite this, the book is a remarkably easy read. The only downside is that a few topics are glossed over. For example, Wong contributes two paragraphs to the topic of Shuffle Tracking, which deserves its own book!

Even though this book is fantastic on its own, it is also extremely powerful in conjunction with Basic Blackjack and Professional Blackjack, by the same author. It can get cumbersome to carry a pile of books on a junket. Blackjack Secrets may not have all the information one would want to learn about some of the finer points of the game, but it does make an excellent (and compact) reference and refresher.

I recommend this book highly. It's well written, it contains great information, and a lot of it. The material on the Hi-Lo system is as good as has been written anywhere, and there's more good advice on maintaining an edge than in any other book I've read. In fact, if I could own/read/study only one Blackjack book, Blackjack Secrets would be it.

Capsule:

This book is one of the finest sources of Blackjack information ever in print. Even if the reader already owns Wong's other books, doesn't use the Hi-Lo, and has read every issue of Blackjack Forum and Current Blackjack News they should still buy this book. No serious player can afford to be without it. I give it my very highest recommendation.

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