zengrifter
Banned
... cover story "Gurus of Gambling! zg
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Thursday, February 17, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury
Bringing down the house
'Advantage players' use guile and gumption to beat casinos at their own games
By Bob Shemeligian
Eliot Jacobson uses an odd metaphor when talking about the typical gambler. He compares the average casino customer with the Hispaniola islanders who were not able to see Christopher Columbus' ships when they arrived at the New World in 1492.
"The point is the islanders were familiar only with small boats and canoes. They had never seen anything like those large ships," Jacobson explains. "It was the shaman who knew how to think differently and could look out to sea and point out the ships."
Jacobson, a Santa Barbara, Calif., management consultant as well as a skilled card counter, compares "advantage players"--casino customers who have a strong chance of winning--with the 15th century shaman medicine man who knew how to think outside the box.
Author of The Blackjack Zone: Lessons at Winning at BlackJack and Life, Jacobson has highly specialized casino skills. He excels at one game. But, Jacobson explains, there are other advantage players who are much more open-minded when it comes to beating the house.
"Advantage players look for opportunities in a casino," Jacobson says. "Every game has the potential for opportunity. It might be that a roulette wheel is defective. A good advantage player will exploit these opportunities."
Consider, for example, Stanford Wong, one of the best advantage players who ever sat down at a 21 table. Author of Professional Blackjack, considered the card-counting Bible, Wong currently is writing a book about--craps?
...continued here - http://www.lasvegasmercury.com/index.html
--------------------
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury
Bringing down the house
'Advantage players' use guile and gumption to beat casinos at their own games
By Bob Shemeligian
Eliot Jacobson uses an odd metaphor when talking about the typical gambler. He compares the average casino customer with the Hispaniola islanders who were not able to see Christopher Columbus' ships when they arrived at the New World in 1492.
"The point is the islanders were familiar only with small boats and canoes. They had never seen anything like those large ships," Jacobson explains. "It was the shaman who knew how to think differently and could look out to sea and point out the ships."
Jacobson, a Santa Barbara, Calif., management consultant as well as a skilled card counter, compares "advantage players"--casino customers who have a strong chance of winning--with the 15th century shaman medicine man who knew how to think outside the box.
Author of The Blackjack Zone: Lessons at Winning at BlackJack and Life, Jacobson has highly specialized casino skills. He excels at one game. But, Jacobson explains, there are other advantage players who are much more open-minded when it comes to beating the house.
"Advantage players look for opportunities in a casino," Jacobson says. "Every game has the potential for opportunity. It might be that a roulette wheel is defective. A good advantage player will exploit these opportunities."
Consider, for example, Stanford Wong, one of the best advantage players who ever sat down at a 21 table. Author of Professional Blackjack, considered the card-counting Bible, Wong currently is writing a book about--craps?
...continued here - http://www.lasvegasmercury.com/index.html