Hold on now, don't lump gamblers with legendary authors
You're kidding, right? Blackjack authors make less than $1 per book. Most sell less than 20K in their lifetime. SW is also a publisher, but I know he is not "highly" profitable. His businesses seem well run and he is a painfully honest person. I would challenge anyone who meets him to ever catch him in a lie.
Frank Scoblete will NEVER be nominated for the blackjack hall of fame, let alone get elected by his peers.
Frank is NOT even close to the same class as the three you mentioned. Its like lumping Winston Churchill, Henry Kissenger, and Mahatma Ghandi with "Carrot top or Gallaghar".
Frank is a gambler who promotes himself and how to loose less at gambling. He has said on TV and radio that he has multiple graduate degrees. From where, Frank? Enquiring minds want to know. He also changes which degrees he has and now many regularly. He's been asked to clarify his public statements and his statements on TV. Even when faced with videotaped proof of his statements, he refuses to clarify.
I have no respect for someone who preys on gamblers and sells less than what is promised. Frank is just one of many who fit in this catagory. He does not teach a strait-up AP class. He still WANTS TO GAMBLE with an advantage, not take advantage of the casinos through gambling!
According to Frank, you can spend you must scrimp and save for your bankroll, but when you have a big win , spend it. Spend it to reward yourself. Bull ****! You'll go bankrupt if you spend your pos. variances. Any real AP knew this back when he was in AP diapers. A person has to keep their bankroll in tact to survive the neg. variances. Frank's idea of money management would be comedic if it wasn't hurting so many of his students.
He's king of the gamblers and slot players. Don't get me wrong, Frank can throw the dice, but he throws more bull than dice...and he throws dice a lot!
Frank was a gambler who writes to gamblers he still gambles with his reputation.
My biggest problem with Frank is that he is fake and lacks substance. His idea of teaching AP dice theory is to sternly tell you, "you are now an AP, you will never be a gambler again". He repeats it three times without any other explanations. No reasons, no instructions, just his statement. Come on, Frank. You have a group of gamblers in front of you who each got here because they were obsessed with gambling at craps. At least spend ten minutes helping them change their attitude.
Frank even goes as far as to tell players to bet when they have NO ADVANTAGE! That's right, his 5-count is negative EV.
Kenny Uston wanted the fame of being the media babe. He was the real deal. His books could not have made much compared to just one of his many teams.
Arnold is a private man, suffice it to say that his books are great, but he does not sell enough books to be highly profitable. All gambling authors are paid very little. Actually gambling authors have a very small audience. I believe Arnold is way into poker now.
SW is both a publisher and author. I'd imagine his earnings from Pi-Yee are but a small fraction of his other business pursuits. We all know that SW paid for his Stanford education with blackjack. He really does have a PhD.
As far as clicks in the AP world... you are 100% correct!
New players must prove themselves before veterans will take a risk and open up to them. Its the way its always been and will always be. Maybe it isn't right, or maybe it is... either way it is what it is. At each level of AP accomplishment comes new learning experiences. It is never ending, there will always be opportunities to discover. The very most successful APs don't do what others do, they make their own way and find their own opportunities. At least that is my experience.
BJ21 is where the purists and theorists post. They will jump on you like a pack of hyena's if you try to post anything less than the truth, or what is mathematically correct. If you want to know what it takes to play full-time the BJ21 forum is a real dose of reality. BJ21 has a lot of highly successful and other big personalities that have tired of the waves of semi-poppies and new counters who come to share their "special" take on BJ. New players are welcomed over there if they are genuinely looking for answers and if they don't come with any pre-conceptions or try to spout out voodoo.
Anyone who is successful at advantage play will tell you EMOTIONS have no place in AP. If you can't control your emotions and actions in the casino, you are lost and don't know it. No one wants to caudal the emotionally immature.
I digress...
Basically Stanford, Kenny and the Bishop are legends. Frank is only a legend in his mind.
But, I don't have strong opinions about any of this
Paradox
