Yes, the book was initially sold to pretty much any one.

The "only professional gamblers" thing is a smokescreen to hide the fact the website is taking people's money without filling orders. It is also a convenient way of preventing anybody who might criticize the book from doing so.

Their is reportedly a second edition with still more material, given only to
select individuals (which could be the genesis of the pro gambler's suggestion).

I don't have Exhibit CAA, but I do have the first one and it's a decent book. Basically the gist is "hey there's all these other games and plenty of edges to be had, don't just assume it's unbeatable because it isn't blackjack". But of course it goes into technical detail about what he did with each game. There's a good chart for hole-carding in 3 card poker that I think is on Shackleford's site now.

Apropos of nothing, I'm bumping this old thread to congratulate myself for managing to get the Library of Congress's copy of the 2nd edition from inter-library loan. I'm not even allowed to leave the building with it LOL.

Re-reading this thread is funny. I never figured out why GBV was such a huge anti-Grosjean poster.

BTW the book is excellent and I procured a copy a long time ago. Appears to me that they have copies available for $250 on their site, so I assume you can still get it that way.

1st edition is probably still available - as always - as a reference loan at UNLV.

The book is full of data about playing hole-card games. It tells you nothing about how to find those games-that would be useful.

For various reasons it is impossible to employ optimal strategy while hole-carding, and the best play is usually very obvious anyway.

If I find a faulty cash machine, I don't need a book to tell me what the best strategy is, I take the money and run. It is a lot like that.

I don't know how often you actually play those games, but there's a lot of situations where the best play is not "very obvious." Not all games are perfect games, not all games are blackjack. The book is primarily useful because it's the first time charts were published for different qualities and "types" of games.

I'm not sure why this book brings up such strong feelings in you. It's obviously a useful book, it's well-written and it's comprehensive. I don't think anyone's arguing that it's some sort of holy bible or anything like that. Do you have some sort of personal issue with the author or something?

I played and still play a lot of hole-card, that's what annoys me when you get people talking about this stuff and boasting about double-digit advantages. The true picture is underwhelming because of the massive amount of downtime, the overall hourly edge inclusive of scouting is comparable with card counting, with slightly lower variance.

When you talk about the best play being obvious, I think if you actually grind the numbers on this you'd understand you are talking about very small gains in terms of your overall hourly earnings. By definition, making the best play when it isn't obvious isn't worth that much.

Say, you gain 5% from making the best play that occurs one hand in a hundred. You've gained 0.05% of whatever you are betting for that session.

Now, you have to divide by the frequency with which you encounter that type of hole-carding opportunity. Say you encounter that game one time in a hundred hours of play, your total hourly profits have increased by 0.0005%.

Remember, that one hole-carding opportunity is a small subset of all the HC you do, and an even smaller subset of your total time spent scouting.

By all means, come up with your own figures, but I think you'll find this stuff is just a massive waste of time.

You don't seem to have met many of Grosjean's very small but incredibly vicious and cult-like fanbase. "Holy bible" is exactly how they see it.

If someone wants to fork out $2000 for the book on e-bay fine, but they should know precisely what the value of the information to them is so they can make an informed choice.

Regarding "strong feelings": I've never written a published word about Grosjean. He has written an entire chapter of increasingly hysterical abuse directed at me personally, referring to me as a "fraud" and "charlatan". He also repeatedly refers to the advantage play community in general abusively, for example, he described card counters as "salamanders crawling out of the ooze". He has some sort of weird messiah/napoleon complex.

The personal stuff doesn't really bother me that much, indeed repeated attacks by Grosjean and his insane fanbase sold me a lot of books. You can't buy the type of publicity a good public slanging match produces.

What does however frustrate me intensely is the way the advantage play community has been ignoring all the fantastic opportunities in advantage play that have emerged and been developed in the last ten years. It has become backward and incestuous, to the point where people actually talk about a book like this, that refines a seventy-year old technique such as hole-carding, as if were some kind of revelation. That's no way to embrace the future and get rich.

I mean, I'm a full time player who plays with a wide network of other full time professionals and I haven't met anyone that I'd describe as a rabid Grosjean fan. I didn't realize that there was some sort of bad blood between you two, I guess you're referring to the bac chapter in the book? I don't really follow published literature, so I didn't even realize you had your own books or papers or whatever, so I must have missed whatever references he made to your work.

And I think you might be confusing people "ignoring" new innovations with people just not talking about them in public, which is a very welcome development indeed.

You and Kyle strike me as people who take an independent view on things, and have a balanced and perspective take on AP issues, so I'm not going to to try and persuade you of anything. Encouraging that type of thinking is really my only goal when I think about it, so that would be pointless. So I'll just stick to the facts here.

The personal crap for what its worth, which is nothing: yeah, its the bac chapter I'm talking about. I write under the name "John May" and my book on baccarat was for a long time the bestseller on the subject before the publisher got taken over.
There are no direct references to the book in Grosjean's chapter because I'm guessing he feared some kind of legal action would arise from it, like I'd be that petty, but it is pretty clear who he is talking about. Let's just say that, while the numbers in that section are accurate, the sourcing is atrocious, and, crucially, his knowledge of game conditions, and the actuality of how to count cards at baccarat, is very limited. There are many profitable angles there for a dedicated specialist.

When I talk about people ignoring innovations I don't mean people who are wisely keeping their silence about some lucrative play. I do that myself. Most AP theory in fact does not and should not involve compromising opportunities directly.

GBV,

OT from this thread, but wanted to see if you had any insight into Shufflemaster "reading cards":

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/54...2/index12.html

New board member, 20 year BJ player inquiring as to a copy of ECAA, used is fine. Regards. C.

Hello luger9mm,
are you still looking for ECAA? I might have a copy for you.

You're a genuine turd to offer this. And especially so on a site built on publishing gaming materials.