In 1978-1980, I was a craps dealer in Reno, Lake Tahoe, and Las Vegas before getting a legit job at the USPS. Before becoming a dealer, I loved playing poker with my Greek-American friends once a week before turning 21. Also sneaked into casinos and played poker before coming of age. One time I drove 6 hours from a Sons of Pericles and Maids of Athena (a Greek-American fraternity and sorority) lake party at Millerton Lake near Fresno to Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. With the poker experience provided by the weekly Greek game with friends, I was ready to compete against Vegas's poker players. Seven card stud was the game offered at Caesars in 1975. One hand stood out and here is how it played out. I had pocket threes and connected one three from my open cards. When I received the last card down and dirty, it was a three! I had quads and a poker face that did not give a tell. I raised and re-raised and several hundred dollars were eventually in the pot. When I showed, the Caesars Palace players were amazed that I had four of a kind without showing emotion. That was my baptism to Nevada gambling.

I later played seven card stud at the Sahara Tahoe getting there by Greyhound bus at 6:30 pm after delivering groceries at Chicos Market on Nob Hill in San Francisco, my Saturday job. After work at 6:15 pm, I'd run down the hill on Leavenworth Street to the bus terminal (about a mile) at Seventh Street near Market Street, buy my ticket, and off to South Shore Lake Tahoe.

Locally in the San Francisco Bay Area, five card Lowball was offered in those days. The Casino Royale in San Bruno on El Camino Real Blvd. is where I played. The casino collected its money on a time basis instead of collecting it out of the pots. The players were regulars and not fun to compete against, so I gave up playing poker till the '90s.

My sister's boyfriend gave me a book on blackjack card counting by Stanley Roberts in 1977 and I wondered if Roberts was winning. Why give away the secret? Same thing with Edward O. Thorp's "Beat The Dealer" (2nd edition). Being a sceptic, I observed these card counting systems while dealing blackjack at casinos in Nevada. A dealer friend of mine tried playing Thorp's Hi-Lo Count while I was dealing a $1 blackjack game at Harolds Club in Reno all-night long heads up (one on one). He lost $100, and we were both disappointed with the results. I also dealt to the legendary Ken Uston and he also lost along with the 100's of card counters I dealt to. With the hundreds of thousands of blackjack hands I dealt in casinos, I thought card counting was bunk.

However in 1991, I discovered a count that used actual mathematics based on the perfect probability of blackjacks and utilization of perfect insurance. I won a good amount of money as a single deck blackjack counter from 1991-1997. Reno and Lake Tahoe casinos were ATM's in those years. In 1997, I got cocky and played six deck games in Las Vegas and was barred from playing blackjack in Nevada.

While working at the post office, I dreamed of writing a book about casinos and its games. The Internet came along and I worried about copyright infringement, so that was shelved. But if any blackjack expert wants to debate about the validity of my count, bring it on! I tried to share my card counting method on Internet message boards, but was shouted down by trolls! What were they scared of? Someone who can prove that blackjack books by "recognized" experts were not accurate as promised? One day I hope my card count will make the mainstream media.

Here is a 6 deck blackjack card counting video I made showing how to back count...