Book of the Week: The Blackjack Life

13 Jul 2014

I’ve read books (Theory of Blackjack and Beat the Dealer) on the technical aspects of blackjack, but I hadn’t read books that were devoted to person accounts. It was time to change that with The Blackjack Life recommended to me by a coworker. It was a good read. There is this legend of the MIT blackjack team that makes becoming a professional card counter seem like you need to be a genius. Nathaniel Tilton became a professional Blackjack player without being a genius from MIT. He did it the old fashion way. He spent a lot of time practicing and focusing on perfecting his game. Being a professional blackjack player means you have to treat it like a job. In order to win statistically, you have to play a lot of shoes. That means spending a lot of time going from casino to casino. I think it would be cool to count cards, but I’m probably better off spending my time learning to do something else like curing cancer.