Knock-Out Blackjack

Knock-Out Blackjack: The Easiest Card-Counting System ever Devised by Olaf Vancura and Ken Fuchs explains the simple but powerful KO Card-Counting system. This is an excellent book for blackjack players who have mastered basic strategy and are looking for a card counting system to master. Though this book will be more of a stepping-stone to a player who is serious about committing to mastering card counting, for the recreational player looking to gain an edge this book should suffice.

Vancura and Fuchs bust some common myths about advantage blackjack, explain how the card values in the KO system are assigned, and why you do not need to convert the running count to a true count. The book is also interspersed with analogies that help the reader understand and memorize certain odds and processes. Knock-Out Blackjack is a very accessible book and explains the KO system in steps, allowing the reader enough time to come to terms with one step before proceeding to the next. Of course, there is more than one incarnation of the KO system, and this book explains both the simplified Rookie system and the more powerful Preferred system.

While the benefits of the KO system might be slightly exaggerated by the authors, the simplicity of the KO system makes it very suited as an advantage strategy to a player in a casino environment. If you are a casual player, or simply not a math whiz, and a more powerful system is liable to cause you to make mistakes, especially when there are distractions all around you, you will be better off with a simpler system. This book provides a good entry point.