I'm not the most savvy blackjack player but I am very much interested in becoming. I've been looking at and have been investigating various systems and books out there to use. I came across "Knock-Out Blackjack" The Easiest Card-Counting System Ever Devised book which I found rather interesting and decided to purchase and read this book to better understand the system. The book explains the "Knock-Out" also known as K-O set of point count values, which is ultimately used to determine when bet and how much to bet. Other methods of counting such as the Hi-Low method require that you calculate in your head what's called a "true" count, which all in all is the running count that is divided by the number of decks remaining to be dealt that are in the shoe. Unfortunately the Hi-Low method could lead to some errors. For example you have to make estimates on the number of cards that have been discarded so as to be able to calculate the number of decks remaining to be dealt. The second thing is that divide using your mind the running count by the number of decks remaining. The biggest downside is that you have to do all this quick enough so that the people working in the casino don't become suspect to the fact that you're taking advantage of the casino which would ultimately lead to your being barred fro playing blackjack at that casino again.

The Knock-Out system similar to as is the case with the Hi-Low system is a one-level counting method with the idea that the point count value for each card will either be 0, 1 or -1. The high cards in the deck such as 10s and aces are counted as -1, neutral cards as zeros and low cards as 1's. When the count gets to a point where it's more on the positive side the remaining cards to be dealt contain a greater number of high cards vs. low cards. What this means though is that the likelihood of getting a blackjack is higher then just after the cards have been shuffled, and therefore you should increase your bet to take advantage of this opportunity. With the K-O method as opposed to that of the Hi-Low method the beauty is that you don't have to computer a true count in your head while playing. All you do is you add 0, 1 and -1 values as the cards are deals to make for calculating the running count in the game. All you do thereon in is use the running count alone to decide what your bet should be in the next round of play. The other nice thing is that you don't have to track the number of decks that have been discarded or the number of decks that are still to be dealt.

One of the great things about the K-O system is that it provides about the dame win rate as that of playing using the Hi-Low method of counting. I tried running a few simulations on this software that I picked up by Hal Marcus which I heard about while reading about this book on Amazon that's called Blackjack 6-7-8. This system is quite intriguing in that just like the K-O count it makes betting decisions much easier whereby these strategy cards make playing decisions ridiculously easy. If you have a chance and some time I highly recommend practicing using the 6-7-8 software!

The question remains can you increase your win rate if you were to use a more complicated counting method then K-O. The answer in short is perhaps in theory but at the same time these more complicated and elaborate systems all of for a larger margin of error thus potentially reducing your win rate. As for the betting details that have been outlined in the book I would change them slightly and use a bet ration of 1:8 for two decks as opposed to the suggested 1:5 and 1:16 for 6 & 8 decks as opposed to the suggested 1:10 since it's more likely that casinos will tolerate these kinds of bet ratios.

Overall the book is a great book and a good read. The authors advice is worth of reading and provides some valuable incite into finally starting to win in blackjack without the need for learning and understanding more complicated systems. I've seen this book in book stores all over the place and it can also be picked up on Amazon or Barnes & Noble online and is a relatively cheap purchase and in the opinion of us here on Casino Advisor is well worth investing the time into reading this book and learning this system.