Kevin Blackwood is considered one of the world's most talented blackjack players. Born in Maine and with a college education he decided to forget about what he had studied and go into a totally different field; professional gambling.
He soon found that he had a special talent for blackjack and hard work paid off making him an outstanding card counter. The casinos soon started to recognize his name and that made it harder for him to enter. Understandably no casino had a great interest in having their banks broken in one night.
All the college years must have come to some use as Blackwood decided to tell his tale in the form of a book. The Counter is a fictive story about a guy who, just like Blackwood, leaves Maine and enters the world of blackjack. The main character in the book has an original plan of being a biblical archeologist and perhaps this is autobiographical. The floors of the casino are far away from dusty findings of pottery and with an exceptional talent for math he decides to make a million dollars from his gambling. This plan turns out to be a troublesome road that not only shatters his good relationship with his girlfriend but also brings a nasty casino surveillance expert into his life.
This book is being described as an entertaining way to learn the art of card counting. While it is far from the many detailed manuals it does give a lot of information in detail about blackjack. The book also brings up the issue of whether it is ok or not that casinos reject professional players on shady grounds. The opinion of Blackwood is clear; he is one of these professional players that so often meet less happy faces at the entrance of the casinos.
Blackwood considers his strength to be in handheld games. He made great efforts to find the best game available that would give him the best payback. His only reason to play blackjack was the money and the fact that he has one over a million dollars in just handheld games makes it obvious that he succeeded. In order to reach this goal of serious money making he had to work hard on the card counting. He was persistent and worked up a speed that matched with his talent for math made the way for his odd profession.
Today Kevin Blackwood is winding down his gambling. He describes his gambling years as tough and not as glamorous as some people might think. Blackwood hopes that his writing will help others and perhaps this is his future 9-5 job. He has written several books on the subject and the reviews are good. It could be because he knows just how to combine his experiences and skills while keeping the reader entertained by a good story. Blackwood lives in Oregon and hopes that he will use the rest of his life to make a difference. What difference that will be we will just have to look out for.
Andrew Sanders - Managing Editor