No Tears Card Counting & Clumping
by Rob McGarvey
Shortly after my review of Blackjack 101 last month, I was invited to look over another Blackjack system called Blackjack Without Tears. The name of this system brought a smile to my face, but I am sure there have been oceans of tears cried over lost money due to our favourite game. I was allowed to review quite a few pages of information about the system, but not the entire package due to the value of the information to it's owner David Morse.
Right away I was pleasantly surprised to see that Card Counting, the meat and potatoes part of beating Blackjack on a continual basis, was being embraced by the author of Blackjack Without Tears. This was both exciting and refreshing since I have found that most avid "Clumpers" have all but given up on counting, except for a very few players I have had the pleasure of getting to know that I have to consider excellent players. The system was not another Clumping vs Counting battlefield, it was a program that had the two theories working with each other in a peaceful and profitable fashion.
From my first exposure to Clumping I always wondered why it had such an awful name. I always got this image of something nerdish, banging about in an uncoordinated way, not something refined, light of foot, suave and scientific. The key to Blackjack Without Tears is not called Clumping, but that is what it is. The author refers to this phenomenon as Signature Cards. I love it! What a refreshing name! A Signature Card is a card that tells the beginning of a string of high or low cards.
Again it becomes obvious that you will want to be sitting in a spot to take advantage of seeing these Signature Cards, and this would be 1st base or seat #2. The author reaffirmed the fact that a Basic Strategy player can sit at any seat and play, but for advanced players that have a greater knowledge of the decks contents it is important to be in these two seats.
As I mentioned earlier, I didn't get to review the entire Blackjack Without Tears system. The portion beyond traditional counting that dealt with Signature Cards is no doubt available to paying customers only, and no free samples are available to help you decide if you want to gamble with your money. The representation of the counting parts of the system had imaginative colour schemes to help you memorize "The Griffin Order" which is the order of importance of the dealer up card in relation to dealer break ratio. The author is no doubt a Griffin fan with a sound knowledge of counting and Blackjack play.
For further information about Signature Cards and Blackjack Without Tears, feel free to contact Rob on behalf of Blackjack Without Tears or order here.
If you have a system you would like reviewed, please feel free to E-Mail me with your request at blakjack@idirect.com