Ken Uston
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- Ken Uston was a well-known blackjack player. His technique expertise and contributions to the art of team card counting has gained him a great deal of notoriety.
- Kenneth Ray Houston (born November 12, 1944) is an American former professional football player who was a safety in the American Football League (AFL) and National Football League (NFL). He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1986. Houston played for the AFL's Houston Oilers from 1967 through 1969, and after the AFL–NFL merger, with the Oilers from 1970 through 1972, then.
Blackjack Author and Player Ken Uston
Ken Uston whose birth name is Kenneth Senzo Usui is one of the most famous blackjack players in the world who has won millions at the blackjack tables in a variety of different and unique ways.
A Profile of Ken Uston
Considered by many to be the most famous blackjack player of all time, the man known as 'The Master of Blackjack' was as controversial as he was colorful. Born January 12th, 1935, Ken was a certified mathematics genius with an IQ of 169. He attended Yale University at the age of 16 and later went on to receive his MBA from Harvard.
Ken then started his ascension of the corporate ladder, eventually becoming the senior vice-president of the Pacific Stock Exchange in San Francisco, California.
Ken Uston and Al Francesco
Along the way, Ken became fascinated with blackjack, which no doubt appealed to his mathematically-oriented mind. In 1973, a woman he was dating recommended that he should meet another man she was involved in. That man turned out to be the father of the team play concept, Al Francesco.
Ken called him up and the two men became friends. Although he was not a winning player at the time, Al taught him to count cards and agreed to give him a spot on his team. So Ken quit his lucrative job and looked to make his mark in the world of professional gambling.
Ken started off as a spotter for the other team members, but was eventually moved to the position of Big Player after a fellow teammate was discovered to be ripping off the team.
Ironically, Ken's time under Al Francesco was less than impressive. While he didn't lose money, he always found himself just breaking even.
Suing Atlantic City
When gambling was legalized in Atlantic City in 1976, Ken moved there and set up shop, although he soon found himself barred from most casinos. He retaliated by filing a lawsuit against Resorts International, claiming that casinos did not have the right to bar skilled players. In a surprising turn of events, the New Jersey State Supreme Court ruled in favor of Ken.
To this day, Atlantic City casinos are not allowed to bar card counters. But although it was a victory for the little man, many blackjack players argue that Uston's victory actually worsened blackjack conditions in Atlantic City, because casinos countered the ruling by adding decks, moving up the shuffle point, and taking other measures to decrease the skilled player's potential advantage.
Ken Uston, Blackjack Author
In 1977, Uston made a huge splash with the publication of The Big Player, which he co-authored with Roger Rapaport. In the book, Uston exposed the secrets of Al Francesco's big player teams, which had largely been unknown to casinos at that time.
Many in the gambling community turned against Ken as a result, and the publication of the book created a rift between him and Al which took years to repair. But the book also changed the ways which professionals looked at and attached the game of blackjack.
Three of the most successful international blackjack teams—the Tommy Hyland team, the MIT blackjack team, and the Czech team—were all started in 1978, the year after Uston's book was published.
Ken went on to write Two Books on Blackjack (1979), Million Dollar Blackjack (1981), and Ken Uston on Blackjack (1986).
In the 1980s, Uston wrote several books about video games, including Mastering PAC-MAN and Ken Uston's Guide to Buying and Beating the Home Video Games.
Ken Uston's Legacy
Over the course of his career, Ken and his teams took the casinos for millions. And all the while, Ken was wearing disguises, being chased by casino goons (and once having several bones in his face broken), and generally living a life filled with women, booze, and money.
His was a personality on a grand scale, who legally challenged the casino industry in the courts of both New Jersey and Nevada. His blackjack career spanned two decades of competition at the highest levels, and included card counting, big player teams, hole card techniques, and concealed computer play.
On September 19th, 1987, in his rented vacation apartment in Paris, France, Ken Uston was found dead of an apparent heart attack. French authorities reported that no foul play was suspected, and his death was attributed to natural causes. Rumors, however, persisted that Ken had died of a heroin overdose.
His friend and business manager, Jerry Fuerle, was even quoted in the Las Vegas Review-Journal as commenting, 'His lifestyle just caught up with him.'
No autopsy was ever performed, and, after his body was cremated, his ashes were flown back to the U.S. At the time of his death, Ken was working as a computer consultant for the Kuwaiti government and writing a book about his experiences in the Middle-East.
In 2003, in recognition of his contributions to the world of blackjack, Ken was inducted as one of the inaugural members of the Blackjack Hall of Fame. And although he may be gone, his passion and innovative techniques live on in the hearts and minds of generations of blackjack players.
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More Blackjack Players: Stanford Wong - Hollywood Dave Stann - Sam Vaughn - Edward Thorp - Cathy Hulbert - Michael Konik - Keith Taft - Anthony Curtis - Peter Griffin - Ken Uston - Richard Munchkin - Ken Einiger - Tommy Hyland - Al Francesco - Eleanore Dumont - Ken Smith - Lawrence Revere - Steve Forte - Barry Meadow - Brian Zembic - Big Chuck Gorson - Erica Schoenberg - James Grosjean - Max Rubin - Henry Tamburin - Russ Hamilton - Jimmy Pine - Joanna Wlodawer - Joe Pane - Kevin Blackwood - Blackjack Hall of Fame - MIT Blackjack Team
Ken Uston once said that learning the Uston Advanced Count (APC) was no more work than what was required to become an average chess, backgammon or bridge player.
The funny thing was, he didn’t use this system himself. In fact, he created additional systems that are easier to learn and use.
My point? The Uston Advanced Count is a blackjack system with over 163 variations to memorize. It’s not for beginners, or for those dabbling in blackjack strategy. The APC is for intermediate to advanced blackjack only.
Read on at your own risk…
The Uston Advanced system was created by Ken Uston. He was a professional gambler and writer known for his card counting systems, books, teams, lawsuits and disguises. Over his lifetime he made millions of dollars from casinos, sometimes betting as much as $12,000 per hand.
One story Ken Uston is famous for is his lawsuit against the New Jersey casinos. There is a law in the state that casinos cannot punish advantage players aka ban them from their casinos for counting cards. However, after taking more than $150,000 in the span of 10 days, Ken Uston and his team, were in fact, banned from playing. He turned around, fought the system and won. As a result the casinos had to change their games, which included shuffling the decks more often, using more decks and changing the rules to increase the house edge.
How Easy is it to Learn the Uston Advanced Count?
The Uston Advanced Count is a difficult card counting strategy to learn. It’s not for beginners. If you’re a first timer looking for a card counting system, the Hi/Lo or Knock-Out System will be much better for you.
To give you some perspective, the Uston Advanced Count is a level 3 card counting system. That’s out of 4 levels, with the 4th being the most difficult. Using this system you’ll have to memorize and assign 1 of 5 different values to each card. In addition, you’ll need to keep a side count for aces and calculate the true count.
On the plus side, the Uston Advanced Count is effective. It ranks well for insurance betting at 90 percent accuracy, and correlated betting at 91 percent. Done correctly the house edge will swing as high as 1 percent in favor of the player.
That being said, there are other card counting systems that will give players a 1 percent edge, too. So you’ll have to determine how much more of an edge learning this system will give you, compared to learning a level 1 or 2 system. As I said in the beginning, Uston noticed how difficult this system was for beginners to learn. So he created other systems for lesser experienced players to use. I’m going to cover one of them below called the Uston Advanced Plus-Minus System.
The Uston Advanced Count assigns a value to each card. The cards and the values you will assign to each are as follows:
- 2, 8 – Count +1
- 9 – Count -1
- 3, 4, 6, 7 – Count +2
- 5 – Count +3
- 10, J, Q, K – Count -3
- A – Count 0
This is a balanced count system. What that means is if you count through an entire deck of cards (correctly) you should end up with a count of 0.
For example, say you were dealt the following cards:
2, 3, 6, K, A, A, 4, 9
You would assign the following values, all the while keeping a running count:
+1 (+1), +2 (+3), +2 (+5), -3 (+2), 0 (+2), 0 (+2), +2 (+4), -1 (+3)
So your current count would be a +3. That means the deck is richer with 10-point cards, which puts the odds in our favor. So based on a bet spread you’d want to wager a couple of additional units. However, you’ll want to keep a true count to know for sure how much to bet. To do that you take your count and divide it by the number of decks left in play. For example, if your running count was 3 and there were 1.5 decks left, you’d end up with a +2. This “true count” will give you a more accurate idea as to what to bet (according to your bet spread guidelines — this varies, there is no set guideline).
Keep in mind, too, that the APC System does not track aces. You’ll need to keep a side count. The best way to do that is to multiply 4 by the number of decks you’re playing with to get a total number of aces. Then for every ace you see subtract 1 from your total.
How to Use the Uston Advanced Plus-Minus System
Ken Uston 60 Minutes
The Uston Advanced Plus-Minus System is similar to the Hi/Lo System in that you only assign a +1, 0 or -1 to each card. This is considered a level one card counting system. Here are the cards and the value for each one:
- 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 – Count +1
- 8, 9 – Count 0
- 10, J, Q, K, A – Count -1
Ken Uston
This system was created primarily for hand-held blackjack games, which you don’t see in casinos anymore (due to players like Ken Uston exploiting them). However, from what I understand it can still be used for multi-deck blackjack games. If you use this system you’ll need to keep a true count. So if that’s a problem you’ll want to use the Knock-Out System instead.
The two books that “detail everything Ken knows about blackjack,” include Million Dollar Blackjack and Ken Uston on Blackjack.
Ken Uston Blackjack
If you want to read non-APC material, then Ken Uston has also (co) written One Third of a Shoe and The Big Player. These talk more or less about beating the house, building a team that beat the Resorts International and very basic instructions on how to beat the casinos at blackjack in Atlantic City and Las Vegas.