Ken Uston the blackjack hero and

Who was Ken Uston? Well, he was a Jazz pianist, a brilliant writer, a genius with an IQ of 169, and above all - a blackjack player. He was into the game for the challenge before the money. Ken Uston approached blackjack as a way of life and a business too. Hardly someone can speak about the history of blackjack and not mention his achievements in this field.

Early in the 70's and 80's, together with a team of blackjack card counters, Ken Uston almost brought casinos in Las Vegas and in Atlantic City to bankruptcy. They made hundreds of thousands of dollars from playing professional blackjack with an innovative card counting system.There were many other blackjack players, who used counting methods when playing but no one succeeded like them. How did they do it? They used teamwork professionally.

Ken Uston (Kenneth Senzo Usui) was born in 1935 in a middle-class family in New-York. Being such a bright student, he attended Yale on scholarship when he was only sixteen. Then, he moved on to Harvard Business School where he majored in finance.

From early days Ken wanted to be a virtuous musician, but following his dad' advice he decided to let go of his inclination to this idea.

After finishing his degree, Ken begins to consolidate his career in a corporative system. So, it not surprisingly to find him working at Pacific Coast Stock Exchange as Vice President in San Francisco at merely 31 years old and earning more than $45,000 a year. Conversely, he continued to improve his skills learning languages and programming, playing the piano and so on. It seems all these were not enough. He needed a challenge.

The challenge appeared during a dinner with friends in the mid 70's when Ken heard about a professional blackjack player that played on a full time basis. Because Ken was familiar with gambling theories' mathematical aspects, he wanted to meet this player. A few days after the dinner, the meeting was possible and Ken learned all the basic foundations of this man and his team.

Their mathematical system at blackjack tables was simple. With few card decks they determined if the player has a 'positive' or 'negative' condition for winning. This was the Reverse System. Later on they followed the Hi Opt I system, which was devised by Lance Humble in 1976.

The teamwork was divided in parts. 'Counters' were the ones who have the role to place small bets, waiting for a 'favorable' time (which was compute by their mathematical system). Then, the 'big players" ranked higher inside the team's people were doing the rest of the job.

At a blackjack table with a large bankroll they played until the trend ("favorable time") was over or the card decks were shuffled. 'Counters' waited for the edge to turn into their favor - when there was a 1.5%-2.5% odd for winning. Having a good strategy and a good team, the 70's were their years of glorious winnings. Once they made $27,000 with seven hands of $500 in a 45 minutes game.

In time, Ken quit his daily job and become a full-time blackjack player, a devoted member of the team. But not all the games were as easy as we think. There were also rough times for Ken, especially in the late years of the 70's. Casinos owners banned him and his team. So they couldn’t play for high stakes anymore, not even for low.

Ken tried to restore the situation in court but gained little success while consuming his bankroll. As an alternative, Ken learned to be more alert. He changed his appearance with beard and a long hair, assembled a new team and moved to hit Las Vegas once again.

In 1977, they had the opportunity to use small computers that were tapped to the insole of the team's shoes. The computer was in the size of a cigarette pack and had four buttons to input information. The buttons had binary values from 0 to 15, which indicated the cards already had been played. The result was transmitted by two vibrations which singled players whether they have favorable odds or not. So the players were advised by a device when to hit, stand, double down or split.

It was invented by Keith Taft, a Scientist from California, who called Uston and told him about his 'perfect blackjack player' which was nicknamed George. The device was composed by a stored program packed in a small plastic case, memory and a small microprocessor. Additionally, it had a battery pack and all of his parts were concealed in different intimate parts of the player's body.

Ken Uston and his team tested George for the first time at the Golden Gate Casino in downtown Lad Vegas. There Ken played few hands of $5-$50. By the end of the night, the winnings were not so fabulous but they proved George's ability high as Keith stated.

The most important part of the device was the radio-transmitter that sends the information to George. This part was operated by the 'Counters' who had to calculate the odds and then send it by radio waves to the Big Player. The players at the table received it by a 'Morse tapper' hidden in his shoe.

Such a team gathered up to 16 members - 8 Counters and 8 Big Players. They exercised the method long time before they used it in a real casino. They even built fake blackjack tables to simulate the 'casino environment' so no mistakes would be made during their game.

Using the computers Ken and his team they collected a big amount of money at the blackjack tables. Because the casino owners were wondering about their miraculous wins time after time, they decided to stop playing at Las Vegas for a while and moved to Lake Tahoe.

This time their luck disappeared. A main part of the team was arrested and their computers were confiscated by the police. Ken, which wasn't arrested, bailed them out from jail and never used again such cheating methods.

In 1978, a year later, Uston was writing The Big Player (his first book) and was invited by David Harman in his show Good Morning America.Harman was interested by a gambling subject for his show and he wanted Ken to participate in it. So they organized a blackjack game at the Horseshoe Casino.Ken decided to join forces with Harman and they arranged a blackjack game at the Horseshoe Casino. The game's rules were set by Jack Binion.

Ken played for less than five hours and made about $10,000. Later on, Harman asked Binion if Ken Uston was a cheater and he replied " Hell, no - it's a science. He used his intelligence, he deserves his win"

Since this event Ken wrote more books (such as Million Dollar Blackjack in 1982) and turned to take legal actions against casinos that barred blackjack players. He succeeded and the casinos were forced to open their gates to blackjack players.

Ken’ team started to play again blackjack in casino with the same success. But this time, Ken didn’t accompany them. He moved to Europe to continue his work with computers. Ken published many books such as "Mastering Pac-Man", "Ken Uston's to Buying and Beating the Home Video Games" and many others.

On the 19th of September, 1987, Ken Uston was found dead in his rented apartment in Paris. The cause of death is believed to be a heart attack. Ken Uston left behind him a heritage of blackjack etiquettes and methods. For these reasons, many blackjack players would continue to admire him as a true blackjack hero along the centuries.

Today card counting is practically over due to a large amount of online blackjack rooms where you can choose from a wide variety of strategies to implement. So start reading blackjack strategies to improve your odds at the online casinos and maybe you will be the next Ken Uston.