Blackjack Blueprint: How to play like a pro part-time! (Rick Blaine)

This book is a fantastic resource for anyone who plays blackjack. Including chapters on basic strategy, card counting, shuffle tracking, playing tournaments, and much more. Blackjack Blueprint is written in a conversational and non-technical style making it an easy and engaging read. Players at all levels will be able to take something away from this fantastic book.

Beat The Dealer: A Winning Strategy For The Game Of Twenty-One (Edward O. Thorp)

Thorp is the father of the card counting revolution. This book, first published in the 60s outlines his strategy for extracting money from the casinos. The counting strategy itself is not recommended for players since it is difficult to learn and contains many strategy deviations. Wong’s Hi/Lo count is considered to be a much simpler derivative of Thorps early counting system. While the book will be of limited practical application for most players, it still makes a nice addition to your library and gives a glimpse of counting 60s style.

Burning the Tables in Las Vegas: Keys to Success in Blackjack and in Life (Ian Andersen)

‘Burning the tables’ is a follow up to Anderson’s book ‘Turning the tables’ published 20 years earlier. This is a fascinating book on the practicalities of counting (and getting away with it) in Vegas. As well as extended discussions of ‘camouflaging play’, Anderson also covers deviations from basic strategy that give greater player advantage, and betting spreads. An absolute wealth of information for (semi)professional players.

Knock-Out Blackjack: The Easiest Card-Counting System Ever Devised (Olaf Vancura & Ken Fuchs)

This was the first card counting book that I actually spent my hard earned cash on. The book outlines the knock-out card counting system. There is no true count conversion which makes this an ideal and easy-to-learn count for beginner to intermediate players. Although the hi/lo count is reputedly more powerful, I personally use the K-O count system. The book is well written and builds on principles step by step. You can easily read this book in a day, at the end of which you’ll be itching to hit Vegas with your new skills!

Professional Blackjack (Stanford Wong)

Standford Wong is considered to be one of the masters of modern blackjack. All of his books are informative, but ‘Professional Blackjack’ is undoubtedly his best. Beginning with an introduction to the hi/lo count, Wong then gives indexes of all kinds of rule variations of the game. The book is well stocked with tables, and because of this, may be somewhat daunting for beginners to counting.