Fred Renzey
KISS – Easy, yet powerful, unbalanced strategies found in Blackjack Bluebook II by Fred Renzey, Blackjack Mentor Press, 2003. The KISS strategies are designed to start simple and add complexity. KISS I is used for beginners that wish to play rarely. I personally believe players are better starting with KISS II or III. KISS II is better with single-deck games. Note: This is a suit-aware count. That is, the 2 is counted differently depending on the color of the suit. I believe that this would increase errors. However, many people have said that they are quite comfortable with suit-aware counts. KISS III is similar to Red 7 and works better with shoe games. The BC is substantially improved over KISS II.
Mentor – Level II balanced strategy suitable for shoes or pitch games. Mentor is similar to the Zen Count. These are compromise counts designed to strike a balance between shoe games and hand-held games. Mentor is slanted slightly more towards shoe games. True-counting in Mentor is somewhat unusual as you essentially divide by remaining double-decks.
Card Tag Values
|
Strategy |
A |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
T |
|
KISS 2 |
0 |
0/1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
-1 |
|
KISS 3 |
-1 |
0/1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
-1 |
|
Mentor |
-1 |
1 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
-1 |
-2 |
Specifics
|
KISS II |
KISS III |
Mentor |
|
|
Strategy Type |
Unbalanced |
Unbalanced |
Balanced |
|
Level |
I |
I |
II |
|
Betting Correlation |
.90 |
.98 |
.97 |
|
Playing Efficiency |
.62 |
.56 |
.62 |
|
Insurance Correlation |
.87 |
.78 |
.80 |
|
Ease of use |
7 |
7 |
4 |
|
Ace-Reckoned |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Compromise Indexes |
No |
No |
No |
|
Suit Aware |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
© 2009 Norman Wattenberger
