Ken Uston
Uston Advanced Plus-Minus – A Level I, balanced strategy optimized for betting found in Ken Uston's Million Dollar Blackjack, Gambling Times Inc., 1981. Similar to Hi-Lo, but biased a bit more toward hand-held games. This is one of several strategies sold under Uston's name. Uston APM is not in common use these days.
Uston APC – Uston Advanced Point Count is an advanced, Level III, balanced strategy with a large number of indexes optimized for Playing Efficiency. This is one of the most complex card counting strategies and is not recommended these days, although it is still in use.
Uston SS – An advanced, Level III, unbalanced strategy optimized for betting. This is a proprietary strategy developed by Ken Uston, Arnold Snyder, and Sam Case found in The Uston SS Count, Gambling Times Inc., 1986. It was designed as the “Strongest and Simplest” (hence SS) strategy. Although very strong, “simplest” is clearly not accurate, as most people would find a level III strategy daunting. George C.’s Unbalanced Zen is much easier.
Card Tag Values
|
Strategy |
A |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
T |
|
Uston Adv. Plus-Minus |
-1 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
-1 |
|
Uston APC |
0 |
1 |
2 |
2 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
-1 |
-3 |
|
Uston SS |
-2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
-1 |
-2 |
Specifics
|
Adv. +/- |
APC |
SS |
|
|
Strategy Type |
Balanced |
Balanced |
Unbalanced |
|
Level |
I |
III |
III |
|
Betting Correlation |
.95 |
.91 |
.99 |
|
Playing Efficiency |
.55 |
.69 |
.54 |
|
Insurance Correlation |
.76 |
.90 |
.73 |
|
Ease of use |
6.5 |
2.5 |
4.5 |
|
Ace-Reckoned |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
|
Compromise Indexes |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Suit Aware |
No |
No |
No |
© 2009 Norman Wattenberger
