Canfield Master System

I always look with a suspicious eye at authors who not only don't use their own names when they write, but who actually appropriate the name of someone else who existed at one time. So it's with a little pause that I would read a book called "Blackjack Your Way to Riches" by a Richard Albert Canfield.

The real Canfield was an operator of gambling dens, first in New England, then in New York City, back in the 1800’s. His establishments were not for street urchins; they were luxurious and well-appointed, and played host to high-stakes blackjack games. Of course, this didn't mean that he couldn't get raided every once in while; it's just that perhaps one of the city's elite politicians might be playing inside at the time. Canfield later purchased a resort at Saratoga (NY) and turned it into one of the premier gambling destinations in the country.

I guess my point is that when an author (or series of authors collectively) take a name like that, they might be regarded with a certain degree of skepticism.

The "Richard Alan Canfield" who wrote "Blackjack Your Way to Riches" was reportedly someone named John Hinton, and Hinton sought to sell his "Canfield Master Count" – a blackjack betting system to win at blackjack.

This is a balanced count, which means you will have to keep a side count of Aces. Obviously, that is why they are classified as a "neutral" card and not counted.

They tried the "takeaway" technique: "My contributors decide how many will be sold, and to whom. They can withdraw from the offer of selling anytime they wish, no matter how few have been sold." I don't know how few were sold, but it was priced at $250 and that was more than thirty years ago.

The Canfield Master System uses the following values:

* 2, 3 and 7 are counted as +1
* 4, 5 and 6 are counted as +2
* 9 is counted as -1
* Ten-value cards (10, J, Q, K) are counted as -2
* Aces and eights are neutral, and are not counted

These are not unique values; Peter Griffin's two-level count has the same values, and one must assume that research he conducted had something to do with the formulation of this blackjack system. These same card values appear in Bryce Carlson's Omega II betting system.

Even though it has been said that the Master System works best with single decks and is of diminishing use in the multiple-deck format, the developers of this system claim that it works well in both the single and multiple-deck game of blackjack. It claims to identify favorable situations as quickly as any system, that it does not promote mental fatigue, that it produces more of a return than other more complicated blackjack systems, and that it had been tested under actual casino conditions for a decade prior to its publication.

In the book it is written that the authors will gladly take on any challenge from other blackjack strategy and system sellers, and this is among the conditions:

"Any blackjack game must be for a minimum of $500,000. No publicity may accompany any contest which has as a prize an amount from $500,000 to $2 million. Those low prices are simply not worth losing our anonymity for." That doesn't seem to be someone who wants to take on any challenge.