I am very pleased and proud to announce the release of a DVD of The GameMaster's Blackjack School. For those who aren't familiar with my "school", this is a series of 20 written lessons that can teach you how to play a winning game of Blackjack.

From the feedback I've received over the years, I know that this course of instruction has helped many people win at the casinos and that's very gratifying. But at the same time, I'd often get e-mails from people who didn't quite understand just what I was trying to describe in the lessons. While the World Wide Web allowed me to reach unprecedented numbers of people from all over, it was still in the form of the "written word" and that has its limitations, both from a teaching and learning perspective, not to mention language differences. To teach someone a skill through writing alone, you'd better be a darn good writer, which I'm not and from a learning point of view, the old saying goes something like this: "I read and I forget; I do and I remember."

It has always frustrated me a little that I couldn't demonstrate to everybody the skills needed for this, exactly like I used to do in my "live" classes, but even the marvelous technology of the Internet doesn't permit me to do that. At least not for free, anyway. Videotaping the course was always in the back of my mind, but it's expensive to produce, not conducive to easily and quickly finding specific material ("Gee, is the part I want in fast-forward or rewind?") and, if you live in Europe, you need a different type of tape than what we use here, plus your computer probably doesn't have a video cassette recorder/player attached to it, regardless of where you live.

But now we live in the age of digital video cameras and that wonderful medium, the Digital Video Disk or DVD. Thanks to the amazing talents of my friend and business partner, Jay Thompson, who is the very creative Creative Director of the GameMaster Group, we have translated the Blackjack School into a home study course that anyone with a computer and a DVD player can use with ease. Not only can I demonstrate the skills you need to develop, but we have also made all of the tests and other study materials available as free downloads on our Web site. Plus, with the availability of the Web site literally at your fingertips, we can update anything that needs updating, so this will never be obsolete and as you go through the course, you can e-mail me directly with any questions, which I'll personally answer.

Our DVD is not free like the written lessons, but I host it and you'll soon discover that no one will ever mistake me for a great actor, so that helped keep the price down. We literally shot this in the spare room of my house, so the "blackjack" table will shake a little and, if you listen closely you'll hear the thunder of an approaching storm in one of the lessons. But because of Jay's great graphics and all of the demonstrations we run, at some point you'll also realize: "Hey, I can learn this." And that's what it's really all about, showing you how you can learn to play a winning game of Blackjack.

Can you just watch this once and become a Blackjack "pro"? No. Can I guarantee that you'll win every time you play after completing the course? No. But the price is reasonable, especially when you consider that you're investing in a skill you'll probably be able to use for the rest of your life. And, it's fun!