We all need some help from time to time.

I can only assume that I was not the only whelp that sought much needed guidance in the arcade with Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Tron by picking up a book like Mastering Pac-Man by the man you see in the first picture, Ken Uston.

Ken Uston came to Pac-Man by the way of Blackjack. He has been credited with the concept of team play at Blackjack and did very well for himself, well enough that he was not allowed into casino's because of his card counting ability. He then became famous around Vegas for his disguises he would wear to sneak back into a casino once banned from it. It is claimed that he earned a few million dollars this way, sometimes betting $12,000 a hand. He did file a lawsuit against the casinos for barring him and his ability to count cards...and won.

He wrote a few books about the game, Million Dollar Blackjack and its companion volume, Ken Uston on Blackjack. At this time he became a fan of Pong and Space Invaders, so much so that during a $350,000 win in Vegas he bought a Space Invaders machine for his apartment.

In 1981 at the Easy Street Pub in Atlantic City he and a few regulars began to have competitions to see who could hold the high score, it was then he noticed that the game had 'patterns' and began to write them down on cocktail napkins, etc. But he couldn't get any further until he took a trip to San Francisco and met two Chinese-American boys named 'Tommy' and 'Raymond' who taught him more surefire 'patterns'. Friends of his had already mentioned he should write a book about the game and with his new found knowledge he did.

Along with Mastering Pac-Man he went on to write Ken Uston's guide to the Adam, IBM P.C., Apple IIe, and Home Video Game Guide for 1983. He also licensed his name to the Colecovision game Ken Uston's Blackjack/Poker as well as Ken Uston's Profe$$ional Blackjack for the P.C. markets.

He passed away in 1987 at the age of 52, he was found dead in his rented Paris apartment and the official statement was he died of an heart attack.