Author: horse-racing-free-tips

Thorp’s Era.
If you don’t know, now we are living in 43th year of Thorp’s era. This person had such a great influence on the blackjack and all the gambling industry, that I seriously consider that he is worth of setting up a monument while alive, by the way at the casino’s expense.

Being a young scientist, Edward O. Thorp regularly read mathematic journals. When he was a student, he was pressed for money. The idea of outplaying the casino on the basis of calculations appealed to Thorp and he decided to check the results of the “excellent four” and see what will come out of it. The result of his activity was a phenomenal book Beat The Dealer, now its sales are approaching million of samples.

Thorp chose the other way – he did not make analytical calculations, but with powerful at that time computer IBM (they were also called mainframe) he wrote several programs on Fortran, creating quite original methods for 60s. By the way, Thorp together with his research instructor Claude Elwood Shannon, a great scientist, were also involved in solving the problem “how to outplay the roulette?”

From his calculations Thorp understood that dead cards had a considerable affect on the gambler’s chances this or that way. His main idea was about memorizing the dead cards in somewhat simplified way and when the situation is beneficial for the player, make high stakes. By the way, this system still remains the basis of any methods and counting systems of blackjack.

The counting system introduced by Thorp, was rather complicated for usage in real casinos, required great concentration and large amount of mentally arithmetic actions. However with good training there was nothing impossible in its application.

Thorp’s book immediately became a success and bestseller. Everyone understood that with quite simple actions you can get an advantage. Every reader dreamt of enormous prizes. However, the casinos also knew the score.

Panic seized them. And in 1962 after Thorp’s book, all Las Vegas Casinos without exception changed their rules being afraid of mass influx of “system players”. The quality of the rules worsened terribly and no counting system could ever help you to win. Though the effect for casino turned out to be quite unpredictable and reverse – people stopped playing blackjack. And during several months, all the casinos had to return to the former rules for their own survival.

Another interesting effect caused by Thorp’s book- incredible popularity of blackjack outrunning the favorite American craps. A lot of people, after reading the book considered themselves potential winners and rushed to the blackjack tables. However, most of them had a bad understanding of the mathematical principles of the game did not become winners but quite vice versa. Therefore, casino got more clients and moreover losing clients. Since then their number is only increasing.

The system presented in the first edition of Thorp’s book was quite difficult even for professionals and only the few could apply it under the conditions of a real game. Something should be simplified.

The power behind the throne.
Julian Braun is quite a unique personality. He had hardly ever played a deal in real blackjack. But he played millions and maybe even billions of deals on the computer. Braun was a good mathematician and programmer and he got interested in Thorp’s idea and offered him cooperation in the sphere of calculations and programming.

Braun became the person who first invented the counting system Hi-Lo. He was behind the development of all modern systems the authorship of which belongs to Revere, Humble, Wong and Uston. He wrote the only book How to Play Winning Blackjack, but what a book!

Braun upgraded Thorp’s system on FORTRAN and made considerable changes and the second edition of Thorp’s book also contained Hi-Lo system in its modern form. It was quite a revolution in gambling world. Braun worked in IBM corporation and had access to probably most powerful computers of that time. This fact helped to build simple and efficient tool in struggle with casino.

Using Braun’s calculations the gambler mostly known as Lawrence Revere developed his own counting system and presented his results in the form of convenient tables which are applied in most counters of the world. Lance Humble based his HiOpt systems on Braun’s experience.

Regardless the fact that Julian most probably had never been to the casino, he became a power behind the throne of the blackjack and all the mathematical modeling of the game fell on him.

The dream of capoting a casino is as old as the notion “casino” itself. Every gambler wants to win. Every other invents his own “system”. Every hundredth attempts to carefully analyze the game. And only the few of millions succeed.

The most famous achievement in the sphere of “system” game against the casino was the so called “card counting” at blackjack – mathematically based methods of game allowing to get some advantage over the casino. The casinos, surely, knows about the existence of “counters” and are trying to oppose them – from changing the rules to banning the game. Sometimes even exceeding the limits of reason and legality. In fact, all the history of the blackjack is the struggle between the gamblers and the casino which is more clever.

More than half a century passed since the first attempts of beating the casinos in blackjack, based not on the marked cards and intuition. There has been a peck of salt eaten since then, but the struggle is still going on…

Mammoth.
Probably the first person in history who applied mathematic analysis to the game blackjack was Jess Marcum (originally Marcovitch) was born on 30th December 1919.

It happened at the turn of 1949 and 1950, when Jess, being an excellent mathematician and physicist-theorist got to Las Vegas. Then his mathematic flair prompted him that most possibly not everything depends on intuition in blackjack.

Marcum started analyzing blackjack. First, the uniqueness of his attempt is that he performed absolutely all calculations with his pen on the paper, on principle without using any technologies whatever weak they might be at that time. Second he had found the solution!

Jess manually developed what is now called basic strategy and counting systems ten years before someone else has done that. He counted that theoretically he had an advantage over the casino of about 3% – under the conditions of that time it was quite real. Moreover, Markum had been playing blackjack in all known to him casinos- both in the USA and abroad. His name appeared on the pages of the newspapers as an example of “lucky man” who managed to hit the jackpot.

Jess Markum also went down to history as probably the first man thrown out from the casino because of cards. Though at that time casinos did not understand that such system existed. Jess lived in Las Vegas for about a year. The casino owners exchanged the information when they gathered at the general meeting. And they were terrified. After that Markum was not admitted at all Vegas casinos. He went to Reno. The same story- in half a year after unbelievable “luck” the casino owners started making inquiries about the incredible gambler. Then other states and cities. Then Cuba, the Bahamas. Nobody knows how much money he has won during that time. One thing is known for sure- in fact, Jess Markum started the war between the gamblers and casinos in blackjack, that is still going on and getting more and more strained.

He did not share his calculations with anyone, and completely gave up playing against casino after a wide public publication of blackjack methods by other authors.
Jess Markum died in 1992, at the age of 72.

The four of Neanderthals.
The next effort of great influence on the blackjack math was made in 1956 by the group of four mathematicians- Roger Baldwin, Wilbert E. Cantey, Herbert Maisel and James McDermott.

These people had never played in casino before, having spent a great number of m/hr, they created basic strategy of playing blackjack according to the most popular at that time rules and published it together with the calculation methods in the specialized math journal for statisticians – Journal of the American Statistical Association entitled “The Optimum Strategy In Blackjack”.

They made several slight mistakes in calculations which is nothing serious taking into account their enormous contribution. A year later they issued a small book Playing Blackjack to Win, which is now a bibliography rarity.

In fact their book and the article did not spark much furor, and remained almost without attention regardless of their innovative approach. However, the word almost turned out to be the key for all the gambling industry, as someone did paid close attention to the research of the excellent four.