Richard Harvey Blackjack

How Twenty-one became Blackjack

According to Richard Epstein (Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic, Academic Press, 1977), blackjack became popular during the First World War and has been called "Blackjack" from the practice of paying a bonus to a player has an ace of spades with a jack of spades or clubs. John Scarne, (New Complete Guide to Gambling, 1961, Simon & Schuster), puts the year when this curious rule first in 1912, when twenty a table appeared in the salons of Paris on horseback, in Evanston, Illinois. According to Scarne, 1919A by the play equipment distributor in Chicago was selling felt table being decorated with the announcement: "Blackjack Land of Odds 3 to 2. "I think the information is taken from Epstein Scarne, and Scarne states that he discovered the origins of blackjack in America as a result of his private discussions with old-time players, not All texts published which can be viewed today.

I am skeptical of much of what Scarne has written about blackjack, so I'll give Mickey MacDougall MacDougall on Dice and Cards (Coward-McCann, 1944, New York), which was published before any of Scarne's books "Many professionals dress the game by giving prizes for certain hands. A favorite stunt is to offer ten times the size of the bet to anyone holding a natural twenty-one with a blackjack. This adds interest to the game, but it also attempts a player increase his stake ".

In a game honestly dealt single-deck, this gimmick bonus would give the player a substantial advantage over the house, assuming the player knew basic strategy (an unlikely scenario). I also assume that the gaming house that offers the bonus would be using any number of illegitimate methods to assure the house a healthy edge.

This bonus curious who gave his name blackjack, however, has long since disappeared. There may be somewhere casino that pays a small bonus if a player gets a natural 21 which includes a jack of spades or clubs, but that is no longer a normal rule of the game. Today, a blackjack is simply an initial two cards that consist of an ace and a ten-valued card.

That's when Ed Thorp dropped another bombshell. Under the auspices of their Vintage Paperback division, Random House published a revised and expanded edition of beating the dealer. And the most important addition is the counting system Hi-Lo, Harvey Dubner, which Thorp called the Complete Point Count, with a computer-optimized strategy devised by Julian Braun. At the casinos' frustration, was a system that could more easily be applied to games multi-platform.

Thorp was keeping the casinos on the run.

However, fears of casinos were largely unfounded. The Complete Point Count was easier to use than the ten-count, but it has not been much easier. It took the players to keep two separate counts. In addition to the total number of operating points of the map, the player must keep a count the exact number of cards left to play. And to play his hand, he had to memorize a chart of 158 different strategy changes to be made by number.

Thorp also included a simple point count in this new edition of his book, but when that strategy seemed way too simple for most players to gain much of an edge or to be taken seriously by players who wanted to win the game. Later, the power of Thorp's simpler method of adjusting the number of running, without a separate account of the exact number of cards played, would be shown.

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