Those out there who believe that blackjack is not a skill game but rather a game of chance, I'd like to make an observation to convince you otherwise. Take the members of the Blackjack Hall of Fame, which counts amongst its ranks some of the most famous and profitable blackjack advantage players that have ever played the game. Here are individuals who made large sums of money playing the game of blackjack to the point where casinos had to devote considerable resources to identify and bar them from playing at their tables - at times through court action.
The aim of this article isn't to labor the playing feats of the world's best card counters, but it should be pointed out that apparently all of these guys made considerable amounts of cash by playing the game with a real edge over the house. I was looking through the current list of members just the other day and reading their biographies and there existed one undeniably common characteristic that they all possessed - highly analytic, highly numerate and highly intelligent minds. In fact, many of them were/are university educated in mathematics, economics or finance fields, usually at esteemed institutions and often to PHD level.
There is Peter Griffin holding a Masters Degree in mathematics from UC Davis (also the the grandson of famous mathematician Frank Loxley Griffin); Edwards Thorpe, MIT alma mater, UCLA PHD and UCI maths professor; Stanford Wong, PHD student in finance and alma mater at Stanforn; Lawrence Revere with a degree in pure mathematics at the University of Nebraska; James Grosjean, a University of Chicago Economics graduate. And then of course there are the members of the MIT Blackjack Team - recruited from MIT.
Is it just coincidence that the guys judged to be the best blackjack players in the world also happened to have a bent towards mathematics? I don't belive so. Did they randomly select blackjack as their casino game of choice over slots or keno? don't believe so. I am no genius and certainly not mathematically minded, but joining the dots on the above, three rather obvious points leap out at me. 1 - the best blackjack players in the world all seem to be very intelligent, very skilled individuals. Second, of all the games in the casino they could have played, they chose primarily to play blackjack, and third, by all reports they were able to profit from it.
Now before you rush out and learn to count cards and hit the blackjack tables, remember the game has changed quite a bit from the game commonly dealt in the 60s and 70s - thanks in no small part to some of the above players. Wising up to advantage play strategies, casinos have moved the goal posts and added multiple decks, changed the rules on whether the dealer hits or stands on soft 17, in some cases banned mid-shoe game entries and even, in some instances altered the payout for blackjack from 3:2 to 6:5.
But favorable rules are still out there and blackjack remains one of the very rare casino games where a skilled player can play with at worst a very small house edge, and maybe even a player edge if they are good enough.
The aim of this article isn't to labor the playing feats of the world's best card counters, but it should be pointed out that apparently all of these guys made considerable amounts of cash by playing the game with a real edge over the house. I was looking through the current list of members just the other day and reading their biographies and there existed one undeniably common characteristic that they all possessed - highly analytic, highly numerate and highly intelligent minds. In fact, many of them were/are university educated in mathematics, economics or finance fields, usually at esteemed institutions and often to PHD level.
There is Peter Griffin holding a Masters Degree in mathematics from UC Davis (also the the grandson of famous mathematician Frank Loxley Griffin); Edwards Thorpe, MIT alma mater, UCLA PHD and UCI maths professor; Stanford Wong, PHD student in finance and alma mater at Stanforn; Lawrence Revere with a degree in pure mathematics at the University of Nebraska; James Grosjean, a University of Chicago Economics graduate. And then of course there are the members of the MIT Blackjack Team - recruited from MIT.
Is it just coincidence that the guys judged to be the best blackjack players in the world also happened to have a bent towards mathematics? I don't belive so. Did they randomly select blackjack as their casino game of choice over slots or keno? don't believe so. I am no genius and certainly not mathematically minded, but joining the dots on the above, three rather obvious points leap out at me. 1 - the best blackjack players in the world all seem to be very intelligent, very skilled individuals. Second, of all the games in the casino they could have played, they chose primarily to play blackjack, and third, by all reports they were able to profit from it.
Now before you rush out and learn to count cards and hit the blackjack tables, remember the game has changed quite a bit from the game commonly dealt in the 60s and 70s - thanks in no small part to some of the above players. Wising up to advantage play strategies, casinos have moved the goal posts and added multiple decks, changed the rules on whether the dealer hits or stands on soft 17, in some cases banned mid-shoe game entries and even, in some instances altered the payout for blackjack from 3:2 to 6:5.
But favorable rules are still out there and blackjack remains one of the very rare casino games where a skilled player can play with at worst a very small house edge, and maybe even a player edge if they are good enough.
0 comments:
Post a Comment