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An Introduction To Blackjack
A
Brief History It
is generally believed that playing cards was invented in China in about
900 AD. Chinese people began to shuffle paper money into various combinations
and in China today the term for playing cards means paper tickets. The
52 card deck as we know it was originally called the French Pack. The
origin of Blackjack is somewhat unclear. Some people believe that Blackjack
originated in French casinos in the early 1700s where it was known as
"vingt-et-un" ("20 and 1"). The
game became known as Blackjack because if a player held a Jack of Spades
and an Ace of Spades as the 1st two cards, the player was paid out extra.
So with a Jack being a vital card and Spades being black, the game was
called Blackjack. This
game has been played in the United States since the 1800's. Gambling was
legal out West from the 1850's to 1910, at which time Nevada made it a
felony to operate a gambling game. In 1931, Nevada re-legalized casino
gambling where BlackJack became one of the primary games of chance offered
to gamblers. In 1978, New Jersey became the second state to legalize gambling
and since then casinos have sprouted up in about 20 other states. Blackjack remains one of the most popular card games in the world. Let’s see why. Is
Blackjack a "Winnable" Game? When blackjack first became a casino staple, it was assumed that it was rather like baccarat, where the house, by virtue of the rules determining play, had a statistical edge. All players and students of the game assumed that this advantage existed based on two simple facts. One, the player had to act first. Two, all busts (hands totaling over twenty-one) were losers no matter what the dealer later drew. These two rules seem to give the house an incontrovertible edge. Conventional began to change in 1956 when a paper by Baldwin, Cantey, Maisel, and McDermont was published in the "Journal of the American Statistical Association". This paper and a blackjack strategy manual published by Baldwin et al. the following year both attracted very little interest among non mathematicians, but it would prove to be the first step toward determining that blackjack is a "winnable" game. Edward O. Thorp, a scientist at MIT, did understand the implications of the work of Baldwin and his colleagues and began to examine two elements of the game that were previously unexamined. One, the composition of a deck of cards changes with every card dealt. Two, some deck compositions favor the player and other favor the house. In 1962, Thorp published his now famous book, "Beat the Dealer", which contained a simple yet profound message. Unlike dice, roulette wheels, and slot machines, decks of cards have "memory." Blackjack, unlike Roulette for example, is a winnable game because of this "memory." Let's look at an example. You are sitting at the Roulette table and the dealer throws the ball and it comes to rest on the number 9. Now, when he throws the ball again for the next round, what are the odds the ball lands on 9 again? Assuming the wheel is not rigged or the dealer is not trained to "fix" the outcome, the odds of the ball landing on 9 again are exactly the same! Let's take it a step further. Assume that the ball does indeed land on 9 again - twice more. Now the ball has landed on the 9 three times in a row! What are the odds this happens a fourth time? Exactly the same! There is no statistical reason that the ball should "avoid" landing on 9 again. Blackjack is different. Let's look at a similar situation in blackjack. You are at the table with two other players. The dealer deals a 9 to each of the players at the table. Now the odds of dealing another 9 have been significantly reduced. In a six deck game the odds have been reduced from 3:49 to 7:104. This fact alone makes blackjack a winnable game. We will learn later how to take advantage of this. The Greatest Gambling Package Ever Click Here! |
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