How familiar is everyone with the history of card counting?

[Sonny]

Snyder’s Big Book of BJ is probably one of the best overall sources for the history of blackjack. There are also a few good articles on his website:

http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/content/The4Horsemen.htm
http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/content/JessMarcumEarlyDaysofCardCounting.htm

The story almost writes itself: You have four bored army guys in the middle of the war crunching out numbers on their desk calculators in order to calculate the EV and probability of every possible hand in BJ. Little did they know that Jess Marcum had already done the same thing.

-Sonny-

 

[halcyon1234]

Here's how I learned/learned about BS:

After my first two trips to a casino (for poker), I played blackjack for the first time. Like I'm sure everyone experienced, I got some of "those hands" where the play wasn't obvious-- like A7. Or 16 vs 6. And I got flustered, and realized I had no idea what I should be doing. I didn't like that feeling, especially since, as a gamer, I knew there had to be a right move.

I figured that for every hand, and for every move, you would either win, or lose, or push. But for every hand, where you had to make a decision, one of those decisions would have to win more often, or lose less often. Right? There's a finite amount of results.

I was taking a computer data analysis course at the moment, and started to think of ways I could get the computer to figure out the best decision for me. And then I figured out if undergrad me could come to this conclusion-- then some super uber Linux geeks must have already done it.

I turned to Google and threw in a few good keywords. I found Wizard of Odds, and this site. I learned that the term "Basic Strategy" was exactly what I had in mind: For every hand and upcard combo, there was a best move. I printed it out, and played on the kitchen table until I had it down pat.

 

[SPX]

Snyder’s Big Book of BJ is probably one of the best overall sources for the history of blackjack. There are also a few good articles on his website:

http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/content/The4Horsemen.htm
http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/content/JessMarcumEarlyDaysofCardCounting.htm

The story almost writes itself: You have four bored army guys in the middle of the war crunching out numbers on their desk calculators in order to calculate the EV and probability of every possible hand in BJ. Little did they know that Jess Marcum had already done the same thing.

-Sonny-

Thanks for the info there, Sonny. I will have to check those links out. There seems to be a ton of good info on Arnold's site.

 

[SPX]

How much of a bankroll would someone need to make a serious month-long run in 1968? I hear of people doing it today with $10K. In '68, for a 24 year old kid, would $3000 be reasonable? $5000? (I'm not familiar with the rate of inflation between then and now.) And what kind of table would he playing at? $1? $3?

Any help here?

 

[zengrifter]

How much of a bankroll would someone need to make a serious month-long run in 1968? I hear of people doing it today with $10K. In '68, for a 24 year old kid, would $3000 be reasonable? $5000?

Yes, 3k would have been quite sufficient with big bets topping 150 and
the BR growing fast... except... for the cheating. zg

 

[jack.jackson]

And let's not forget about Roger Baldwin and William Cantey in 1955, who devoloped the first effective BS with hand-held calculaters. The one I believed Thorp actually used.