The history of the game blackjack is divided into
two stages: before 1958 - the time of myths and legends about the
extraordinarily gifted and successful singles, possessing secret knowledge, and
after 1958, when an enterprising American statistics (Kant, McDermott Myself and
Baldwin) published the first basic strategy Donny for playing blackjack. With
the help of an ordinary calculator four American statistics enthusiast literally
on the fingers proved that under certain conditions, blackjack can be profitable
for the player, and published an article in the Journal of the Statistical
Association.
World turned upside down, the article was noticed and appreciated not only by
statisticians, but also players who are on it massively copied and learned the
heart. In the wake of the immense popularity of the developers of the first
basic strategy blackjack released book "Winning Blackjack" (Winning Blackjack).
Now this rarity is an honorary decoration, no more book collections of many
professional players, but at the time caused approximately the same respect and
awe, as "Practical Magic" in the Middle Ages.
Four years later, in 1962, Edward O. Thorp called for assistance, and computer
technology brought not only a new basic strategy, but generally accounts
published maps. In his book "Beat the dealerĀ» (Beat The Dealer) he proves quite
obvious nowadays truth that blackjack differs from roulette and craps , as well
as other games of luck, so that the result of each hand in this game depends not
only from the will of the case, but also on those cards that came out in the
previous distribution and, consequently, remained. Despite the sound reasoning
and calculations now also book Thorpe lost relevance and is of historical
interest.
Thorpe strategy, which he called "a system with 10 indexes," was extremely
difficult to study, most of the players gave up trying to learn it and apply in
practice the half-way, if not sooner. But this book Thorpe also had a
considerable impact on the gaming world. Operators of gambling houses of Nevada,
familiarized with the conclusions of Thorpe introduced certain restrictions undo
blackjack games, the most popular at the time in all casino staff, for example:
double left only 11 . Media fanned this such a scandal that restrictions have
been lifted, but the book has already gained Thorpe worldwide fame and glory.
Fearing that the casino now for easy money will pour millions of card counters,
varying degrees of giftedness, casino operators everywhere introduced two
procedures: shuffle the deck after scoring mongomaps and games.