Beginnings of blackjack strategy

Unlike other games in which the rules are usually specifically engineered in favour of the house, casinos didn’t know their actual mathematical percentage advantage for Blackjack even as late as 1930. In a time when every casino still had its own minor variations on the rules, information relating to the Blackjack statistics of this period is vague (and probably inaccurate).

In the early 1950’s, four U.S. soldiers, Roger Baldwin, Wilbert Cantery, Herbert Maisel and James McDermott suggested that there might exist a consistent and correct formula for playing Blackjack. Their famed article “The Optimum Strategy in Blackjack,” was published in September 1956 following years of painstaking research on mathematical principle carried out with simple desk calculators. The article was proof that the player who follows the same strategy as the dealer (consistently drawing to 16 or less, standing on 17 or more and never doubling down or splitting pairs) has an expectation of –0.056, giving the dealer a 5.6% advantage.

The four soldiers went on to prove that by consistently playing according to a basic though rigid formula, the advantage that the casino has over the player could be lowered to 0.32%. It was they who blazed a trail into the systematic study of Blackjack.

The study was furthered by MIT professor, Edward O. Thorpe, who used the research to devise and write a computer programme that could analyse the composition of the remaining deck as specific cards were removed during play. Thorpe discovered that after certain cards were removed and discarded the observant player enjoyed a significant advantage over the house. These findings were published in Thorpe’s famous 1962 edition of Beat the Dealer.

Due to the book’s success a second edition quickly followed in 1966. It offered a strategy in which any house advantage could be eliminated, providing the player with a 0.6% advantage. Used in conjunction with several of the card counting systems Thorpe also developed, the Blackjack player could now enjoy a significant advantage over the dealer. Blackjack had come of age and would never be the same again…