STREETWISE Blackjack

Not Fade Away: An Appreciation of Julian Braun (1929-2000), Part II

(Author's note: since the first installment appeared last week, I was contacted by Julian Braun's first cousin, Elaine, the executrix of his estate, who filled in some of the crucial gaps concerning Braun's personal information. I also spoke to Edward Thorp. We corresponded and he was kind enough to supply crucial comments and information contained in this series. I will be following this series with commentary by Dr. Thorp, author of "Beat the Dealer," on an earlier series of columns from last year on the origins of card counting.).

I don't believe in hunches.
Hunches are for dogs making love.
Amarillo Slim

Using as his foundation the work of four U.S. Army technicians, Roger Baldwin, Wilbert Cantey, Herbert Maisel and James McDermott, who published the first known explanation of a codified strategy as "The Optimum Strategy in Blackjack" in the Journal of the American Statistical Association, (Vol 51, pages 429-439) in 1956, Thorp discovered their calculations, performed on a Texas Instrument hand-held calculator, were generally acceptable. Their results were polished and made more precise by Thorp, who took their Basic Strategy calculations and refined them, making them more accurate leading to the basis for contemporary card counting.

As Thorp wrote in the introduction of the second edition of "Beat the Dealer," "The first substantially correct version of the basic strategy was discovered by Baldwin et al. and published in 'The Optimum Strategy in Blackjack.' There were slight inaccuracies both in this version and in the improved version published in the first edition of "Beat the Dealer." The correct version of the strategy for one deck and a certain set of casino rules appears in Chapter 3. It was calculated by Julian Braun."

As Thorp has related, what Braun did was to combine his skills as a computer programmer par excellence with the higher speed, more powerful computers of IBM to utilize more precise calculations to arrive at better numbers and strategies.

It took a Las Vegas cardsharp and hustler traveling under a variety of aliases, Griffith K. Owens, aka Leonard Parsons, aka Specs Parsons, aka Lawrence Revere, to refine Braun's calculations even further. In attempting to substantiate his own credibility and credentialize himself, Revere spent a lot of time refuting the work of others, particularly Thorp.

If there was no action around, he would play solitaire -- and bet against himself.
Groucho Marx

In the first chapter of "Playing Blackjack As a Business," Revere wrote, "But when Dr. Thorp is dealing directly with the scientific, or mathematical phrases of using strategies in the game of Blackjack, he should be trusted and respected implicitly. Where he has used the calculations of Julian Braun of IBM Corporation, his effective application of the theory of mathematical probabilities, as it applies to the game of Blackjack, is unquestionably correct."

The genie was out of the bottle and there was no way to stuff it back. Using Braun's calculations and his innate gambler's card sense, Revere laid out a series of easy to follow, color-coded charts and explanations, giving a player at any experiential level an exact way to play EVERY HAND to its finest mathematical advantage. Revere's book amounts to a living testimonial and homage to Braun's work, pedantically harping on strict adherence to Braun's math. If Thorp cleared the brush, and Revere trod the path, it was Braun who measured the steps.

In the last part of the twentieth century there will be many new applications of scientific and particularly mathematical methods to the prediction of phenomena heretofore called "chance." We have tried to indicate a few of the developments that are similar in spirit to those described in this book. But most of the possibilities are beyond reach of our present imagination and dreams. It will be exciting to see them unfold.
Dr. Edward Thorp
"Beat the Dealer" (Second Version)

The two volumes remain among the top five gambling books sold, Beat the Dealer has currently sold over 700,000 copies at the rate of 4000 per year) thanks in part to the work of Julian Braun. But much, much more than that, these books made believers out of millions, convincing a restless generation that Blackjack was indeed a beatable game. These books were embraced and became gospel truth among converts, of which I was one. We were literally assured if we worked hard and memorized the many charts and indices, we would be empowered! With this knowledge we could walk into any casino, and with patience, discipline, and intelligence (and always necessary bankroll), make some money. What Braun did was help remove empirical luck as the significant factor in Blackjack, replacing it with mathematically-proven formulas. Carrying these two books, millions worldwide joined the New Church of the Point-Count, Thorp as High Priest, Revere as Thumping Preacher, both backed by Braun's literate gospel.

Then, a third voice of reason was added to the choir. Alan Wilson was a highly educated scientist in the field of nuclear physics who received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. A college professor who left the ivory tower to join General Dynamics in San Diego, heading their Analog Computer Laboratory, Wilson shared a common bond with Braun, Thorp and Revere. Like the first two, he knew computers and shared the same passion for gambling as Revere.

These common concerns resulted in Wilson's marvelous 1965 book, "The Casino Gambler's Guide." A general overview of gambling, it maps it a path through the entire casino and world of gambling circa mid-20th-century America. Ranging from beautifully explained definitions of the Kelly Criterion money management scheme to bet-to-bank ratios and intelligent strategies for most casino games, Wilson's book (regretfully, long out-of-print) still remains a standard by which all other general casino works are measured.

Wilson waxed ecstatic about Braun's work: "Most recently, there has emerged a new giant on the scene, Julian Braun of the IBM Corporation... His work is undoubtedly the most valid of all because he has directly simulated the play of hands through the deck as actually conducted in the casinos.

"By virtue of his position as programming specialist at the IBM Data Center in Chicago, Braun had free access to the excellent 7044 computer. He not only ran through-the-deck simulations with both fixed and varying strategies, but also refined the Thorp calculations as to strategy alterations. He is the most meticulous person, with a burning passion to get the blackjack figures right!"

Although he has not formally published, Braun did speak on his work at the Fall Joint Computer Conference held (of all places) in Las Vegas in November 1963. The occasion was an evening panel discussion devoted to the use of computers to study games of chance and skill. Thorp presided as master of ceremonies, and this author was the lead-off speaker, surveying the history and current status of blackjack analysis. We drew an audience of several hundred, which was remarkable, considering that we were competing with dinner shows like the Lido de Paris." Thorp remarked that it was "an enjoyable meeting, I remember it well."

(Part III will appear next week)