STREETWISE Blackjack

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

It is not as destructive as war or as boring as pornography.
It is not as immoral as business or as suicidal as watching
television. And the percentages are better than religion.
Mario Puzo (on gambling)

It is not as destructive as war or as boring as pornography.
It is not as immoral as business or as suicidal as watching
television. And the percentages are better than religion.
Mario Puzo (on gambling)

The gospel according to Thorp, Revere and Braun were recognized by Ian Andersen in his 1976 book "Turning the Tables On Las Vegas." In Chapter 3, "A Review of Blackjack Systems," Andersen wrote, "Count strategies took a quantum leap forward as a result of the work of Dr. Julian Braun of the IBM Corporation. Braun analyzed the value of each card and found a surplus of 9's, 10's and aces favored the player. A surplus of small-value cards favors the house. Dr. Braun developed several count strategies by assigning a plus or minus value to each card. His first simple point-count system is published in Thorp's version of Beat the Dealer. Dr. Braun then collaborated with Lawrence Revere, and some of his more sophisticated strategies are published in Revere's book Playing Blackjack As a Business.

"In essence, Braun's system works as follows. At the beginning of each deck the count is zero. As each card is exposed and removed from play, its assigned value is added or subtracted and a running total is kept. Most active blackjack players use some version of this plus-minus system." (Author's note: Dr. Thorp wrote me, "This idea had earlier roots. Claude Shannon and I discussed the high-low system in 1961 at M.I.T. I elected not to work it out on the computer, since the Ten Count was good enough then. And at the 1963 conference, above, Harvey Dubner presented the same idea, which he had thought up himself).

The apostles and minions lined up, devouring the various interpretations. Blackjack suddenly supplanted craps as the most popular game in the casinos and it wasn't long before a second generation of believers joined the first, with their elders perking up their ears as well. And the man who wrote the scales for the Pied Piper's pan flute: Julian Braun.

Concerning his own mathematical research in Stanford Wong's 1975 "Professional Blackjack," (his first book), the author bemusedly writes, "These tables are my own independent work. Any resemblance between them and the work of Julian Braun or anyone else is fortunate."

Lance Humble, Ph.D. published his first book, "Blackjack Gold" in 1976. The foreward was written by Edward Thorp, the introduction by Julian Braun. In it, Humble maps out the basis for his HI-OPT I count, first published two years prior by his International Gaming, Inc., viewed by many as taking Braun's work to the next level. The system was devised with Braun's assistance and approval, using his computer programs.

Probability is the very guide of life.
Cicero

Fifteen years after his first work with Thorp, Braun collaborated with Lance Humble and Carl Cooper in their 1980 tome, "The World's Greatest Blackjack Book." The family tree of Blackjack had mushroomed by then, casino supervisors no longer universally dismissing card counting as one small step above raw superstition and witchcraft. Prior to the publication of Beat the Dealer, the annual casino hold or net profit from Blackjack games was approximately 18 percent. By 1980, that number had fallen to about 14.5 percent. Currently it hovers close to 12 percent. One might hazard a guess Braun's work had a wee bit to do with this change.

"Thank you, I would like a banana,"
is the most you should tell your opponent.
Phil Simborg

In the foreward to Humble and Cooper's book, Braun wrote " During the past eighteen years, as a direct consequence of the work of Dr. Edward Thorp, myself, and others, numerous methods of winning at Blackjack by means of count systems have developed. For the serious player who will take the trouble to properly learn and use one of the better systems, the player can and should win over a period of time. Yet, many such players have failed to come anywhere near the mathematically-proven reasonable expectations. There is more to playing the game than just knowing what is the mathematically correct play‹much more."

[Vegas] looks like somebody took one of
Liberace's jackets and made a city out of it.
Lance Humble and Carl Cooper

Somewhere along the line, casino counter-measures had become an increasingly important concern. The already complex world of Blackjack had become even more dauntingly complicated. Humble reiterates his use of the HI-OPT I card counting strategy but by the time Humble's second book was published, he was hard at work perfecting an upgrade, the HI-OPT II, using computer programs developed by Braun, once again collaborating with him on the project.

Braun's 1977 pamphlet for Humble's International Gaming, Inc. entitled Braun On Blackjack, was enlarged and mass distributed by Data House Publishing of Chicago in 1980 as How To Play Winning Blackjack. At last, almost two decades after his first research and initial inclusion into Thorp's Beat the Dealer, the founding father of contemporary Optimal Basic Strategy was given the power of his own pen. Or was he?

In his foreward, Braun wrote, "I have reasons for writing this book. First and foremost, is that some of the ideas and observations contained may be of benefit to the hundreds of thousands of Blackjack players who have been or will become as devoted or intrigued with the game as I am.

"Secondly, since my name and work in the field have been quoted in over a dozen books and countless articles, this is an attempt to correct, clarify, and at the very least, to amplify my findings so as to clear up any misunderstandings.

"The reader should be forewarned that I am neither a raconteur or even an ex-pit boss (heaven forbid). Accordingly, and unlike some other books on the subject, you will find none of the pithy, and sometimes very enjoyable Œinsider' stories about the colorful cast of characters who exist on the fringe of both sides of the table.

"Rather, I shall attempt as logically as possible to trace for you my work over the past 18 years."

The 170-page book which follows presents a wonderfully laid out display of Braun's technique, his advice on how to play the game, Optimal Basic Strategy explained and detailed in easy-to-read color-coded charts and commonsense explanations. Like the author, the book is a no-nonsense, straight ahead approach to winning, just as the title suggests.

As Siamese twins of the field, Edward Thorp wrote the sole jacket blurb: "Julian Braun has transformed my original Blackjack computer program into the world's most powerful and accurate tool for the calculation of winning Blackjack strategies. Using this program, Braun details a winning point count method. There is no other Blackjack counting system which is both simpler and more powerful."

Unfortunately for Braun, in his desire and haste to get his own book to the public, he made concessions he lived to regret. It appears he never saw much in the way of compensation for his original research -- and entire portions of his book were not his own. In a 1981 interview given to blackjack author ("Blackjack Formula," "Blackbelt in Blackjack," "Blackjack Wisdom") and publisher Arnold Snyder by Braun for Snyder's quarterly Blackjack Forum's second issue, Snyder asked, "You wrote me that the ŒMoney Management' chapter in your book, which advises the player to watch for Œhot streaks' and use betting progressions had been written by Harry Fund, your publisher. Were you aware, prior to its being published, of the contents of that chapter, and have you spoken to him personally about your feelings about it being included under your name?

Braun: Yes, but he wanted to get his two cents in and he was the publisher.
Snyder: In that chapter, he writes as if he were you.

Braun: I know. He was writing under my name because he's using my name to sell the book. He wrote a lot of the other stuff, too. I don't claim to be a book writer, per se. He wrote all the colorful stuff and the background and I wrote all the technical stuff for the book. The only thing I got in on the Money Management chapter was the footnote at the end.

Snyder: That footnote seemed to be the only intelligent part of the chapter.

Braun: I wrote the footnote because I was trying to play down what he'd written in the rest of the chapter. The thing is, there are a lot of people who like to play that way.

Regrettably, it appears when Fund's short-printed supply of books ran out, the publisher refused to relinquish control of the rights and return them to Braun, thus preventing him from issuing a revised edition or any other.

(Part IV, the conclusion, will appear next week)