There are always a certain amount of old schoolers at my public events, shocked that what they learned was not all what it was cracked up to be.
So I ask everyone who’s been inculcated with the faulty old school approaches of basic strategy and card counting:
Just how carefully have you read the old school books?
Everything goes back to Edward Thorp’s Beat The Dealer in 1962. That was the book that laid down the law on old school thinking. I think it’s fair to say that every old school book that followed his was a repetition of what he had to say, with minor variations.
And, in fact, the short-lived TV show, Breaking Vegas, said as much – that Thorp was the man as far as they were concerned. And Thorp continues to do publicity, most notably an NPR interview this year in which he was called a “genius.”
So let’s look at a few quotes from his book to see how he himself assessed the old school methods. Keep in mind that, in 1962, blackjack was a single deck game only. And the cards were dealt to the bottom at most casinos.
With that in mind, on page 18, here’s his assessment of basic strategy:
The “adverse rules,” which result in a disadvantage (by his own calculations) of nearly 1 percent, include the dealer’s shuffling before all the cards are dealt. Yet that’s precisely how the game is played today. So by his own admission, basic strategy is a losing system.
He also talks how with his “Tens” card counting system produced terrible downswings (and he relied upon “lucky streaks” to win.):
He talked on several different pages of at least three different occasions on which he lost about $2,000. That’s equivalent to more than $14,000 today.
Fortunately, for Thorp, he didn’t have to use a penny of his own funds. A shady millionaire (Manny Kimmel, not identified in the book) funded his 30-hour blackjack experiment. So he could survive the large downswings he admitted to. The average player cannot.
Yet no one seems to recall this deficit in the old school approach. They don’t read the books carefully enough.
A later book, The World’s Greatest Blackjack Book, also based upon IBM computer simulations done by Julian Braun, on page 193, admitted that basic strategy would result in your “almost breaking even in the long run.” News flash: that describes a losing system.
And it admitted that Julian Braun had not tested for betting variations nor would their methods do well at tables with “three or more players.”
Hello? And these researchers thought they’d come up with a “perfect” and “correct” strategy? Really?
Do you?
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Richard Harvey is a world-renowned blackjack researcher and innovator, expert player, blackjack coach and professor, columnist and bestselling author of Blackjack The SMART Way (the NEW Gold Edition), Cutting Edge Blackjack (the NEW Third Edition), NEW Ways To Win MORE at Blackjack and the audio book Richard Harvey’s Blackjack PowerPrep Session. Have blackjack questions? Send them to rharvey2121@netscape.net. For more info see http://www.blackjacktoday.com.
