Rumors about Basic Strategy being incorrect

Hey, I heard something about the program that Braun used to form Basic Strategy having a flaw in it? Has anyone else heard about this & how true is it? Thanks for the feedback.

Frank's post should be taken with a grain of salt...or perhaps a salt shaker!

Does NASA know about this guy?

Posted By: Frank Stanton <stantona@swbell.net> on 13 May 02, 8:45 p.m.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA BUT YOU MATH Guys have "proved" that a flawed basic strategy is "mathematicaly correct." It is the only common denominator. (one of about 7 clues)

Posted By: Frank Stanton <stantona@swbell.net> on 13 May 02, 9:09 p.m.
Oh Knower of all things-
Put both ideas together and you can rebuild So. Las Vegas BLVD.
three times or twice ! AH EEEEEEEEEEEEEE

(I think the last "ah eeeeeeeeee" comment is where the shock treatment is taking effect, or it might be another 'clue' to the flaw.)

Why not ? I'll bet Howard is having a tough time winning with a
system that requires the dumb luck to overcome 3 seperate mistakes.

Howard, if you have doubts about your game find out why.

THE DEVELOPMENT AND ANALYSIS OF WINNING STRATEGIES FOR THE CASINO
GAME OF BLACKJACK by Julian H.Braun, M.Sc.

WOW what a tittle. Read it ! When you are through tell me what he
developed or analysed. ZERO. I have read both versions of
beat the dealer more than once. His bs was available as early as 1941. The full time gamblers would not challange the PHDs for
stealing their work; and the PHDs knew it. So the PHDs filled their pockets and at the same time gave the casinos an excuse for throwing out winners. The full time gamblers were motivated by GREED, like us.
The one deck game & the flaw are reasonably beatable. Each extra deck has the same effect as adding 4 extra numbers to the Texas lotto.
Thorp & Braun amplified the full time gamblers greed with the computers. The casinos really loused up the game to maintain an
obcene edge. But who would DARE to challange the PHDs & the computers ? John Patrick- and I would find the flaw that validates
his play.

Hey, I heard something about the program that Braun used to form Basic Strategy having a flaw in it? Has anyone else heard about this & how true is it? Thanks for the feedback.

Julian Braun is one of dozens or perhaps hundreds of people who have independently worked out basic strategy for blackjack. Some of those people have PhDs in mathematics or related fields. They have each used their own methodologies, some of which are radically different from others. For example, some have used direct calculation while others have used simulation. All those people agree with each other on basic strategy except for a small number of decisions that are so close as to be essentially tossups. All agree, that is, except for Frank Stanton. He came up with a different version of basic strategy for blackjack.

Either Mr. Stanton has a flaw in his analysis, or Julian Braun and all others made mistakes that give identical but wrong results. Simulation could show who is right and who is wrong, but we don't need simulations to know that.

Stanford Wong

1. The first math guy coppies a gamblers work and all others join
the party. 2. The simulator or computer can not discover the flaw,
because it is not programed to do so. In order to do that, the
programer would have to have knowledge of the flaw. A wrong idea or
even a bias can make a computers out put worthless. John Patrick has
made a living fo he last 45 or more years gambling-on common sense
and experience. The math bunch says he is wrong-should he give it
back ? There are 7 things that all pointed at the "BS"; two more
since I found it that I failed to write down. I hope I can recall them. I must admit that it took 15 years for it to find me, after
I suspected it was there.

In 1987 in Tasmania, Australia, as a 17 year old, I calculated basic strategy.

I (misguidedly) believed I was the first person to ever do this. I did not know there were books on BlackJack, I did not know there was a whole body of literature on the subject. I was a complete island with no outside influence.

Guess what? The basic strategy I calculated was precisely the same as eveybody elses. That's because there only is one basic strategy for a given number of decks and set of rules, and that's the basic strategy. When I did discover the body of literature several years later I was pleasantly surprised that it confirmed my calculations.

No matter how many ways you look at it, the long run expectation of hitting 12 vs 3 in a multiple deck game will always be -25% and the long run expectation of standing it will be -29%. Just as 3 times 7 will always equal 21.

Oh yes, but I guess I just failed to identify "The Flaw" (capital T capital F) same as just about everybody else in the world except John Patrick!!!

If Patrick has indeed won millions of dollars at the casino, I can damn well assure you it wasn't by playing BJ with his "conservative" basic strategy. But Patrick does state that BJ is "the hardest game to win at". It sure as hell would be for him by hitting those Aces against a 9!

If Patrick has won millions (which I doubt), I'm guessing it would have been using "old time" strategies such as collusion. Maybe he got really lucky, I mean, with all the millions playing someone has to be 7 standard deviations out there on the far right of the bell curve. Just look at Archie Carras (apologies if the spelling is incorrect).

I can tell you one thing, I have won millions at BJ, and it was straight up and down the line - basic strategy, hilo running count, boring old true count conversion and learning my numbers. A little ST thrown in for good measure in the later years. I think one the real skills of BJ is being able to stick to the straightforward simple approach, and not start to imagine monsters in your mind and head off on little flights-of-fancy tangents (like BS must be wrong!).

Just my contribution on the subject.

AWS

building a basic strategy ? Childs play ? I will bet it was greed.
With that bias it is extremely easy to make the same error that all
others made. No one said JP made millions. He has made a living
gambling for near 50 years. FEW can say that. (no day job)

Andy - what was your reason for building a (sic - should read "the" not "a") basic strategy? Childs play? I will bet it was greed.

Well, there's another bet you've lost. I was always interested in numbers at school at it seemed like a really interesting intellectual exercise, which it was. To further illustrate that point, I have completely analysed baccarat and proved the precise house edge on the three bets available simply as an intellectual exercise, even though I well knew the game was not beatable.

With that bias it is extremely easy to make the same error that all others made.

As stated above, I did not have that bias. Greed was far from my mind.

No one said JP made millions.

I felt you implied it with your post entitled "Wildcard are you winning millions?". If that was not your implication, I retract the statement unreservedly.

He has made a living gambling for near 50 years. FEW can say that. (no day job).

Well, I certainly can say it for all my adult life so far (since my early 20s). I know several others who are in the same boat.

When you say "made a living gambling ... (no day job)" I wonder if you mean purely from placing chips on green beize, or are we to include income from instruction/web site, etc?

Anyway, enough said on the subject, I don't care to debate the subject any further, it's quite boring really.

AWS

PS. Just a suggestion, take it for what you will. I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to use contractions of names (eg Andy, Frankie) unless I knew the person well and had their explicit or implicit consent to do so.

but I abv. any thing I can. Your post adds to the realization of just how insidious this flaw really is. It is really as sneakey as the
effect of humidity on density altitude, perhaps more so.

Anyone who uses John Patrick as a source for their argument immediately discredits everything that they have to say. You're going to have to come up with better sources to discredit basic strategy.

I have posted what might be the simplest BJ strategy generator program ever written at the address below. Where's the flaw?

A simulation isn't programmed to look for the flaw or to suffer from the flaw. The computer just plays hands of blackjack, millions and millions of hands of blackjack, and figures out what works best. By definition, basic strategy is what works best. If it were flawed, something else would work better, and the computer would have found it, because the computer tries everything.

To call you ignorant would be an insult to ignorant people.

taught me one thing about computers- do not tust them ! The people
who load them make mistakes- then the computer can make more faster.
Harold D. Stewart, Maj USAF, was one crafty SOB.

It was fairly common knowledge at the time that the world was round believe it or not). But he was "incorrect" in how BIG it was.

btw, after his discovery, he DID go nuts sailing off around South America somewhere. Crazy as a betsy bug.

Everyone knew the world was round in 1492. The Phoenicians were the first to figure it out centuries before, simply by noticing that the Earth cast a round shadow on the moon.

One thing about Columbus that IS accurate is that he PUBLICIZED HIS FINDINGS. How about you, Frankie?

The world according to Frank Stanton...

The Guy I was flying with in 59 taught me one thing about computers- do not tust them ! The people who load them make mistakes- then the computer can make more faster. Harold D. Stewart, Maj USAF, was one crafty SOB.

The World according to Retro...

The Guy I was drinking with in 99 taught me one thing about liars- do not trust them. The people who are snowed by them make mistakes- then the liars con them faster. Frank Stanton Maj NUT was one daffy SOB.