Blackjack, Global Warming and The Ice Age
Blackjack
Jul 15, 2001, 14:52
By M. Wilson Staff
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Blackjack and the methods various experts tout as “Basic Strategy” for the game become confusing, because usually they talk as if there were only one, and it’s called Basic Strategy. The expert will have something on a chart of all the possible combinations you and the dealer could have, and the chart tells you what to do in each instance. But the charts vary. Why? Why does an expert say he’s teaching Basic Strategy and then in the same breath says he doesn’t agree with all those computer experts who say to split all aces and eights. “Basic Strategy” is generally the term for the methods discovered by Edward Thorp who ran tens of thousands of simulated blackjack hands through his computer’s simulations programs and was able to find which moves led to the greatest probability of wins. He found that by playing exactly according to a certain strategy the blackjack player could virtually eliminate the casino house edge and the edge would actually be held by the player. However, the player also had to conform to a strategy of betting at the same time. He would lose as well as win as he played, but over a period of time, Thorp found, his wins would definitely be greater than his losses, and could be considerably greater.
I think it’s something like the different processes that change the climate on Earth. Is the temperature getting warmer, or is it getting colder? Well, and let’s say for the purposes of illustration that you too believe that global warming is occurring, and you also believe it when scientists tell you that we’re entering an ice age. Which way is the temperature going to go, up or down?
Both processes are active at present. At times they even probably are battling each other. Well, we can see at present that global warming seems to be having an effect right now -- the summers are hottest on record, and the winters milder with each passing year. But if you’re willing to wait a vast period of time, say about 10,000 years, the ice age will have cometh, because other things like the magnetic poles of the planet are shifting and bringing this glacial period on. But if we humans outlive that ice age, if we are still playing the game, so to speak, and living in a manner like we are now, producing the gases that are playing havoc with the ozone layer, well -- global warming may be the process that has the final and more lasting effect past that ice age. It really depends on the period of time you want to look at, doesn’t it, to see which one wins out?
Thorp’s Basic Strategy is based on mathematics and a great many computer-played hands. It is true. Experts who urge players to go against it (and do things like don’t split 8s when the dealer has high cards) are refusing to see the big picture, in which the numbers will add up and prove the Basic Strategy rules. They are really pandering to the less patient player who doesn’t want to sit and play long enough, or thinks something is wrong because he’s losing numerous hands. The more hands you play, the truer the picture of the probabilities you’ll get. Some processes take more time to be visible.
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