The Legacy of Professional Blackjack Player Julian Brown

Generally, if people are not active in what they do, they will not be able to have that much accomplishment. Same goes for professional gamblers. If professional gamblers are not active in their profession, it will be difficult for them to achieve or accomplish something. Furthermore, they will not have that much impact on the gambling industry as they do not get to contribute a lot in the industry. Such analysis is of course logical. Nevertheless, it is different with the case of the late Julian Braun.

Julian Braun was a professional blackjack player. He may not have played as actively as other professional blackjack players, but he was able to contribute a lot as far as the game of blackjack is concerned. His most noteworthy accomplishment was being a big part of the creation of the book "Beat the Dealer," by professional blackjack player Edward Thorp. He helped and supported Thorp in making such blackjack book possible.

"Beat the Dealer" is a book that discussed the basic strategy of playing blackjack. The original basic technique in playing blackjack was developed by professional blackjack players James McDermott, Herbert Maisel, Wilbert Cantey, and Roger Baldwin, published in their paper titled "The Optimum Strategy in Blackjack" in 1956. However, the technique developed by these four professional blackjack players were improved by Julian Braun, and was eventually incorporated in the book "Beat the Dealer."

Although Thorp admits that the strategy discussed in his book still needs refinement, he is nevertheless grateful for the efforts exerted by Julian Braun to modify his own techniques and calculations in playing blackjack. Thorp says that the interpretation by Julian Braun of the basic blackjack strategies is more correct. Julian Braun also took the time to study the FORTRAN program discussed by Thorp in his book. This professional blackjack player took the time to conduct numerous simulations to perfect the basic blackjack technique.

Born in Chicago, Illinois on September 25, 1929, this professional blackjack player obtained degrees in both physics and mathematics. He was employed at International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) for a long time. As a matter of fact, his employment at IBM was of big help in studying the basic blackjack strategy discussed in the book "Beat the Dealer." He retired from IBM in 1987 but still worked by trading in the commodity and stock market.

This professional blackjack player also teamed up with blackjack professional Lance Humble to develop the blackjack card counting systems called HI-OPT I and II in the 1970s.

Indeed, this professional blackjack player had numerous contributions to the industry before he died on September 4, 2000 due to Parkinson's disease.