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Julian Braun Really Knew Blackjack
While many Blackjack Hall of Famers were great players and others were famous authors, Julian Braun's claim to fame was being the man behind the blackjack scenes. Everyone's heard of Edward O. Thorp's book, "Beat the Dealer"; Thorp, after all, was an inaugural member of the Blackjack Hall of Fame and the man credited for introducing card counting to the blackjack public. But what many people don't know is that Julian Braun was the brains behind the book and the techniques. He himself published only one book - "How to Play Winning Blackjack" - but almost all the systems used by successful players for many years were developed originally by Julian Braun. For this accomplishment he was granted posthumous entry to the Blackjack Hall of Fame in 2005 (he died five years earlier, at the age of 71).
Julian Braun was a Genius with a Love for Blackjack
Julian H. Braun was born on September 25, 1929, in Chicago. He held advanced degrees in math and physics and worked for IBM almost all his life. After his retirement in 1987, he worked as a day trader in the stock market. Julian Braun was a computer genius who knew how to apply his knowledge to blackjack. When Edward Thorp came out with the High-Low system for counting cards (in the second edition of "Beat the Dealer"), it was Braun who computed and programmed. Thorp gave credit - in writing - to Braun for refining and improving his original calculations and strategies. Julian Braun reworked the original computer program written by Thorp and ran it through millions of simulations, based on which the blackjack basic strategy became known, as published in the second edition of "Beat the Dealer."
Braun Made a Huge Contribution to Blackjack
In 1975, Braun published a paper, which was notice by Lance Humble (a pseudonym used by a card-playing college professor and author). Many of Braun's ideas and reports are published in Humble's book, "Blackjack Super Gold." Julian Braun is credited for developing the "Hi-Opt" card-counting system along with Humble, a system considered simpler for the blackjack beginner than previous systems. Julian Braun also contributed to Lawrence Revere's "Playing Blackjack as a Business," another blackjack classic. Braun died in 2000 and was inducted into the Blackjack Hall of Fame five years later, an honor that many felt was long overdue.
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