Blackjack, The first written reference to this game is contained in the work of Miguel de Cervantes’ picaresque, Rinconetey Cortadillo. It features two swindlers who barely survive in Sevilla playing blackjack. The text describes the goal of the game is to score twenty-one points without going over, and that the ace is worth one or eleven points. Since this story was written between 1601 and 1602, it follows that Castille played in blackjack since the early seventeenth century or earlier. Already in the twentieth century in American casinos, the game acquired its present form which includes special awards (casinos in Tucson AZ).
Blackjack is a game of chance alone. In the U.S. the game has been thoroughly studied. The pioneer was back in the 60 Edward O. Thorp, a mathematician at IBM employee computer simulated millions of hands played, concluding that each particular hand has a unique way to play properly. To all of them unique ways to play is called basic strategy, and its rigorous implementation would cut the casino advantage to the player. Without this basic strategy, the game itself has a mathematical edge of about 5% but the correct use of this advantage is reduced to 0.5%.
Thorp also came to the conclusion that the high cards favor the player because they are the basis for a good move to turn, or make a blackjack pays 3 to 2, while the small cards favor the dealer, and that allow you to good hands involved (12, 13, 14, 15 or 16). This resulted in the so-called card counting technique that involves keeping track of cards played, to determine if among them there are to play more of high or low cards, and bet accordingly. Card counters have been mythical, which received great fortunes with this technique in the casinos. Ken Uston was considered by many experts, the best counter history.
