Blackjack Idols
New Generation of the Blackjack Hall of Fame's Members

Every year the Blackjack Hall of Fame honors one new Hall of Fame member who made some significant inputs to the blackjack improvement and development: since 2003, when the top 7 initial members were chosen, the right to choose next ones had been put on members’ shoulders.

The years of 2004 and 2005 have brought us 2 new members of the Blackjack Hall of Fame each, and after that the members agreed to choose one new member every year; the year of 2008 was an exception when four members were chosen as ‘a group’.

Today, the family of the Blackjack Hall of Fame grows each year and, since 2003, the number of Hall of Fame members had been increased up to 15 instead of 7 initial ones. So, who are they?

2004 – Max Rubin and Keith Taft

Keith Taft is known as an inventor of special computer devices which helped him to count cards and win money: he named his computers by human names George (the first version) and David and successfully used them till the year of 1985 when Nevada outlawed all counting machines and different shoe cameras. Now, Taft’s devices can be observed in the Barona Casino museum.

Max Rubin is a famous Vegas showman, a blackjack commentator and analyst who calls himself to be “The Undisputed Overweight Comp Champion of the World”. In 1994, he published his book Comp City which described the best ways to get comps from casinos, no matter how experienced and skilled you were. He was also a casino staff trainer who taught how to recognize real skilled players. Max Rubin hosts Blackjack Ball and he is very famous at different TV shows today.

2005 – Julian Braun and Lawrence Revere

Julian Braun is one of the first authors who used computer devices to analyze the game of blackjack and its statistics as he was a computer programmer. Thanks to computers, Braun was able to count blackjack probabilities; so, he worked on next editions of such popular blackjack books as Beat the Dealer of Edward O. Thorp, Playing Blackjack as a Business of Lawrence Revere etc. He also wrote his own book How to Play Winning Blackjack which described blackjack strategy.

Lawrence Revere is the man of many roles at blackjack’s world: the author, the blackjack teacher, the casino owner, the professional blackjack player…. He is famous for his book Playing Blackjack as a Business which was published in 1969.

2006 - James Grosjean

The personality of James Grosjean is famous for:

  • his book Beyond Counting: Exploiting Casino Games from Blackjack to Video Poker, published in 2000
  • his status of World’s Best Blackjack Player which he got in 2007 when won Blackjack Cup
  • his legal battles with casinos and Griffin Agency (the group which worked with casinos and helped them to make the list of banning players)

James Grosjean is the youngest member of the Blackjack Hall of Fame.

2007 – John Chang

John Chang was a manager of world-famous MIT team in 1990’s and became the prototype of some movie characters, for example the one of the film “21”.

In 2005 John amazed all professional blackjack players by his ability to count down 2 decks of cards for 33 seconds; this case had happened at Halloween Blackjack Ball where all famous people of the blackjack world were present.

2008 – The Four Horsemen (Roger Baldwin, Wilbert Cantey, Herbert Maisel, James MacDermott)

According to the rules, only one member could be honored to the Blackjack Hall of Fame per year, but 2008 was an exception when 4 people were chosen to become its members as a group. These four men published the first serious mathematical study on the topic of blackjack in 1956 which was called The Optimum Strategy in Blackjack where blackjack strategy was first described.

Their story started in 1953 when these four men were in the Army at Aberdeen, Maryland: they played blackjack there and discussed all its rules together: it made Roger Baldwin to think that blackjack strategy could be explained mathematically.

2009 - Richard Munchkin

The interviewer of top blackjack players, the good blackjack player by himself, Richard Munchkin made the lives of blackjack celebrities available to the public.

 

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