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Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse (blackjack)
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is the name given by gambling authors to the four U.S. Army engineers who first discovered in the 1950s the best playing strategy in the casino game of Blackjack that can be formulated on the basis of the player's and the dealer's cards. The so-called Basic Strategy, which was subsequently refined through the use of computers and combinatorial analysis, loses the least money to the casino in the long term. History In 1953, Roger Baldwin, a private in the U.S. Army with a master's degree in mathematics from Columbia University, stationed in Aberdeen Proving Ground, the U.S. Army's oldest active proving ground, was playing dealer's choice poker in the barracks. After a player acting as dealer selected Blackjack, someone remarked that the dealer, as they do in the Las Vegas casinos, would have to stand on 17 and hit on 16. Baldwin was intrigued by this news enough to embark on a project during his off-work hours to discover the optimal playing strat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Las Vegas Sun
The ''Las Vegas Sun'' is one of the Las Vegas Valley's two daily Subscription business model, subscription newspapers. It is owned by the Greenspun family and is affiliated with Greenspun Media Group. The paper published afternoons on weekdays from 1990 to 2005 and is now included as a section inside the pages of the morning ''Las Vegas Review-Journal'' but continues operating exclusively on its own website. Its publisher and president is Brian Greenspun, former publisher Hank Greenspun's son, who was a college roommate of President of the United States, President Bill Clinton. It has been described as "politically liberal." History The ''Las Vegas Sun'' was first published on May 21, 1950, by Hank Greenspun, who served as its editor until his death. Hank acquired the ''Las Vegas Free Press'' and two weeks later renamed it to the ''Las Vegas Sun''. He started the ''Las Vegas Sun'' after he received a US$1,000-loan from businessman Nate Mack. From its founding the paper was pu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mechanical Calculator
A mechanical calculator, or calculating machine, is a mechanical device used to perform the basic operations of arithmetic automatically, or (historically) a simulation such as an analog computer or a slide rule. Most mechanical calculators were comparable in size to small desktop computers and have been rendered obsolete by the advent of the electronic calculator and the digital computer. Surviving notes from Wilhelm Schickard in 1623 reveal that he designed and had built the earliest of the modern attempts at mechanizing calculation. His machine was composed of two sets of technologies: first an abacus made of Napier's bones, to simplify multiplications and divisions first described six years earlier in 1617, and for the mechanical part, it had a dialed pedometer to perform additions and subtractions. A study of the surviving notes shows a machine that would have jammed after a few entries on the same dial, and that it could be damaged if a carry had to be propagated over a f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Claude Shannon
Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American people, American mathematician, electrical engineering, electrical engineer, and cryptography, cryptographer known as a "father of information theory". As a 21-year-old master's degree student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he wrote A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits, his thesis demonstrating that electrical applications of Boolean algebra could construct any logical numerical relationship. Shannon contributed to the field of cryptanalysis for national defense of the United States during World War II, including his fundamental work on codebreaking and secure telecommunications. Biography Childhood The Shannon family lived in Gaylord, Michigan, and Claude was born in a hospital in nearby Petoskey, Michigan, Petoskey. His father, Claude Sr. (1862–1934), was a businessman and for a while, a judge of probate in Gaylord. His mother, Mabel Wolf Shannon (1890–1945), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Card Counting
Card counting is a blackjack strategy used to determine whether the player or the dealer has an advantage on the next hand. Card counters are advantage players who try to overcome the casino house edge by keeping a running count of high and low valued cards dealt. They generally bet more when they have an advantage and less when the dealer has an advantage. They also change playing decisions based on the composition of the deck. Basics Card counting is based on statistical evidence that high cards (aces, 10s, and 9s) benefit the player, while low cards, (2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s, and 7s) benefit the dealer. High cards benefit the player in the following ways: # They increase the player's probability of hitting a natural, which often pays out at 3 to 2 odds. # Doubling down increases expected value. The elevated ratio of tens and aces improves the probability that doubling down will succeed.Thorp (1966), pp. 24–27, pp. 41–47, pp. 98–99, pp. 102–103, p. 110, p. 115. # They pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward O
Edward is an English given name A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group (typically a fa .... It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and ''wikt:weard#Old English, weard'' "guardian, protector”. History The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Saxon England, but the rule of the House of Normandy, Norman and House of Plantagenet, Plantagenet dynasties had effectively ended its use amongst the upper classes. The popularity of the name was revived when Henry III of England, Henry III named his firstborn son, the future Edward I of England, Edward I, as part of his efforts to promote a cult around Edward the Confessor, for whom Henry had a deep admiration. Variant forms The name has been adopted in the Iberian P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Baltimore Sun
''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tribune Publishing. The ''Baltimore Sun's'' parent company, '' Tribune Publishing'', was acquired by Alden Global Capital, which operates its media properties through Digital First Media, in May 2021. History ''The Sun'' was founded on May 17, 1837, by printer/editor/publisher/owner Arunah Shepherdson Abell (often listed as "A. S. Abell") and two associates, William Moseley Swain, and Azariah H. Simmons, recently from Philadelphia, where they had started and published the '' Public Ledger'' the year before. Abell was born in Rhode Island, became a journalist with the ''Providence Patriot'' and later worked with newspapers in New York City and Boston.Van Doren, Charles and Robert McKendry, ed., ''Webster's American Biographies''. (Springfiel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Expected Value
In probability theory, the expected value (also called expectation, expectancy, mathematical expectation, mean, average, or first moment) is a generalization of the weighted average. Informally, the expected value is the arithmetic mean of a large number of independently selected outcomes of a random variable. The expected value of a random variable with a finite number of outcomes is a weighted average of all possible outcomes. In the case of a continuum of possible outcomes, the expectation is defined by integration. In the axiomatic foundation for probability provided by measure theory, the expectation is given by Lebesgue integration. The expected value of a random variable is often denoted by , , or , with also often stylized as or \mathbb. History The idea of the expected value originated in the middle of the 17th century from the study of the so-called problem of points, which seeks to divide the stakes ''in a fair way'' between two players, who have to end th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blackjack Forum
''Blackjack Forum'' was a trade journal for professional blackjack players, founded in 1981 and published by Arnold Snyder. Originally a 100-page quarterly journal, it expanded into an online forum which is frequented by professional gamblers, attorneys, industry people, mathematicians ,and other aficionados. Along with Stanford Wong's ''Current Blackjack News'', it was considered one of the major newsletters for the blackjack market. Frequent authors included Nick Alexander, Peter A. Griffin, James Grosjean, Tommy Hyland, and Snyder. Topics involved card counting, betting systems, software, cheating, comps, casino conditions, author and player interviews, and other gambling-related topics such as horse-racing and poker Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w .... In 1999, ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arnold Snyder
Arnold Snyder is a professional gambler and gambling author. He was elected by professional blackjack players as one of the seven original inductees into the Blackjack Hall of Fame which is hosted at Barona Casino for his record as a blackjack player and his innovations in professional gambling techniques. He was the first blackjack authority to publish the importance of deck penetration (depth of the deal) in card counting, in his 1980 book ''The Blackjack Formula''. He was also the first blackjack researcher to publish (in ''Blackjack Forum'', 1981–1983) that radical simplification of blackjack card counting systems did not hurt earnings. Since 1981, Arnold Snyder has been the editor of ''Blackjack Forum'', a quarterly trade journal for professional gamblers. In 2004 Snyder moved the publication of ''Blackjack Forum'' from print to online due to time constraints imposed by playing more frequently and the frustration with dealing with the business side of the publication industr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Expected Value
In probability theory, the expected value (also called expectation, expectancy, mathematical expectation, mean, average, or first moment) is a generalization of the weighted average. Informally, the expected value is the arithmetic mean of a large number of independently selected outcomes of a random variable. The expected value of a random variable with a finite number of outcomes is a weighted average of all possible outcomes. In the case of a continuum of possible outcomes, the expectation is defined by integration. In the axiomatic foundation for probability provided by measure theory, the expectation is given by Lebesgue integration. The expected value of a random variable is often denoted by , , or , with also often stylized as or \mathbb. History The idea of the expected value originated in the middle of the 17th century from the study of the so-called problem of points, which seeks to divide the stakes ''in a fair way'' between two players, who have to end th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Card-counting
Card counting is a blackjack strategy used to determine whether the player or the dealer has an advantage on the next hand. Card counters are advantage players who try to overcome the casino house edge by keeping a running count of high and low valued cards dealt. They generally bet more when they have an advantage and less when the dealer has an advantage. They also change playing decisions based on the composition of the deck. Basics Card counting is based on statistical evidence that high cards (aces, 10s, and 9s) benefit the player, while low cards, (2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s, and 7s) benefit the dealer. High cards benefit the player in the following ways: # They increase the player's probability of hitting a natural, which often pays out at 3 to 2 odds. # Doubling down increases expected value. The elevated ratio of tens and aces improves the probability that doubling down will succeed.Thorp (1966), pp. 24–27, pp. 41–47, pp. 98–99, pp. 102–103, p. 110, p. 115. # They pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Van Doren
Charles Lincoln Van Doren (February 12, 1926 – April 9, 2019) was an American writer and editor who was involved in a television quiz show scandal in the 1950s. In 1959 he testified before the U.S. Congress that he had been given the correct answers by the producers of the NBC quiz show '' Twenty-One''. Terminated by NBC, he joined Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. in 1959, becoming a vice-president and writing and editing many books before retiring in 1982. Background Charles Van Doren was born in New York City, the elder son of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, critic and teacher Mark Van Doren and novelist Dorothy Van Doren (née Graffe), and a nephew of critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Carl Van Doren. He graduated from the High School of Music & Art in New York, and earned a B.A. degree in Liberal Arts (1946) from St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, as well as an M.A. in astrophysics (1949) and a Ph.D. in English (1955), both at Columbia University. He wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
