The Four Horsemen of the Aberdeen Proving Ground
Until the year 1956, blackjack strategy was based on nothing more than hunches and superstitions. 1956 was the year that the Four Horsemen — Roger Baldwin, William Cantey, Herbert Maisel, and James McDermott — published an 11-page article called "The Optimum Strategy in Blackjack." It was this article that ushered in the modern era of scientific blackjack strategies.
Playing Blackjack in the Army
It all started in 1953. The four horsemen were all in the United States Army, stationed at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Baldwin, who had a master's degree in mathematics from Columbia University and was a private in the army, was playing cards with some buddies in the barracks. Someone suggested playing blackjack, there was a discussion of the rules, and Baldwin learned for the first time that in casino blackjack, the dealer must hit up to 16 and stand on 17. The "news" that the dealer's play was governed by strict rules made Baldwin hypothesize that blackjack strategy could be analyzed mathematically.
Baldwin worked out a few formulas by hand, but soon realized that analyzing blackjack strategy was a bigger project than he had anticipated. He went to Cantey, a sergeant at the proving ground, and requested permission to use one of the army's calculators.
Cantey had, at one time, been interested in becoming a priest. However, as a result of his habitual hustling at cards and pool, he had been "encouraged" to leave the seminary. He then chose to pursue a career in mathematics and, like Baldwin, he held a master's degree. He eagerly joined in Baldwin's blackjack project, and enlisted McDermott, who held a master's from Columbia, and Maisel to join them.
The Four Horsemen of the Aberdeen Proving Ground spent all their free time over the next year and a half devising an optimal strategy for playing blackjack. Remember, they did not have access to computers in those days. Besides their formidable combined brain power, their only tool was their calculators, which were known then as "adding machines."
"The Optimum Strategy in Blackjack"
Finally, their results were published as an 11-page article called "The Optimum Strategy in Blackjack" in the September 1956 edition of the Journal of the American Statistical Association. The article notes at the outset that, of the four standard casino games (blackjack, craps, poker, and roulette), "blackjack is by far the most neglected in the scientific literature of gambling and offers a relatively unexplored area for mathematical and statistical analysis." It then sets out to rectify this gap in the literature by presenting a series of mathematical equations by which to determine the best move for the player in any situation based on the player's two cards and the dealer's up card. "The Optimum Strategy in Blackjack" was thus the first mathematically rigorous examination of blackjack strategy.
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"Playing Blackjack to Win"
In 1957, the Four Horsemen expanded their article into a 92-page book called "Playing Blackjack to Win: A New Strategy for the Game of 21." This book set forth a blackjack basic strategy that was amazingly accurate. Although it had minor imperfections that were subsequently corrected by Edward O. Thorp and other blackjack researchers who had access to modern computers, "Playing Blackjack to Win" got all the main elements of blackjack strategy right. It included such counter-intuitive, and at the time even shocking, recommendations as splitting a pair of 8s against the dealer's 9 or 10.
"Playing Blackjack to Win" did not receive a lot of attention from the general public. The popularization of blackjack strategy analysis would have to wait a few years for the publication of Professor Thorp's "Beat the Dealer," which did become a best seller. "Playing Blackjack to Win" sold few copies and went out of print. McDermott later reported that he received a total of $23 in royalties from the book.
Although it was not truly appreciated at the time, it is clear in hindsight that the publication of "Playing Blackjack to Win" was a major turning point in the history of blackjack. As Arnold Snyder, the leading blackjack writer and historian, and himself a member of the Blackjack Hall of Fame, wrote: Roger Baldwin, Wilbert Cantey, Herbert Maisel, and James McDermott "stand as giants in the field of blackjack strategies. They truly were the ones who started it all."
Election to the Blackjack Hall of Fame
After the publication of "Playing Blackjack to Win," the four horsemen lost interest in blackjack and went on to have successful careers in their chosen fields. Wilbert Cantey became a government researcher. Herbert Maisel became a professor of computer science at Georgetown University. James McDermott became an executive at IBM.
In 2008, a full half-century after the Four Horsemen changed the course of blackjack history, the blackjack world paid them the honor they deserved. Although the rules of the Blackjack Hall of Fame permit the induction of only one new member per year, it was proposed that the Four Horsemen be inducted as a group. Accordingly, all four were unanimously elected as members of the Blackjack Hall of Fame at the Blackjack Ball of January 2008. During the induction ceremony, Cantey said, "It was an honor, in so many ways, to be able to use mathematics to figure out the game of blackjack."
Fellow Blackjack Hall of Fame members were effusive in their praise of the Four Horsemen. Stanford Wong said, "These were really the first guys who ever figured out how to play blackjack the right way." And Al Francesco added, "Without these guys, none of us would even be here."
Fiftieth Anniversary Edition
In August 2008, Cardoza Publishing will publish a Fiftieth Anniversary edition of "Playing Blackjack to Win," with a foreword by Edward Thorp and an introduction by Arnold Snyder. In his foreword, Prof. Thorp, himself one of the great blackjack visionaries, writes: "To paraphrase Isaac Newton, if I have seen farther than others it is because I stood on the shoulders of four giants."
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