 |
Blackjack Hall of Fame - Stanford Wong |
Stanford Wong is the pseudonym of the world-famous gambling author and former professional gambler. He is best known for his book "Professional Blackjack," which was first published in 1975 and is still in print. Wong's computer program "Blackjack Analyzer," initially created for personal use, was one of the first commercially available blackjack odds analyzer software programs.
Stanford Wong is the pseudonym of the world-famous gambling author and former professional gambler. He is best known for his book "Professional Blackjack," which was first published in 1975 and is still in print. Wong's computer program "Blackjack Analyzer," initially created for personal use, was one of the first commercially available blackjack odds analyzer software programs.
 |
|
While his friends were drawing lines and marking their x's and o's, he was figuring out the optimal strategy. He figured out where to mark his X if he played first. If he played second, he would figure out where to mark his "O" as a function of where his opponent placed an X. It's said that he never lost a game of tic tac toe.
Wong began making a living playing blackjack in 1976 while teaching finance courses at San Francisco State University and getting his Ph.D in Finance from Stanford U. in California. Not content with the teaching life, Wong agreed to be paid a salary of $1 for his last term of teaching at the school in order to not attend faculty meetings and to pursue his gambling career.
Wong also authored the controversial book, "Wong on Dice," which supposedly shows how the game of Craps can be beaten through "controlled dice throwing."
Wong maintains a blackjack website which provides, among other information, the newsletter "Current Blackjack News", with information about rules and conditions of blackjack games in casinos in the United States and some other countries. He has reviewed or acted as a consultant for some of the world's leading blackjack writers. Wong no longer plays blackjack professionally.
| As mentioned, the name "Stanford Wong" is a pseudonym. His first choice for a pen name was "Nevada Smith," but that name had been taken. "Stanford Wong" was selected by a friend in the PhD program by taking his alma mater as his first name and an Asian last name to provide the "mystique of the Orient". Wong lives in La Jolla, CA. He has appeared on TV many times as a blackjack tournament contestant or as a gambling expert. He is also one of only twelve members of the Blackjack Hall of Fame.
Wong himself admits that games and puzzles have always fascinated him. He enjoys figuring out solutions to complex |
|
problems, and enjoys writing out those solutions. When he was about six years old, he learned the rules for tic tac toe.
When Wong was about twelve he started unlocking the secrets of blackjack. He used an office calculator (personal computers did not exist then) to work out the expectations - he removed the dealer's up card and two player cards, and figured out what the player's expectation was for standing, hitting, or doubling down. As luck would have it (yes, luck always factors in to almost anything related to gambling), Dr. Edward Thorp beat him to the punch with his classic, groundbreaking book "Beat the Dealer," the first book on card counting.
Blackjack is a dynamic game and the rules and variations keep changing. In that sense, there is always need for a new book. When Thorp wrote his book, blackjack was dealt from a single deck, and about the only rule variation was whether the dealer stood or hit on soft seventeen. Subsequently, 4-deck blackjack came to Las Vegas and it was like a whole new game. Wong realized that there was a need for a 4-deck strategy and it did not exist in any of the blackjack books available at the time, so he worked out his own numbers on computers at college, along with "surrender" numbers, which were also not available in books at that time. Thirteen years after Thorp's book appeared, Wong published his first blackjack book and several books have followed.
Wong went out to apply the same analytical skills to video poker, and wrote software analyzing it and then a book explaining the strategy generated by the software. He also analyzed pai gow poker to come up with the optimal strategy for dividing a seven-card hand into two hands of five cards and two cards, and wrote a book on that game. Along the way he played many casino tournaments, testing out his strategies by playing against professionals. And a few years ago, Wong turned his efforts to the gave of craps and wrote a book explaining how to build the necessary skill at tossing dice, and how to apply that skill in a casino, including what bets to make.
| > Click Here to Download for Free |
 |
Download our new Viper software for free
