Best Famous Blackjack Players:
How They Revolutionized the Game
Blackjack is probably one of the world’s most popular card games played online and house-based casinos. Many people think of it as a game designed for mathematicians and smart people, however, the card game is meat for anyone who cares to play. So, card savants and mathematics geniuses are not the only individuals attracted to the game.
Most people who have extra cash to burn, especially celebrities are fond of seeking out new different exciting experiences such as playing Blackjack. Throughout this article, we are going to look at some of the world’s best Famous players in the incredible adrenaline-pumping action of Blackjack.
Sadly, we are not going to rely on tournament results to give an accurate picture of the best player’s rankings, this is because of the rarity of big Blackjack tournaments, we can’t depend on tournaments results to provide an actual player’s positions, but you don’t have to worry as gambling stories are usually passed from one generation to the other. While considering the Blackjack Hall of Fame as an example, we’ll focus on finding tangible evidence of player contributions to the popularization of Blackjack.
James Grosjean
James Grosjean is popularly known as the best Blackjack expert player. He started playing the game at a young age and when he was a student at the University of Chicago. Today he is probably one of the brightest minds ever known to the Blackjack game. He also authored two bestselling books, Exhibit CAA: Beyond Counting and Beyond Counting. The best thing about the two books is that they give a mathematical explanation that may give you a playing advantage at gambling. The books have helped so many players to learn a few key gambling tips.
Apart from overcoming the house edge, James Grojean is also known to have triumphed in court over the Imperial Palace and won verdicts against the Ceasars Palace. Also, did we mention that he was the youngest ever player to be featured in the Blackjack Hall of Fame?
After all the highly esteemed accomplishments, Grosjean also came up with a huge number of strategies to help thousands of other players.
David Irvine
David Irvine is a popularly known Blackjack player who also became part of the great team of MIT students. The team is fondly described in the book called Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich. With the application of several strategies including a specific method of counting cards, David and his team members made a lot of money through Blackjack. The amount of money they got is estimated in millions of dollars. David Irvine was introduced to the team by another popular player known as Mike Aponte.
David Irvine and Mike Aponte with other team members of the MIT made several trips to Las Vegas during the weekends to play Blackjack tables in the Casino. Before that, David Irvine was living his life which was coupled with spending a hefty amount of money around hotels and clubs. Together with Aponte, they established the famous Blackjack Institute that teaches professional
Don Johnson
There are not so many Blackjack sessions that can equate with the winning streak of Atlantic City casino player Don Johnson, who has won over $10 million in cash to beat Atlantic City casinos. Following the onset of the financial crisis in early 2008, most casinos were left with few options but to market exclusively to high-stakes Blackjack gamblers such as Don Johnson. Having received some lucrative offers that are hard to turn down, Don Johnson accepted the offer after careful deliberation and meeting some conditions.
As for the specifics of the deal, it's worth mentioning that he negotiated the best possible terms for himself, paying close attention to every detail, to play from what he considered an advantageous position. Still, this shouldn't have come as a surprise to many, as we weren't expecting anything less from a professional Blackjack player.
In his stay at the Tropicana, Johnson played a card that would go down in history as one of the greatest Blackjack wins. With two splits and a double at the end, the stake went from $100 000 up to $800 000.
Bill Benter
It is difficult to imagine a professional Black player that cares about the Welfare of other people, which is why Bill Benter is a kind of player. He is a talented gambler with a soft spot for philanthropic ideas. He is also a huge believer and supporter of charity as he always contributes to good cause organizations; therefore you can say that his portrait is hanging on the Blackjack Hall of fame for all the good reasons.
His career in playing Blackjack was cut short when he was found counting cards on a regular game at the Maxim one day. He was blacklisted in almost every Casino in Las Vegas. He started exploring other gambling avenues with the hope of creating a new source of income. Benter has since been trying his hand at horse racing which treated him fairly.
Bill Benter is also known to be a great pioneer in odds scraping software development. He has been able to write odds analyzing software that he uses on one of his first computers. Even though Bill Benter stills does horse racing, he has continued to keep a low profile while applying what he learned in Blackjack to his current gambling activity.
Don Schlesinger
Don Schlesinger is a top professional Blackjack player who has written a few books of his own. He has advanced many theories of how the game should be played. Don Schlesinger contributed significantly to the game by evaluating card counting systems and undertaking various quantitative analyses. His most noteworthy contributions include establishing the Illustrious 18, establishing Standard Comparison of Risk Expectation or SCORE, and studying the optimal Blackjack strategy based on composition.
A lot of professional Blackjack players always live by the rules outlined in Illustrious 18, which makes it a pretty big deal. It’s a set of rules that govern the behavior of Blackjack players to negate the effects of decreasing expected returns over time. Known for his masterful disguise techniques, Don Schlesinger also talked about staying out of the spotlight of casino pit bosses and effective Blackjack team play.
Ben Affleck
Known for his love of high-stakes games of chance, Ben Affleck has always had a penchant for gambling. In early 2004, the Academy Award-winning actor showed off his poker playing skills by winning the California Poker Championship. But it is his love for Blackjack that has captured the attention of the public, especially when he teams up with close friend Matt Damon, who is a filmmaker and also a fan of high stakes and fast-paced Blackjack.
Rumors have it that Ben Affleck was once kicked off the Blackjack tables at The Hard Rock Hotel Casino just after he started winning more than expected; there was a time he made over $90,000 in a single sitting. Later, Affleck admitted to spending a considerable amount of time learning card counts and strategies for Blackjack.
Matt Damon
The first time Matt Damon became interested in Blackjack was while researching the film Rounders. Unquestionably, Matt Damon has benefited from Ben Affleck's expertise, but the Good Will Hunting actor is also reported to have gambled using Bitcoin, which is said to have made him a tidy profit.