Julian Braun
Perhaps not as well known in blackjack circles as Ken Uston or Stanford Wong, Julian Braun is no less important for the contributions that he has made to the game of blackjack. One of the most recent additions to the blackjack hall of fame, Braun’s contributions to the game are not as well-known, but are of great importance for anyone who ever hopes to succeed in blackjack.
Julian Braun is a Chicago native who was born in September of 1929. Holding degrees in both physics and mathematics, Braun worked for the IBM Corporation for the majority of his life. In the early days of card counting, Braun also conducted a ton of research on the popular systems. The first and most well-known of these endeavors was to rework Edward Thorp’s system and run it through a rigorous series of tests on an IBM 704/709. This variant of Thorp’s FORTRAN system was published in the second edition to “Beat the Dealer.”
Braun’s programs also played a large part in the creation of Lawrence Revere’s “Playing Blackjack as a Business,” as well as the HI-OPT systems created along with Lance Humble. It is interesting to note that before the release of Stanford Wong’s Professional Blackjack, all of the popular card-counting systems were in some way touched by Julian Braun.
Braun authored his own poker book in 1980, entitled How to Play Winning Blackjack. Julian Braun died in September of 2000 at the age of 70, after a long bout with Parkinson’s disease.
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