Can Blackjack Heroes Rival Poker’s Biggest Names?

Some of the best poker pros are well-known even beyond the confines of the poker world, Phil Ivey and Phil Hellmuth for example, but ask the general public who James Grosjean, Lawrence Revere or Don Johnson are and you’ll likely get blank stares – but these blackjack legends are easily a match for the poker heroes when it comes to beating the game…

Luck is a word that is bandied about way too often in both worlds –  you don’t get your name in the Blackjack Hall of Fame, or the poker version for that matter, because fortune favoured you, and James Grosjean is no exception, the youngest-ever inductee and a hero to blackjack players the world over.

Author of the 2000 book Beyond Counting: Exploiting Casino Games from Blackjack to Video Poker, Grosjean was at the centre of several high-profile battles against the biggest casinos, winning the majority of them.

Of course, modern blackjack players can avoid Grosjean’s ‘fate’, the best online casinos offering an excellent alternative to the somewhat murkier world of live blackjack card-counting – of which the 1995 blockbuster Casino starring Robert deNiro is one of the most famous ‘movie’ depictions of the risks involved.

Speaking of card-counting, Lawrence Revere is perhaps the most influential blackjack player you’ve possibly never heard of, his Revere systems covering everything from basic to advanced ways to ‘beat the house’, including –if you’ll pardon the pun -  the revered Revere Point Count.

For those who play blackjack online that possibility has to be replaced with an excellent eye for a bonus and the VIP offers, so it’s not only the old-school approach which gives you a chance of beating the house – but an interesting note is that Revere was actually a casino pit boss as well as a genius blackjack player.

Don Johnson might ring some bells, and we don’t mean the Miami Vice actor either, his blackjack namesake going on a 6-month, $15million winning streak in Atlantic City back in 2011 – with even the casinos admitting he played fair and square all the way. His winning strategy? Getting great deals from the casinos while sticking to basic blackjack techniques – simple and good enough for one of the biggest-ever losses the casino owners have ever suffered.

Well, it would be easy enough to write a dozen articles on the similarities and differences between poker and blackjack players, but for now just be aware that the world of cards has its famous characters and heroes in every corner, and learning from the best in one field can definitely help us to win in the other.