Ron Coleman - Marist College
Genetically Inspired Blackjack Strategies in Noisy Settings
Blackjack or “21” is a simple card game that is very popular with the public, mathematicians, and computer scientists. Part of the game’s appeal stems from Blackjack’s relatively favorable odds in which the House does not, in theory, have an overwhelming advantage. That is, provided one plays “correctly” according to the Basic Strategy decision rules that give optimal mathematical expectations of player opportunities. These rules were identified through various scholarly studies starting in the 1950s with game theoretic analysis and culminating in the 1970s with long-running computer simulations at IBM. One problem with the Basic Strategy, however, is that it presupposes people follow the rules systematically, i.e., without the “noise” of inconsistent application. Yet anecdotal evidence suggests people don’t play the rules perfectly, if at all, even when they know they should to maximize returns. In this talk, we’ll examine a genetically inspired approach that not only learns to play Blackjack competitively and in some ways, unconventionally. Curiously, these new strategies are also more resistant to noisy application compared the Basic Strategy.
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