People are not very good at giving credit to Julian Braun for everything that he has achieved, despite the fact that he was one of the most brilliant blackjack fanatics the world has ever seen. He used Edward Thorp’s initial calculations and improved them into more exact calculations that boosted optimum playing methods, so making them more profitable for the player. He did this by using Edward Thorp’s original calculations.

Even on the acknowledgements page of the second edition of “Beat the Dealer,” which Edward Thorp wrote, he praised Julian Braun for his contribution to the book.

After some time had passed, Julian went on to create the book “How to Win Playing Blackjack,” which gave specifics on how to implement his calculations into a real-life game of blackjack. Continue reading this detailed biography if you are interested in learning more about Julian Braun and the influence he had on the community of blackjack players.

Early Recollections of One’s Life

On September 25th, 1929, Julian Braun was born in the city of Chicago, in the state of Illinois. It was there that he received his primary education, as well as his junior high and high school education. He was very talented in every area of study, but his passion lay in mathematics. He received his undergraduate education at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he earned bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and physics respectively.

After finishing his education in the middle of the 1950s, Julian enlisted in the armed forces of the United States. After completing his sentence, he relocated to the state of California where he enrolled in a number of programs at San Diego State University. In 1958, Julian made his first trip to Las Vegas, and he immediately fell head over heels in love with the city’s electrifying environment. He went to the casinos with the intention of participating in all of the table games that were available there. Blackjack was his favorite game, even though he played it for a long time before he learned how to win at it by counting cards or using other methods.

After returning from his journey, Julian spent some time working as a programmer for the Missile System division of Chrysler in Detroit, Michigan. In 1961, he accepted a job offer from International Business Machines (IBM) to work in the same capacity. He worked there for close to thirty years, rising up the ranks to become the director of their teaching program early on in his tenure there. In spite of the fact that he had a strong interest in blackjack, he kept his job at IBM a top priority throughout his whole life.

The first 10 years of his employment at the firm were particularly challenging for him because of the string of unfortunate events that transpired inside his family during that period. In 1964, his sister Eleanor and her husband were on their way out of town to celebrate their second wedding anniversary when they were involved in a terrible accident that was caused by a drunk driver. Both of them were slain.
This made everyone in the family feel like they couldn’t handle it emotionally, but Julian took it particularly hard. Since he was a very small child, he has always been extremely close to his sister, and he has always felt it his obligation to look out for her.

In 1966, only two short years after this heinous act, Julian’s father passed away suddenly as the result of an unanticipated brain aneurysm. Julian came to the conclusion that moving in with his mother would be beneficial not only for himself but also for his mother, since it would allow Julian to better attend to his mother’s requirements.
In 1971, she went away as a result of her battle with cancer. All of these occurrences were difficult to bear on an emotional level, which is presumably why Julian turned to blackjack as a diversion to dull the agony he was feeling.

The book “Beat the Dealer” by Edward Thorp.

Before we can get a good grasp on who Julian Braun is and how much of an influence he had on the world of blackjack, we need to discuss Edward O. Thorp’s book “Beat the Dealer.” After reading the initial version of this book that Edward had written, he was enlightened by all of the sophisticated strategy and one-of-a-kind card counting tactics that were handled in the book.
It was the first book he read that completely persuaded him that employing mathematics to obtain an advantage over the casino was not only possible, but it was also practically sure to succeed. This book was The Art of Winning at Casino Gambling by John Grochowski.