If it's a ticket to Mars you fancy, the academics at M.I.T. may well be your go to boys. But when it comes to playing cards, 'Blackjack' in particular, their intellectual aptitude for 'game theory' may still be best suited to socio/military application.

The word author-ity, for those who may not have given it too much thought, alludes not to the last word on any given subject, rather to the first word, i.e. its origin. 'Basic Strategy' - or 'B.S'. for short - is the modern day bible for blackjack players ('true believers') worldwide, however it may be contraindicated as an actual solution to the problems presented by the authors of this ancient game.

It is said that it is not so much the answers that are important as it is coming up with the right questions, to which the correct answers are but the natural, if eventual, by-product. To wit, I would pose the following (simple) query, absent the answer to which I would suggest that one cannot begin to have even the vaguest (coherent) notion of what is going on in this game, let alone a workable solution.

In the game of '21' the designated valuations to the J,Q,K do not continue to ascend from the ten (odd, considering their royalty) 11,12,13., rather they flat line out at 10,10,10. How come? Clue; it is not to accommodate those players who would await their gathering, as the linear elite might conTENd! (grin)

Good luck,

Hobs