John Auston has recently requested that we excuse him from the Masters of Blackjack panel, and, of course, we shall honor that request.

In the past year or so, John has found it increasingly more difficult to maintain his passion for blackjack, and he has turned his attention to studying and playing poker, as well as to spending more time with his family.

I would like to personally thank John for the magnificent contributions that he has made to these and other pages and to our knowledge of blackjack over the past eight years. His "World's Greatest Blackjack Simulation," created for the first edition of BJA, will forever remain, in my opinion, as one of the greatest pieces of blackjack research of all time.

Of course, John is not going anywhere, and I am sure that we shall continue to hear from him, from time to time. Please join me in wishing him well in his future endeavors.

Don