Geeks and Poker? 657
Best ID Ever! asks: "Poker, a fascinating intersection of math, game theory, and observation of human behavior, is currently exploding in popularity due to televised high-stakes tournaments such as the World Poker Tour and Binion's 2003 World Series of Poker. Many of today's top professional players have nerdly roots such as Mathematicians, chess prodigies, or backgammon champions. A few pros, including 2000 champion Chris Ferguson, even used to play poker in the IRC poker community. This year's World Series final event, which began Saturday and lasts through the week, drew 2600 participants, more than three times the number of participants in 2003. How many Slashdot readers play poker, and what do you think of Poker's upswing?"
Read "Bringing Down the House" (Score:5, Informative)
True story.
An amazing read.
Re:Personally... (Score:1, Informative)
There is no freaking way to get those kind of odds playing a card game (at least not without counting cards; which is illegal BTW).
Re:Personally... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Read "Bringing Down the House" (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Video Poker (Score:3, Informative)
Or, you could go to one of the many places on the 'Net that have already done so:
http://wizardofodds.com/games/videopoker/ [wizardofodds.com]
Find the right game with the right payouts, and the long-term return exceeds 100%.
Re:Personally... (Score:5, Informative)
Also counting cards isn't illegal, but the casinos will ask you to leave and maybe blacklist you if you do it.
Re:Quality clay chips? (Score:2, Informative)
I would really check ebay, anyone with a high seller rating would be fine. And I am completly happy with my chips. Especially because 500 hotstamped chips should have been $200+
Re:Personally... (Score:4, Informative)
Avi Freedman (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Personally... (Score:5, Informative)
Card counting is virtually useless these days. Most casinos will use a 6-deck shoe, out of which they only deal about 3 1/2 decks. Card counting only pays when you get to see most of the cards.
However, casinos gauge their blacjack take according to the number of hands per hour, so the deeper they can deal into the deck without getting banged by counters the better. Despite that, most never dealers never deal into the 5th deck.
Re:Personally... (Score:5, Informative)
Wizard Of Odds (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.wizardofodds.com/ [wizardofodds.com]
Re:Personally... (Score:5, Informative)
Taking blackjack as an example, if you come up with a strategy that gives you better odds than the house, a little something called the central limit theorem [wolfram.com] guarantees that in the long run, you're going to win. What you should be concerned about instead is that your bankroll is big enough to let you play long enough for that to happen -- if you run out of money too quickly due to a run of bad luck (something math guys call the "gambler's ruin [wolfram.com]" problem), then you're screwed. Then it becomes trying to figure out what the odds are of that not happening, as a function of how much money you start out with.
The popular Bringing Down The House [buy.com] is an easy read that actually does a good job of discussing a lot of these issues, in the guise of an entertaining story.
Poker shirts anyone? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Personally... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Poker advise (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Personally... (Score:5, Informative)
The original come/don't come bets are close to 50/50, and when you put "odds" behind them, those bets are exactly 50/50.
When you see signs with 100x odds for craps, those are fantastic deals. Your original wager might be $5 at an expected 98% return, but if you put another few hundred behind it at an expected 100% return, your total bet is going to be damn near 50/50.
Casino owners have said something like, "If every patron played craps, and every player played the maximum odds allowed, we wouldn't be able to pay our electricity bills."
Todd
Re:Poker advise (Score:2, Informative)
Re:all the time - I'm whiskeytown (Score:5, Informative)
you'll see only the footage of the best hands...bear in mind, you're seeing maybe 5 percent of the hands actually televised - they'll edit it to keep the good stuff and throw away the bet/fold action.
Bluffs make for exciting poker, so they'll show a disproprotionally high amount of them on TV - just like reality TV will show more drunken outrageous behavior then the people sitting around watching TV
editing, man...
RB
Re:Yes, I play, a lot. (Score:3, Informative)
The main reason not to play online is collusion. You can get eaten alive by two players who know each other but pretend not to. It happens. Everywhere.
Re:Poker advise (Score:2, Informative)
I've been playing low stakes (3-6 & 4-8 mostly) for a few years and the mad rush to the poker tables has, in my experience, been really frustrating. Counter to logic, it's extremely hard to win consistently against the poker newbies. Besides that shaking hands, the painfully slow pace, the constant out-of-order play and the idiots that don't know that a full house beats a flush (you'd be shocked to know how many people sit at tables and don't know the hand rankings!)...
The worst part is that they play SO badly and it seems like you should be able to wipe them up. Thing is, if they never fold, they end up filling in gut-shot straights, or catching a couple runners to make a flush. Grr.
Bellagio Room deal for Poker Players (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Personally... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Read "Bringing Down the House" (Score:5, Informative)
For a gambling book with much more hacker appeal, try Thomas Bass's "The Eudaemonic Pie." For a poker book with geek appeal, try Yardley's "Education of a Poker Player" (the geek appeal is more in the backstory, which involves codebreaking).
Re:Video Poker (Score:3, Informative)
Your math is flawed when you think it's better to keep a partner. When you calculated the odds of keep the 2,2,8... you added up the odds of getting three 2's, or getting 2 pair. But when you calculated the odds of keeping just the 2,2, you only calculated the odds of getting three 2's. You should have also added the odds of getting a 2nd pair.
Re:Personally... (Score:2, Informative)
Last time I went to Vegas, some tables were using 8 deck shoes, and would only deal 1/2-3/4 of the shoe. Virtually no way to count effectively, since by the time enough cards have gone by to make a statistical difference, it's time for a new shoe....
Re:Personally... (Score:5, Informative)
Legally speaking the player may play blackjack any way he wants without cheating or using a computer, and the casinos may do anything from making conditions unfavorable to barring in an effort to stop anyone who they deem has an advantage over the game. Much of the challenge of card counting is avoiding suspicion that you are anything but a normal non-counting player. The most obvious indication that somebody is counting is that they make a substantial increase in bet size after a lot of small cards leave the table. Although the greater the factor by which you can increase your bet the greater your odds of winning, more than doubling your last bet is a fast way to arouse "heat" from the dealer and pit boss. Usually when casinos do realize you are counting they will either shuffle the cards whenever you increase your bet, essentially removing any advantage, or ask you to leave.
cognitive modeling of poker (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Personally... (Score:3, Informative)
The BEST "naked" odds (as in 'walk up to the table and drop a bet') in casino gambling come with betting the bank to win in Baccarat. With a 5% win commission (typical), the house edge is 1.17% on banker bets, and a 1.36% on player bets. Nothing else comes near.
Craps is for occasional adrenaline rushes and fools. The house edge for the boring Pass/Don't Pass bets is 1.4%, and everything else on the table 5.6% or worse in favor of the house, with up to a 16% edge against you. Sure, craps is fun, but don't think any amount of skill is going to get you consistent wins.
Counting cards in Blackjack is the only reliable way to have odds in your favor, and as we all know, if you're either found actually using those odds, or suspected of using them, you'll be asked to leave every casino in the world.
Good Blackjack players who don't count cards face a long term house edge of about 0.5%. Individual bets are worse, but occasional opportunities in Blackjack (split, double down), when played correctly, can bring the odds back under a percent in favor of the house. That's why the "naked" odds on baccarat are better.
Typical blackjack players face house edge of around 3.5%.
(I have heard there are some Video Poker games that have slight negative house edge for perfectly executed play, but don't find that game interesting enough to find them.)
Simple advice from Brett Maverick (Score:4, Informative)
This is the advice:
Some may object that this gives weak players a chance to draw out on you (to beat you against the odds) because you let them stay in. I reply that it is a question of how *much* you win when you win that makes you successful, not how many *times* you win.
Hold'em is a slightly different story if there are ten people at the table, but the basic concept applies.
Yes, bet your premium hands. Just don't necessarily give away your hand strength by doing so. If you can let the other guy do the raising when you have him beat by long odds, you will make more profit more often.
Conversely, if you are sitting in a Hold'em game in late position and you are thinking about limping in (entering the hand for the minimum bet) with an A-10 offsuit, think about raising the pot instead (doubling the amount of money in the pot). The fewer people in that hand, the more likely you are to win it.
This simple advice has helped make me a winning player for a long time now.
I'm a big poker geek here (Score:5, Informative)
As the submitter mentions, poker (especially limit and no-limit hold'em) is a fantastic combination of skills including your ability to read people and math skills (especially your ability to calculate odds on the fly). It truly is a geek game, with many of the game's top players holding advanced degrees in mathematics, statistics, etc.
In fact, I'll be in Vegas starting this weekend to buy in to one of the $1500 tournaments [harrahs.com] which make up the World Series. Of course I have very little chance of winning, but I figured it was time to roll up a stake, head to vegas and take my shot!
Not a lot of people know there are 33 separate games making up the World Series, not just the grand $10k buy-in No Limit game you see televised on ESPN/etc. Speaking of which, with all the talk about it, it would have been nice for the submitter to include a link to the official WSOP website [binions.com].
Required poker reading for those interested in getting dealt in:
CardPlayer.com [cardplayer.com]. Poker news, tips and discussions. One of the best of the best. Includes a really good online odds calculator [cardplayer.com] you can use to double check your own math :)
TwoPlusTwo.com [twoplustwo.com]. Website run by some of the smartest guys in gambling, David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth. Sklansky has an excellent series of highly-technical poker books for every skill level, including Hold 'Em Poker [amazon.com], Hold'Em Poker for Advanced Players [amazon.com], Tournament Poker for Advanced Players [amazon.com], and The Theory of Poker [amazon.com].
Doyle Brunson's Super System [amazon.com]. Regarded by many as the bible on poker. Much of the information is outdated about specific games (the nature of the game has changed) but any respectable poker player knows this book.
PhilHellmuth.com [philhellmuth.com]. Phil is a poker geek himself, one of the best players around (and the youngest to win the world championship). His recent book on poker Play Poker Like the Pros [amazon.com] is the best "intermediate" book around in my opinion.
PokerPages.com [pokerpages.com]. Best place to find a game, be it a tournament or local game. Great source of poker news.
There are also a great number of high quality poker blogs, including PokerBlog.com [pokerblog.com], GuinessAndPoker.com [blogspot.com] and ChrisHalverson.com [chrishalverson.com].
Not to mention of course, the explosion of online poker sites, including UltimateBet.com [ultimatebet.com],
Re:Personally... (Score:1, Informative)
Not true.
There are *progressive* poker machines where ~1% of the throughput gets added to the jackpot value (until the jackpot is hit and it is reset to a default low level).
IF luck holds out for a particular machine, the jackpot can reach a level where correct play yields a positive expectation value. ~$1000 over the breakeven level translates into ~$6 per hour expected gain. It is unusual but not rare for these progressive machines to get significantly above the breakeven level.
A Geek Speaks on Texas Hold'em Poker (Score:5, Informative)
Disclaimer -- the only form of Poker I play is Texas Hold'em, Low-Mid Limit and occasionally No Limit tournaments. I can't speak on the other variations of the game and, no, I don't work for or with any of the sources that I am citing.
For starters, Hold'em, like any form of Gambling for real money, isn't for everyone. Gambling is called Gambling for a reason, otherwise they'd call it Savings. But if you're looking at getting into it, here is some food for thought:
From a geek standpoint, I think one of the appeals that Hold'em Poker has is that it isn't so much a game a chance as it is more of a game of incomplete information. The very essence of living a geeked out existance is marinated in the ability to thrive in environments of incomplete information, whether solving problems or creating solutions. Out of those who consider themselves geeks, I'd have to say that those who are Hackers (whether in the genuine sense or cracking into computer/network/phone systems) would probably tend to have a little more of an edge than most. Aside from the logic and reasoning involved in playing the game, there's a certain instinct that develops, very similar to that certain "something" that enables some people the uncanny ability to take a look at a system, see what isn't obvious and find ways to make that system do things it wasn't originally designed to do. Anyone applying the Hacker Mentality to learning and playing the game will probably find that it won't take long for them to become formidable opponents.
Another way to look at the game is that essentially you're putting together a puzzle, racing to put yours together first, and betting that you can put together a better puzzle than everyone else -- all done by assembling the information between the hole cards that you're dealt, the cards that are flopped, the final cards that hit the table, and the patterns of betting/raising/folding around the table. You're not only competing with others at the table but you're also competing with yourself since there are times when you'll have to fold on seemingly great hands because playing them through to the end of a round will only mean getting beat and throwing your money away. Outside of just plain old bad luck, when it comes to most people losing big at Hold'em, generally you can boil it down to either (1) the know the basic rules but being clueless about the game's dynamics, (2) playing with a lack of discipline, and/or (3) letting their egos dictate the way they play their cards instead of doing what the cards and the dynamics of the table during that particular round says they should do. I'm no expert but this is something I've observed way too often. I've competed in some small stakes Hold'em tournaments locally and walked away with the top prize several times. In each case the people that were easiest to knock out of the game succumbed to any one of those three, usually all of them by the time I was scooping up the last of their chips.
The two foremost authors I've read on the subject are Sklansky and Malmuth. Between these three books -- The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky (ISBN: 1-880685-00-0), Hold'em Poker by David Sklansky (ISBN: 1-880685-08-6), and Hold'em for Advanced Players by David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth (ISBN: 1-880685-22-9) -- alot of patience, and alot of practice with both online poker play (start with play money) and stand-alone versions of the game, it doesn't take long to advance beyond being one of the novices throwing their money away at a table and getting beat like a baby seal. The rest comes with time and experience.
Aside from those books, there are tons of sites out there on the subject. Here are a few that I found to be helpful during the learning processs:
http://www.twoplustwo.com/ [twoplustwo.com]
http://www.learn-texas-holdem.com/ [learn-texas-holdem.com]
http://www.holdemsecrets.com/ [holdemsecrets.com]
Als
Big deal (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Personally... (Score:3, Informative)
The nice thing about playing online though, is that the house always knows what cards everyone has. And also, the house can keep track of who plays together. This makes it _much_ harder for players to successfully collude. I play online a lot at Party Poker [partypoker.com]. At first I was afraid of people colluding against me. A friend of mine also joined up at the same time as me, and we started playing on a lot af tables together. After a few hours of switching tables and always playing together, they wouldn't let us play at the same table anymore. We weren't colluding or anything, they just noted that two people had been playing together for a long time, and the odds of it being random in a pool of thousands of people is relatively low. At first I was kinda pissed that I couldn't sit with him anymore, but then I realized that this meant that if anyone were trying to collude, it would be very hard.
This is different than playing live, because the house can't do a statistical test of whether or not two people have been playing together too much. Also, if players are acting suspicious online, the house can always take a look at what cards the suspected colluders had, and see if one of them laid down a good hand, or something like that. Overall, I feel pretty confident that colluders aren't too much of a problem when I play online.
The house takes a rake, not an outcome advantage (Score:2, Informative)
Yup. (Score:3, Informative)
-1 for every 2,3,4,5,6
ignore 7-8-9
Divide the count by a guess as to the # of decks left in the shoe... and then
bet higher on higher counts, bet low on lower counts.
Why do you geeks keep crushing my webpages? :-) (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, poker is a game for mathematically-oriented geeks. In fact, the game is undergoing a revolution, with the savvy young players overthrowing the old guard, because they simply have better tools in their toolbox. Understanding how the other player thinks is still absolutely essential to playing at the top level, but there are also many mathematical concepts (beyond simple probabilities) that are very important to poker strategy.
In the old days of the Internet (before AOL), the newsgroup rec.gambling.poker had an incredibly high signal to noise ratio. Good players shared their insights, and many of them went on to be major stars in the poker world. I was just down at the WSoP and met with several of them (old friends and new acquaintances, many world champions among them).
Television has suddenly made poker into a spectacle, and the growth in popularity has been spectacular. Online poker is also booming, with thousands of geeks fleecing the millions of players who have less knowledge about the game.
If you want to learn more about this great game, visit some of the links on the The University of Alberta Computer Poker Research Group [ualberta.ca] home page. You will need to read a lot (especially the books by Sklansky and Malmuth), and practice a lot before you become a good player.
One good tool for providing endless hours of practice is the commercial version of our research programs, Poki's Poker Academy [poki-poker.com].
Now is a great time to have fun and augment your income playing poker.
- Darse.
( hey look moderators! it's the actual guy! :)
Re:Quality clay chips? (Score:2, Informative)
Though nice, these chips are hardly the real deal. For starters, they are a lot more slippery and noisy than casino chips. Clack a few real chips around in your hand, and do the same with these. Try shuffling stacks of ebay/5stardeal chips. Not nearly as smotoh and easy.
They are, however, nice for the home game and several steps up above the cheap plastic slotting chips that you find at your local drugstore. I even have a set of them.
But, if you really want nice chips, try searching on ebay for "Chipco"; they are the same manufacturer as is used by many casinos, and they are superior chips in every way (incl. price) when compared to 5stardeal/ebay "clay" chips.
Finally, check out the chip buying advice at http://www.homepokertourney.com/ -- I think it probably says what I've summarized, and he has links to more distributors.
Re:Personally... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A Geek Speaks on Texas Hold'em Poker (Score:2, Informative)