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?"
More money for me! (Score:2, Interesting)
I love its popularity. The more that play, the more I can win!
Game of skill (Score:3, Interesting)
Quality clay chips? (Score:1, Interesting)
Video Poker (Score:4, Interesting)
It got mixed reviews a year or so ago when the topic came up in a previous Slashdot story, but it still seems to hold up for me -- at least, when there's no real money involved. The main criticism, IIRC, was that my method is very conservative, reducing the chances of a Big Win. Since I'm not the type to plug fifty bucks into a machine in hopes of a Big Win, I'm still happy with the method as it stands, but I'm receptive to comments.
I was hoping to try it out on a trip to Oklahoma, but when I stopped in the so-called Indian Casino [indiancasinos.com] in Okmulgee, I found nothing but a bingo parlor (with touch-screen monitors in place of ink daubers) and a couple hundred video 8-liners [txlottery.org]. Not one real video poker machine to try my luck. I'll have to hit the truck stop in Louisiana again... last time I was there, I played two 25c hands, lost one, won 50c on the other, and cashed out.
* Spending several hours plugging quarters into Pac-Man [klov.com], however, is another thing entirely.
Holdem (Score:2, Interesting)
But seriously, that's what they play at the world poker tour and that's all me and my friends play. It takes a lot of strategy, and it's also a lot of fun.
I used to play (Score:5, Interesting)
I just started a new position a few weeks ago. Up until recently, we would play Texas Holdem at lunch. I found it was a great opportunity to get to know my colleagues quickly and integrate myself as a memeber of the team.
Unfortunately, it also lead to extended lunch breaks, so the poker I'm disappointed to say, has ended. But the benefits of playing still remain.
Re:Personally... (Score:2, Interesting)
Car Talk Puzzler (Score:3, Interesting)
This reminds me of a certain Car Talk Puzzler [cartalk.com].
how poker works @ howstuffworks.com (Score:2, Interesting)
check it out!
Re:Read "Bringing Down the House" (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Read "Bringing Down the House" (Score:5, Interesting)
Did they beat the system? Yeah. Did everything else happen? well....maybe. Does that make it any less worthy of your time? Nope, great book
It can easily become a job (Score:3, Interesting)
Okay, at the time he was what he defined as a looser too - but he recognised this and "got out" as it were. In the end, it would turn into an 8-24hr a day job
btw, Rounders is probably the best movie I've seen about Poker.
Re:Personally... (Score:5, Interesting)
It always kills me the people walk into huge multi-million dollar structures, expecting to win. On a side note, the worst thing that can happen to a new player is to win, because after that they will always expect to beat the odds.
I like poker and pick up games of craps, few people really know the odds.
Re:Personally... (Score:5, Interesting)
The house makes its money off the fact that there are very few people who can manage perfect play.
all the time - I'm whiskeytown (Score:4, Interesting)
There are some mathheads who are World Class Players...Chris Ferguson is one - a second class of character is the newbie who watches too much WPT/WSOP and thinks he should push all in with 88 - these guys sorta hurt the third class of player - the ones who play you more then the cards.
More then one professional player has griped (unfairly) that no good player would call some of the bluffs they made, and that too many amateurs are diluting the pool in the WSOP main event. It jumped from 700 to over 2200 this year - an incredible jump -
As of today, in the 80 of 2200 players left, 3 of them (including Chris Ferguson) are former WSOP winners, so the cream is still rising but not like it was when there were only 70 players.
I think it'll slowly die out as a fad - esp. since most folks want to play NL these days, and those games never last long - too easy for someone to go broke in one mistake - but it's good for poker -
but all the popularity is very good for tourney players - more money in the pool, and a lot of folks watch TV and don't realize they see a lot more bluffing on there because for one, it's a final table and two, it makes for better ratings then bet, fold action.
Poker is a winning -EV if you're better then most of the other players at the table, and with so many fish, it's not hard to be better anymore
RB
Geeks+gambling go together like lawyers+ambulances (Score:4, Interesting)
But in poker, the separation between those that can hold their own, and those that excel over the long-term, is human observation. According to poker great Doyle Brunson, poker is a human game, not a numbers game. He had little education, and probably had to struggle to learn the math (which he knows very well).
Just like lawyers need to have legal skills in addition to a litigious client, geeks need human skills in addition to the math to succeed in the long-term.
Blackjack + geeks: teh winz
Poker + geeks: depends on the geek's human skills.
Re:There is little math in /playing/ poker (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course none of this accounts for the human factor and bluffing.
the popularity is cool (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm happy it's so popular now - it's easier to get a game going, and it's loads of fun to play. I play in home tourneys twice a week for low stakes buy ins ($20 and $10 usually), and I play online a bit too much... I need to stop that
The great thing about it is that while luck comes into play in any given tournament, over the long haul you'll definitely see skillful players rise to the top. One guy who comes to my weekly game consistently finishes in the top 3 and wins at least 3 times as often as anyone else who plays.
Re:Personally... (Score:5, Interesting)
Go to the second row in the same casino, your odds will decrease by 6%. Go four rows back in the same casino, and you will walk out 60% poorer than you walked in.
Re:There is little math in /playing/ poker (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, I play, a lot. (Score:2, Interesting)
Poker is a blast, and being a huge fan I just back from Vegas a few days ago and was out there to play poker and to soak in all the excitement surrounding the WSOP. If you are consider poker to be a serious hobby of yours, first get ahold of Positively Fifth Street by James McManus, its an amazing book about poker, Las Vegas crime, and the WSOP, I read it one the way to Vegas, perfect timing, then go out to Vegas during the WSOP.
Here is a list of pros that I saw while on my trip, note that you will NOT see these folks on the strip, just in old downtown, just walk the floor of the Nugget (and check out the re-opened poker room!) and be sure of course to go upstairs in Binion's to see the "the big one" taking place.
people i saw:
james mcmanus
tj cloutie
phil ivey
dave "devilfish" ulliot (played blackjack with him)
jesus chris ferguson (met him)
jonny chan (met him)
scottie nyuewn
kathy liebart
larry flynt
doyle brunson
owner of the ballagio
mel judith
dutch boyd
amir vahidi
gus hanson
simon trumper (beat him in a hand of 2-4)
didnt see:
phil hellmuth
howard lededer
annie duke
Aside from that, I had a blast playing in some tournaments, I recommend the daily no-limit tourny at Sunset Station, it's off the strip and the locals make for some very challenging play.
If you are brand new to the game, I have a few pieces of advice:
1. Do not, do not, do not, learn to play online (learn the rules, fine, but not how to PLAY). Find a small home game in your area (there are several locators on the web) and learn there, the web is a really, really bad place to play poker for a few reasons. For one, if you are playing in the free "play money" games, there are always a few awful players that will call any bet (also known as call stations) these players will make there two pair on the board and sometimes win, leaving you, the new player to think that is the right play. Secondly, if you are playing in the "real money" games, there are going to be players a lot better than you, and you won't have fun learning because you will be focused on not losing your money, poker is not a defensive game.
2. Second piece of advice, never play for money online. Just don't. Don't do it. I play in a home game twice a week, $10 buy-in top three spots pay out, however that's really all I can play, because the game only happens twice a week, so theoretically the most I can lose in one week playing poker is $20. This is not the case online, you could play 24 hours straight, there are always games happening. I consider myself a strong player, I think I could PROBABLY do very well online and even make some money, but the risk of addiction and the fact that if I started I probably wouldn't want to stop has led me to choose to simply not play for a single penny online. I use the free games to brush up on my skills, but like I said before, its not even really that useful do to the low quality of play.
3. Have fun, if you're not having fun, or if you are playing with money that should be going to pay rent, stop playing, find a new hobby. When I walk into a poker game, i consider my buy-in gone, if I make money, fine, but I think of it as paying $10 to sit around and drink beer with my buddies and analyze strategy, whoop and holler at crazy all-ins and for those few hours, act like I am a master pyschologist, economist, and statistician all rolled into one.
Having said all that; I'm All-In.
The problem with professional poker... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Personally... (Score:5, Interesting)
You can win if you know how to play the people and know things like pot odds, and carefully choose which cards to play.
If you play certain hands and avoid dumb, loser hands, you can usually beat anyone at a home game of poker. But in a Casino? I don't like my odds of coming away with any money playing people at a Casino in Vegas.
Personally, I wouldn't know why so many people would play WSOP. I'm sure the majority got in through satellites and such, but still, to me that's like throwing money at a brick wall if you haven't played (and won) in a bunch of tournaments first.
People talk about how poker is a game of luck, and sure, chance is involved. But more importantly, it's a game of people. The better you play an opponent, figure out his strategies, the way he bets, etc, the better you'll do at poker. All the other games in Vegas are playing against the house, and that's a losing proposition.
Re:Read "Bringing Down the House" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Personally... (Score:5, Interesting)
On a side note one should probably at least go look at the Baccarat tables (especially if they are in their own room with all the glitz going. The house take is only slightly higher than craps and a bit better than the basic blackjack strategy. Also all you have to bet is player or bank, the rest of the game is completely structured with no additional decisions.
Re:Video Poker (Score:2, Interesting)
When this happens in Vegas, you'll see a lot of people hogging those machines, praying for a royal, and it's a smart gamble. With that said, you're still probably going to lose money unless you're the lucky one person to get paid out.
In any case, any strategy for video poker should center around minimizing losses when you don't have a royal shot, and taking a shot at the royal when available. Anything else is just going to lose you more money than you need to lose.
Todd
Hold'em (Score:4, Interesting)
The only way to win consistanty is to play rationally (ie. mathematically) against people who are not playing rationally. Not only do you have to beat your opponents but you have to do it with a large enough percentage to also beat the house's rake (a small amount taken from each hand).
But since the house only takes a rake the odds aren't necessarily against you.
There are basically three ways to play:
Rationally against Rational players: results in you winning N% of hands with N being the number of people at the table. You basically trade pots back and forth. If you play long enough the rake eventually takes all of everyone's money.
Irrationally against Rational players: results in quickly loosing your money. You might get lucky in the short run, but you can't continue playing this way for long. Do it occassionally so that people might think you'll make irrational bets and then might call you when you have the nuts.
Rationally against Irrational players: You'll evetually gather all the money not lost to the rake. The only way to make money in the long term. However, you may still go on looong losing streaks.
I still play Hold`em (mostly rationally), but you eventually get to the point where you've seen all the hands. Now it's mostly a grind.
Re:Personally... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Personally... (Score:4, Interesting)
I've heard that not all casinos black list card counters, some actually like it as novice card counters tend to make very expensive mistakes. I can't recall what casinos were mentioned as being counter friendly.
Of course I bet as soon as they see that you are doing well I bet they would then ask you to move along.
Re:Personally... (Score:2, Interesting)
WRONG! -- Facts included. (Score:5, Interesting)
http://wizardofodds.com/games/slots/slotapx3.ht
NEVADA - Las Vegas
Unlike New Jersey, the Nevada Gaming Control Board does not break down its slot statistics by individual properties. Rather, they are classified by area.
The annual gaming revenue report breaks the Las Vegas market down into two major areas: the Strip and downtown. There is also a very big locals market in Las Vegas and those casinos are shown in the gaming revenue report as the Boulder Strip and North Las Vegas areas.
When choosing where to do your slot gambling, you may to keep in mind the following slot payback percentages for Nevada's fiscal year beginning July 1, 2002 and ending June 30, 2003:
5 Slot Machines
The Strip - 90.32%
Downtown - 91.50%
Boulder Strip - 93.03%
N. Las Vegas - 92.97%
25 Slot Machines
The Strip - 92.59%
Downtown - 94.83%
Boulder Strip - 96.47%
N. Las Vegas - 96.63%
$1 Slot Machines
The Strip - 94.67%
Downtown - 95.35%
Boulder Strip - 96.48%
N. Las Vegas - 97.21%
$1 Megabucks Machines
The Strip - 89.12%
Downtown - 88.55%
Boulder Strip - 87.76%
N. Las Vegas - 89.41%
$5 Slot Machines
The Strip - 95.33%
Downtown - 95.61%
Boulder Strip - 96.53%
N. Las Vegas - 96.50%
All Slot Machines
The Strip - 93.85%
Downtown - 94.32%
Boulder Strip - 95.34%
N. Las Vegas - 95.32%
These numbers reflect the percentage of money returned to the players on each denomination of machine. All electronic machines including slots, video poker and video keno are included in these numbers.
As you can see, the machines in downtown Las Vegas pay out 1% to 2% more than those located on the Las Vegas Strip for the lower denomination 5 and 25 machines. When you get to the $1 and $5 machines the difference is less noticeable but you can clearly see that the downtown casinos always return more than the Strip area casinos. This information is pretty well known by the locals and that's why many of them do their slot gambling away from the Strip unless they are drawn by a special slot club benefit or promotion.
Returns even better than the downtown casinos can be found at some of the other locals casinos along Boulder Highway such as Boulder Station and Sam's Town and also in the North Las Vegas area which would include the Fiesta, Santa Fe and Texas Station casinos. Not only are those numbers among the best returns in the Las Vegas area, they are also among the best payback percentages for anywhere in the United States.
Poki Poker (Score:5, Interesting)
"Almost" - craps vs. BJ, Hold 'em (Score:5, Interesting)
Almost being the key word, and there's no possible source of "extra information" in craps, so it's a great house game. Blackjack used to be the best - you could count cards when you could find a decent 1 or 2 deck game, but now all those are for suckers, as the blackjack always pays 3 to 2 and the dealer hits on soft 17, which really helps the house and makes it basically impossible to get an edge.
That's why I like poker. You don't play the house, you play the other player. If you know what you're doing, you can have far better than the typical less than 1% player edge that's the best case scenario in blackjack.
I went to Vegas recently to play for the first time, and I ended up winning a little. For new players, you have to know when to play - at the low-limit tables, the locals play mornings, and if you're new to poker they'll likely beat you. Weekend nights is a mix of idiots (your prey) and sharks, many of whom are waiting for high-limit tables. If you have a loose high-limit player at your low limit table, trust me - get out. Even if there are 3 total newbies at your table, the "loose" shark will get more of your money than you will of the newbies. I found the best time was afternoons - the locals are gone, and the sharks are still sleeping it off, leaving you and a lot of really stupid people. That's when I did really well. It helps when some moron will take 2-7 unsuited all the way to the river in Hold 'em. It happened to me, it was great. You can't lose.
Re:Personally... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Personally... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's much easier, IMHO, to just make money at the poker tables. I play poker in Foxwoods, CT at least once a month and consistantly win.
The trick is to just find loose table where you're not the sucker.
I'm always amazed at how many people who play poker at the casino don't even know the basic strategy involved.
Re:Personally... (Score:2, Interesting)
Poker in Boston and Free Software Community (Score:4, Interesting)
I play in a Tuesday home game run in the home of a Computer Science graduate student from a nearby University. Although some complain about the fact that the chips are all in "power of 2" denominations, that game does in fact draw a great mix of geeks and non-geeks. Occasionally there is geek talk at the table, but more often, it's not.
I have found, actually, that poker in general and home poker in particular are excellent opportunities for geeks to apply their native skills to something new and exciting, while meeting people outside their regular sphere. Also, working on "reading" people, which is central in the higher limits and in "big bet" poker, can help geeks learn the empathy skills that a purely technical focus often neglects.
Finally, for those of you in the Free Software world who would like to see Free Software Internet poker, I urge you to look at Mekensleep's work [mekensleep.org]. While they are creating a general GPL'd engine for online gaming, they are focusing their efforts foremost on poker. I hope some will choose to contribute to the project.
Oh, and if anyone is looking for a home game, be sure to check out this site to find one [homepokergames.com].
What limit? (Score:2, Interesting)
Somewhat - but because Vegas is also filled with morons that are interested in poker because of its popularity, there are also lots of fish.
If you play certain hands and avoid dumb, loser hands, you can usually beat anyone at a home game of poker. But in a Casino? I don't like my odds of coming away with any money playing people at a Casino in Vegas.
I did last month, and I'd never played before. I played $3-$6 limit Hold 'em exclusively. At some times of the day, there were decent players, at some times there were sharks like you describe, and at some times there were no sharks and an absolute abundance of the stupidest, math-uninclined, play-any-hand-like-it-was-aces morons. I found afternoons best for that, and it's hard to lose money consistently to those people.
In fact, the idiots call so much you can't bluff. I tried once - I had a nut straight draw and missed it, but there was nothing on the board, I was on the button, and people were all checking on the river so I assumed (correctly, as it turned out) they had nothing. I either bet or raised on the river (can't remember if someone finally bet in front of me), got rid of everyone except one guy who called, and it turned out he had 8's or something equally crappy (compared to my K high or whatever). He was genuinely surprised, and said "I thought you had the straight!" I rolled my eyes and said "So why did you call if you thought you had 8's losing to a straight?" The guy shrugged and said he'd come that far with the 8's... Shit like that pisses you off, but all you have to realize is that 1) you can't bluff all the callers out of the pot in low limit, and 2) when you really do have a hand, you'll get paid well for it.
Personally, I wouldn't know why so many people would play WSOP. I'm sure the majority got in through satellites and such, but still, to me that's like throwing money at a brick wall if you haven't played (and won) in a bunch of tournaments first.
No question. But I think you can make enough to subsidize a vacation if you know what you're doing (I wasn't that good because it was my first time and I played low limit) and keep to a sane limit, while knowing when to play and how to avoid the sharks.
Texax Cheat-um (Score:2, Interesting)
How does cheating in poker take place? Fancy card mechanics? No, mainly because that can be detected. They use more subtle tactics, mostly just nickel and diming you to see what they can get away with, then press it. Sometimes its just simple stuff like moving seats so you pay the 'vig' an extra time. Other times its misreading the cards and hoping nobody notices.
And then there is simple collusion between players. If two players agree not to bet against each other, and have a signalling mechanism for who has the better hand, their odds are increased dramatically. A simple way to think about it is that they don't both lose to your winning hands. There are lots of ways to signal, nothing fancy needed. Just fiddle with a stack of chips cutting it to match the cards; anybody who plays much will assure you that regualar players can manipulate chips anyway they want without looking.
The bottom line is, if you are not a shark, you are a mark. Even if you are a shark, you might still be victim of bigger sharks. Not a smart game to get involved with.
Re:Personally... (Score:4, Interesting)
One problem I've heard about is collusion. You go to a casino or a card club and play for money with people you don't know, and you don't realize that two of them are actually in it together. For instance, they'll have a secret signal so that one knows to drop out when the other is bluffing. Seems like it could be equally bad online.
Blackjack is probably a better choice of a casino game if you want your entertainment to be relatively cheap. The house's advantage is pretty small if you count cards; your chance of winning is close enough to 50% that you'd really have to play thousands and thousands of hands before your expected return differed from zero by more than one sigma. My mother has a degree in statistics, learned to count cards, and for years she would make trips to Reno, where the rules are more favorable than in Vegas. She ended up being convinced that her results were significantly worse than what they should have been based on mathematics, and thought it was probably because the house cheated. (She also wasn't playing the strategy that maximizes your returns, which involves betting a lot more when the count is good; she was doing it more for fun, and didn't want to be betting a hundred dollars on a hand. Also, it's hard to do that kind of thing without tipping off the casino that you're counting.)
Re:WRONG! -- Facts included. (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting stats, but it neither proves nor disproves the parents premise. The stats you mention are for the casino as a whole, the parent was refering to locations within the Casino.
If a Casino has 1,000 slot machines, it might determine that 20 of them are in "LURE" locations, and they payoff at 103%. The remaining 980 machine can pay off at 94.84% and you casino will average a payout of 95%. Now consider the amount of tech and monitoring casinos do, the variety of machines at their disposal, etc. You really think every machine pays off at the same rate?
Heck, this theory even explains why off-strip casinos pay out more, they have a lower ratio of high visibility to low visibilty slots, meaning their average will be higher.
Still doubting? Its not widely disseminated, but the big advantage of electronic Slots is that while their payouts must be the same, its perfectly legal for them to dangle jackpots just off the screen in non-scoring positions. They are carefully timed to show up when you might be getting disappointed, but not so often that you see the line and the stick attached to the carrot.
The corporate Vegas of today is far more cut-throat than the gangster Vegas of yesteryear, Its not Vinny in the back figuring how to lure you, its a crack team of statisticians and behavioral psychologists...
Texas Holdem and Businss Leads (Score:2, Interesting)
I used to play UT and Medal of Honor. Not anymore, after I found out that many of the online poker sites have FREE money tables. So you get to compete against others and it doesn't cost you anything.
A friend of mine just recently started a site:
www.Aces-Wired.com [aces-wired.com]
He's got reviews of several of the Online Casino's
I happen to live near Ga Tech and there are big games going on almost every night. Most colleges have games.
Plus I learned something else really interesting. About 40% of the people that I meet playing poker are Self Employed so it a great source for leads for my own business.
Poker is a great analogy for business too. In poker and in business you've got to learn to play the odds.
1. Know when the odds are in your favor.
2. Be able to capitalize on that advantage.
3. To make money, you learn to be comfortable with risk. There is no way around it.
Re:Personally... (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, not really.
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.
Yeah, your expected value improves by a small amount, but your variance goes up my a HUGE amount, which is pretty much always a losing proposition. You're suggesting that I wager $500 at a time? Unless I came with $20,000 or more, there's a good chance I'm going to go broke. And, if I did come with $20,000, I'd rather spend it at the high-limit tables (at 5x odds), where I'll look like a stud, and the drink girls are prettier and come more often, etc.
Me v The Casino Industry, Round One (Score:3, Interesting)
My casino philosophy has kept me on the winning side of the equation for some time now.
My lifetime up-to-down ratio is something like 4:1, and here's why:
When I walk into the casino, I have already planned to spend $100. I think of it the same way I would going on any kind of night out: an expense. This money is already mentally written off (ie, I expect to lose it).
If at any point during the evening my gambling fund is double or more than my initial fund amount, half my gambling fund goes into my wallet. Say I win $250 on a lucky call, having $50 still on me. I'm at $300, so now I drop $150 in my pocket. No matter what happens, no matter how bad the gods hate me, I will only gamble out of the fund, and not dig into wallet cash. In this example, I made $50, plus I got the night for free, because I got my $100 expense fund back. And I got to keep gambling from $150. :D
The rule changes after that...but this is all instinct derived. I wouldn't be surprised if someone could produce a formula that squeezes high efficiency out of this, but it won't be me. For me, I just work off doubles for any one visit. At the $200, $400, and $800 points I split the gambling fund in half and put half away. After that, every $1,000. And so on, and so on, choosing whatever numbers suit your income and desire to bet.
At some point, I might have $4000 set back, and just decide to let the gambling pot do whatever it will. Regardless of what happens, I can walk at any point, and have paid for the trip, the time, and still have cash to cover toys and taxes. And still come home with that $100 in my pocket.
It could be that I just got lucky a couple of times, larger wins wiped out the small losses since I don't gamble a lot. I average one trip every couple of years, but as long as you keep your head it's not bad. Usually the problem comes when people gamble what they can't afford to lose, so they gamble more to win it all, and wind up screwed.
Best rule ever: Always be prepared to lose just decide beforehand how much to lose, and stick to it.
Poker isn't (at least doesn't have to be) gambling (Score:3, Interesting)
There are many people who don't understand this, and in fact are probably reading this right now thinking, "oh, another delusional gambler."
The thing you have to understand about poker (but not video poker) is that it is never played against the house. Instead, the house takes a small fee from each hand. In home games, there is no fee at all.
This means that whether or not you win is based not only on the raw statistics of how the cards come, but also how your opponent plays.
For example, note that before each hand of poker some or all players must play a forced bet, called a 'blind' or 'ante'. Of course, you are allowed to bet, call, raise, or fold at any time.
Now, just suppose, you are playing against a complete idiot: someone who folds every hand at every opportunity, even if he has the best possible hand.
Under these circumstances you would win 100% of the money. Every penny would be yours. Every hand you check, he says, "I don't think I can win", and he folds his hand.
Now of course, people are not that dumb, and don't play this way. But it turns out that there is a very very very wide range of possible ways to play the game between playing perfectly (which means you are somehow able to guess with 100% accuracy what cards your opponent has and know with 100% accuracy what he will do in a given situation and calculate the odds 100% correctly in your favor) -- and playing like our hypothetical moron.
This gap between ineptitude and perfection is what allows poker players to make money. The vast majority of players fall just above the moron line (believe it or not!) -- and this means there is plenty of room for people willing to learn how to play the game properly (and who have the discipline to actually do so!) to take money away from those who aren't willing.
Most of the people who play poker ARE gamblers. They call with their hands to the river hoping to get lucky and win the pot. The poker player who isn't gambling is the one who uses all available information at his disposal to calculate the odds of his winning and who only plays the game if it is to his benifit to do so.
For example, in Texas Hold'em, each player gets two cards and shares five. Suppose you are playing someone and are in the following hand:
YOU: Ah Ad
Board: Ac As 7h 5d
At this point, even with one cards still left undelt, it is IMPOSSIBLE to lose this hand. Why? There are only four aces in the deck, so your opponent can have none. The very best hand he could have at this point would be a pair of sevens. Not even a straight flush is possible at this point because there is only one card left to come. The best your opponent could hope for would be to get another seven -- and lose anyway.
When this happens in poker (it's called having the 'nuts'), every penny you bet that is matched by another player is profit. There are no odds at this point -- there is no question. You WILL win.
Good players excel at placeing themselves in this situation, while avoiding situations where they are the ones on the losing end of the deal. (If you were on the losing side of this game, the best thing you could do would be to fold and not give your opponent any more money. But most people will call you down because they "Just had to see what you had!")
If you still believe that winning or losing at poker is random, just take a look at the WSOP: Just as in golf, each year the same 20 professionals keep coming back to play, and each year it's those same 20 people who walk away with the bulk of the money. Oh, sure, every now and then someone wins the competition who probably shouldn't have, and every now and then a professional loses a lot of money. But averaged over time, in the end, it's the good players who will end up with the cash.
The only real difference is that in Golf sponsers usually pay the entrance fee, where as in poker, each player fronts his own fee.
Just something to think about when someone says, "Poker," and you think, "Slots."
-Chiem
Re:Personally... (Video poker is not the issue!) (Score:5, Interesting)
Lemme explain, as a fairly proficient card shark. (I missed WSOP by eight seats in a 150-man supersatellite this past Feb. Wired 7s, short-stacked, on the button, against a bozo with 9-10 off. He flopped a 9, I go home.)
Video poker is a game of chance. Granted, due to Gaming Board regulations, the chance of any card hitting is in line with actual probabilities, but, in the end, you are, like a slot monkey, looking for particular combinations of cards to get a payoff, usually starting at a pair of jacks.
Table poker, though, is an entirely different animal. Larger amounts of money are typically involved. Play is much more skill-based than in video poker. Knowing when to toss Big Slick (A-K), or when to hold Khan (A-Q) is a tricky thing to master. It's even harder to know what to do on a flop. Some flops it's damned obvious, some the right looking thing will kill you. (Ex: A-9, flop comes 9-3-3 with one caller. Too bad the &*#$ had J-3. Two pair is good. A set is better.)
Add to that understanding the psychology of the game. You have tight players, you have loose players, you have lunatics, you have masters, and quite often you don't know who's who until they've taken some of your precious pieces of resin. VP, you're playing a machine.
Probability is also a major major factor. Big Slick, for example, is a monster hand because (a) it is favored against any other non-paired hand and (b) against any paired hand that isn't kings or aces, it's a coin-flip. (7-3 dog against cowboys, 12-1 dog against bullets. Link to a great poker odds calculator [cardplayer.com])
But the most difficult part of poker - especially high-stakes tournament poker - is keeping it together when you're so nervous, excited, tense, and anxious at the same time. Keeping it together when you know you've got the nuts (the very best hand possible) and you've got a sucker betting into you.. or calming down enough to see if your set also made your opponent fill her straight.. It's tough.
I love it.
Libre Multiplayer Online Poker 3D (Score:2, Interesting)
here is le website [mekensleep.org].
There is an
An interesting fact is that it is plain GPL software developped under a commercial contract: Loïc works on this paid by a game company!
So this could be a major hit in gnu/linux gaming AND a way to prove one (brilliant) programmer can _earn_ his life writing Free Software! =~))
GO MekenSleep!
Computer Security (Score:4, Interesting)
Internet pokerrooms are an exploding phenomenon; according to my sources, one of the largest pokerrooms makes over $2 million/day. However, as you might expect, this brings up some security issues.
The most basic of these is random number generation. A long time ago, one of the poker rooms had a faulty Random Number Generator. They were re-seeding it for every hand! And worst of all, they posted their code online to demonstrate how "secure" it was... The best poker rooms today will use a hardware RNG with all sorts of goodies to protect the data stream.
Another issue is that of fraud. Hackers have been known to buy-in with stolen cc's, and then dump that money to accomplices, then, when the victim charges back, the poker room is left holding the bill. This doesn't affect the players so much, since the poker rooms end up losing the money; but the best poker rooms will impose limits on (first) deposits to prevent this.
Yet another issue is that of collusion [slashdot.org]detection. Another AI problem, which is a pattern-detection problem, is to check when two people are "playing partners". Some of this software is already in use right now and (to my knowledge) works fairly well. I think a big problem for colluders is, not only do they have to make their collusion effective, but they have to avoid the detection software.. and if you can avoid the detection software, that probably puts a big enough dent into your cheating plan that it renders it useless.
Finally, it brings up the issue of e-cash in general. While paypal does not allow online gambling, there is a whole industry of electronic payment services that thrive on gambling, the main one being Neteller. Since none of these are US-based, does the US risk losing dominance in this potentially important area of the future? And how secure are these accounts anyway? The people I know who use these things keep very little money in them and withdraw regularly to a real bank account.
So as you can see, poker and internet poker in particular brings up far more computer issues than simply the problem of a Poker-playing AI/poker strategy.
Thoughts are welcome.
Re:Personally... (Score:4, Interesting)
On our 3rd night after no luck in craps and roulette and getting wiped in Blackjack(usually do a bit better on it), I bought a $20 in quarters and started playing slots. Instead of finding a machine, sitting, getting comfortable and playing, I played each machine Once and moved to next open machine. Win or lose, I moved to next machine. I was moving so fast that I often went back 3 machines to collect coins.
I won $480 in 4 hours. The next day before we had to leave my friend and I tried it again. He won $80 and I won $50 in just over an hour.
We were thinking that the slots could try to hook you with early payoffs. It makes sense, but people have argued how the slot would know. Maybe they reset after some set idle time or something. It's just a theory, but try it out somke time as it was kinda fun.
Re:Personally... (Score:1, Interesting)
Very few dealers shuffle by hand anymore. They have continuous shufflers, meaning that when the hand is over, those cards are put back in the shuffler, and it's playing with a fresh 6-8 deck shoe.
The Poker trend (Score:1, Interesting)
Before the rise in popularity I could go out to my local Indian reservation and sit down for 10 hours and play some quality poker. Everyone at the table knew the rules , everyone was reasonably experienced and most everyone appreciated a great play.
Lately though, I have noticed more and more players who have come to poker trying to be the next Chris Moneymaker. They don't take the time to appreciate and learn the game on all levels and man is it annoying. They are always the same too; young geeks who come in with dark glasses, a ballcap, and a buttoned up jacket. I feel like slapping them and yelling, "THIS IS NOT A NO-LIMIT TABLE, STOP PRETENDING YOU'RE SOME KIND OF POKER PRODIGY AND GO PLAY THE SLOT MACHINES!!"
Maybe its just my opinion, but it drives me nuts. I'm not a pro, but I enjoy the game and I know that I certainly enjoyed the game a hell of a lot more when I didn't have all these upstart posers in dark glasses coming to the $10 limit table to go all-in on a 2-7 off suite. If you're going to play, play to understand that there is a time and place to play like this and it's not at the limit tables.
Re:Poker isn't (at least doesn't have to be) gambl (Score:3, Interesting)
Board: Ac As 7h 5d
The very best hand [your opponent] could have at this point would be a pair of sevens.
That's not true. He could be sitting on pocket 7's, and have made a full-house. He'd still lose to your quad-Aces, but I just wanted to point out that a "pair of 7's" is not the second-nut hand out there at this point.
Re:Personally... (Video poker is not the issue!) (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, but with a lot of poker terminology.
If you'd like to learn the terminology you can either read some poker sites (I dunno any, but I'm sure they're out there) or watch some WPT. They have two commentators and do a good job of explaining terminology -- either the commentators will explain the term they just used, or a little explanation box will pop up in the bottom right of the screen doing so.
Yeah, I've been watching a good bit of WPT... it's fairly mindless to watch, which is good when you're waiting for a 13 week old child to finish eating, fall asleep, etc.