Slashdot Mirror
Geeks and Poker?
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?"
Poker is often counted as "gambling" but to me it's precisely because it's not gambling but rather a game of skill that it's interesting. It's a zero sum game with some randomness so that you need to play for a little while to really see the better player emerge.
I've never understoood the appeal of standing in front of a video poker terminal*, feeding in cash and pushing the little buttons, when I know that the odds are against me. But I have spent many unproductive hours with handheld poker games, and was inspired to come up with a system to lose less often. At the risk of slashdotting my new host, here's my geeky take on How to Lose Less at Video Poker.
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 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. 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, however, is another thing entirely.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
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.
In C++, friends can touch each others private parts.
This reminds me of a certain Car Talk Puzzler.
True story? Sure, but written by a journalist... One of the guys from the book is a member of the same gym as I am (Sports Club LA in Boston), and told me that he doesn't remember "Kevin" (definitely not his real name) ever dating any cheerleaders, or hanging out with Patrick Ewing, or...well, you get the idea.
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
Juiced? Or Not?
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.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
Blackjack hasn't been completely solved yet, but it's looking like perfect play may leave you with odds better than even.
The house makes its money off the fact that there are very few people who can manage perfect play.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
I've been playing poker for a number of years, and study the game online in twoplustwo.com - where I post as whiskeytown - I also play quite a bit online.
:)
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
----------
ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
Geeks start out with the basic abilities to learn the math, and that gives them a huge advantage when learning poker over the average player. Their learning curve is shallow to understand the game. They also tend to like playing games. They will do very well in games such as blackjack, where the rules are very clear and the math works well. They will also do well in shorter-term play such as poker tournements.
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.
Or play the nickle video poker machines by the door, which are commonly set to 103% payout (note: only works if there are clear glass doors, you're on a street with a lot of casinos, and the Casino is willing to loose 3% on you winning on low-stake slots or video poker to pull other customers in).
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.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I used to play quite a bit of structured-bet poker in the California card rooms. In California, as opposed to Nevada, the card rooms are smoke free, and the competition is *usually* pretty weak. At tables up to about the 6-12 or sometimes 10-20 range, almost all deals will see a flop. A lot of people will play any pair, regardless of position, and will often play any face card. In Vegas, more people know what they're doing, and a lot of times the deal will be folded around to the blinds. So, in my opinion, California is about as accomodating a place to play as there is, and I got to a point where I could consistently win about $15/hr, over the long run. Not great, but not bad. More practice and higher table limits probably would have improved this number. The problem is that it just gets SO. INCREDIBLY. BORING. If you're playing well, you're going to be folding most of your initial hands because they're just not worth playing. There have been hours where I've sat there and folded all 35 hands that are dealt. For a while you can watch the other players and learn their styles, but when you realize that two guys at the table will play anything to the flop, including 2-7 offsuit, there's not a whole lot else you need to know except that those two people suck and you should be ready to exploit their weakness. Some poker books have stories about men who cut the pockets out of their pants, so they can masturbate at the tables. Perhaps my boredom threshold for masturbating in public is higher, or maybe I just didn't stick with poker long enough, but my decision was that that lifestyle wasn't really the way I wanted to spend my life. For $15/hr, there are a lot of other jobs that don't revolve around being bored and taking other people's rent money. (Yes, I know you shouldn't play with rent money. A lot of people do. And those are usually the players who suck, and who are losing their money to you.) Pot-limit and no-limit are completely different animals, but the risk in those games is enormous. It's trivially easy to lose your entire bankroll in one night. Todd
I would actually say that playing poker w/others is the only way to beat the house pretty consistently, though. However, this is not always the case, and Vegas is loaded with ringers who will be happy to take your money as they teach you this fact. Plus, the casinos get a rake, so if you're not good enough to overcome the rake (very very few are) then you're probably screwed - ie. Dead Money.
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.
Or, read "Positively Fifth Street" for an excellent telling of a poker tale. Jim McManus takes us on an adventure where he uses a magazine advance on an article to buy his way into the WSOP. He comes in sixth, I beleive. The article he's writing is about the murder of Teddy Binion, late of the Binion family, owners (until recently) of the Horseshoe, where the WSOP takes place. Two engrossing stories intertwined.
Not A Sig
Perfect play with counting, last time I checked. The trick that small cards favor the house who hits up til 17 while 10s favor the player (forcing the house to bust). If the deck (shoe) becomes favorable (lots of 10s and fewer small cards) the player increases their bet to boost their odds of walking away with more money. Craps (with odds) offers one of the lowest house odds in the casino with no basic strategy required. It's also a much faster game than the others allowing many more rolls per visit.
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.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
I've been playing No Limit Hold'em for a while, here's my experience:
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.
Kind thoughts do not change the world
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.
Underloved Movies and Pub Quiz: donotquestionme.org
Completely wrong.
m l
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.
This is one of those exceedingly rare chances where I can actualy post something on /. while at work and consider it work related :-)
I'm the lead programmer for a Poker training package called Poki's Poker Academy.
Poki started as an Artificial Intelligence research project at the University of Alberta, where I did my MSc. We've recently commercialized the AI into the above product.
The UofA
research page is an excellent resource for geeks interested in poker. Our publications look at the math and algorithmics behind writing sophisticated poker AI.
Poker is an incredibly geek friendly game. There is a lot of reward in being able to play analytically. The 'reading' of people is a much smaller part of the game than most folks think -- at the highest levels, the best players simply don't have any easy tells, so there is no point looking for any.
I want to live forever, or die trying.
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.
You can shift the odds in your favor at blackjack by playing correctly and counting.
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.
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
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. 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.
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.)
Find free books.
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...
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
When you see signs with 100x odds for craps, those are fantastic deals.
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.
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.
Self-referential sigs are rarely entertaining.
I love to play poker. I'm not the best player in the world, but I do win a little(!) bit. I think it's important to point out that poker is a very different form of gambling than 21 or craps or slots.
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
VIDEO poker != TABLE poker.
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)
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.
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
While many have posted about pokerbots, odds calculations, and other game-related issues, i'm surprised no one has brought up the issue of security.
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 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.
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.