Poker and reasoning.

[jwaltos]

I've recently started playing online poker after an absence of ten years and was pleasantly surprised to see what had taken place during that interim.

Here are two links that are worth a look.

https://www.ualberta.ca/computing-sc...computer-games
http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~games/poker/

Regarding poker, taking a quick look at some of the leader boards and the wins garnered by some of these players makes it easy to understand why good reasoning is mathematical and why an appreciation of probability in all imaginable contexts is important...not just in the tawdry world of gambling but also in the rarefied domain of quantum physics. In my opinion, slowly but surely, artificial intelligence will become self-aware (the singularity) as a quantum system and become a professional gambler.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by jwaltos

Regarding poker, taking a quick look at some of the leader boards and the wins garnered by some of these players makes it easy to understand why I like math and why an appreciation of probability in all imaginable contexts is important.

Do you understand the statement "Gambling is a tax on those who are bad at the Maths?

[jwaltos]

I do Chalsall. I have also been to Williams Lake.

Years ago I got an A+ in tax compliance at Laurier.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by jwaltos

I do Chalsall. I have also been to Williams Lake.

Coolness. You just "outed me". That was my birth place.

I was very thankful the town didn't burn down last year.

[jwaltos]

You are also a very good ambassador for this forum and I have learned a few things from your posts.

Regarding this thread, I'll encapsulate this line of inquiry with this link: Urban Dictionary: Kremlinology

The genteel membership of the Panama Papers club didn't need to gamble.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by jwaltos

You are also a very good ambassador for this forum and I have learned a few things from your posts.

Thank you for that.

Some don't appreciate my humour, but most of my students want to study more....

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by jwaltos

I do Chalsall. I have also been to Williams Lake.

If I may please share... Williams Lake somehow attracted some remarkably good teachers.

Mr. Beck taught us Physics. He had travelled throughout the middle east, and was Buddhist. Mr. Sheck taught us Mathematics. He could do calculus in his head, but still somehow tolerated teaching teenagers algebra. "Sheck and Beck"'s real joy was teaching Computer Science. Commodore PETs and VIC 20s. BASIC for some, 6502 for others.

And then there was Mr. Smith. English. Shakespeare.

I was very fortunate to have my mind exploded, at an early age, by such gifted influencers.

[VBCurtis]

Originally Posted by jwaltos

I've recently started playing online poker after an absence of ten years and was pleasantly surprised to see what had taken place during that interim.

I just got home from 3 days playing cash games at the WSOP, and was excited (to say the least!) to see a poker thread on my favorite forum.

Do you play live poker? What game(s)?

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by VBCurtis

I just got home from 3 days playing cash games at the WSOP

:O

Did you do well? How was it? Did you watch the main event while you were at it or is that not how that works?

[jwaltos]

Originally Posted by chalsall

If I may please share... Williams Lake somehow attracted some remarkably good teachers.

Mr. Beck taught us Physics. He had travelled throughout the middle east, and was Buddhist. Mr. Sheck taught us Mathematics. He could do calculus in his head, but still somehow tolerated teaching teenagers algebra. "Sheck and Beck"'s real joy was teaching Computer Science. Commodore PETs and VIC 20s. BASIC for some, 6502 for others.

And then there was Mr. Smith. English. Shakespeare.

I was very fortunate to have my mind exploded, at an early age, by such gifted influencers.

While in Djibouti near the end of my military term (FFL) late 80's, I enrolled and was accepted at UBC (EE, Math,CompSci). I met my (ex) wife there (who was my prof) and she was from Williams Lake. Her maiden name was MacMillen. Her dad was a school administrator.

Originally Posted by VBCurtis

I just got home from 3 days playing cash games at the WSOP, and was excited (to say the least!) to see a poker thread on my favorite forum.

Do you play live poker? What game(s)?

I do play live and was in New Orleans during the WSOP tourneys there recently. Locally, I play FLH sporadically. In Vegas, I play mainly the cash games at Caesar's and when "just play'in around" I play minimum stakes at Bally's, both NLH. I can play all poker variations (I'm in a Badugi tournament today) though not well and Omaha and Razz can give me a headache. These gambling junkets are completely comp'ed..trip, stay, gourmet restaurants (Ramsay's) and entertainment (Absinthe).. etc. I will only say that blackjack is a good game to learn.


For the record, the live gaming is for entertainment only and are mini-vacations. Whatever we lose/lost would have been the cost of the trip anyway...and unlike many who boast of their wins, I have lost badly many times but lived to fight another day. Regarding online gaming, this is a researcher's (hacker's) paradise. AI, crypto-currencies and mining, profiling...are a few things of interest and they are all based on the application of many forms of mathematics all parsing to boolean logic.

[VBCurtis]

Originally Posted by Dubslow

:O

Did you do well? How was it? Did you watch the main event while you were at it or is that not how that works?

The main event is a couple weeks away, but other than timing that is exactly how it works. Walkways run down the middle both vertically and horizontally in the tournament room, and are open to the public. I didn't happen to go to the Rio this trip, as I chose limit holdem for this trip and all the limit games were at Bellagio. I've gone this time of year for ~10 years, and taking in the enormity of 200 poker tables in one room at the Rio is awe-inspiring.

I played mostly $9/18 this trip, and had one of my worst results in Vegas at -$500 or so. I'm a bit out of practice, so I decided not to play my former "usual" game of $20/40.

Mr Waltos-
Badugi!? I'd like a tournament of that, as I only know the fundamentals of the game so I'm still a little uncomfortable with it in mixed games. Playing a weird tourney like that really helps with seeing how others handle unusual spots and strengthening a strategic grasp of a new game.

I've played a WSOP Stud-8 event, which was an expensive way to discover that crushing local $4/8 and small tournies in a game is a false sense of skill compared to people who actually know what they're doing. On the bright side, the tourney experience plus some study gave me the balls to play the 15/30 and 20/40 OE games in LA, which have been pretty profitable.