7 Responses

1. Paco

   November 24th, 2009 at 1:58 pm

   1

   A famous mathematician used to ask half of his students to flip a coin 200 times and ask them to write a long list of heads or tails on a piece of paper. The other half of the class would simply fake the data. With an almost perfect acuraccy he could tell the real data from the fake data.
   ———
   The problem is that most people think that streaks are unnatural. In reality 200 coin tosses have a probability of over 96.531% of having a streak of length 6, a 79.928% probability of a streak of length 7, and a 54.187% of having a streak of length 8. People who are faking data tend to stop streaks at length of 4 or 5, whereas as real data has longer streaks. The professor simply divides the papers into two piles: those with streaks of 6 or more, and those with less. With a high degree of certainty he will have seperated the fake data from the real data.
   ===========
   Most gamblers fail to realize that playing a game without “streaks” (good or bad) is actually extremely unlikely. It is a major psychological tendancy of human beings that has been studied by neurologists and psychologists. People often get a streak and they either praise or berate God (or their luck).
   BTW: to calculate those percentages you really need to understand Markov Transition matrices. It’s not a simple calculation.

2. Helios

   November 24th, 2009 at 5:35 pm

   2

   In his book, ‘the origin of consciousness…’ Julian Jaynes dates the invention of gambling to the 2nd millenium BC – and it’s function was to make the gods answer questions. Mankind had no idea of mathematical probability – but they needed some indication of what was god’s will. So they cast the bones or whatever. I imagine the I Ching was also developed around this time – also peering into the night sky which resulted in astrology. All ways of getting an “answer” – no matter how stupid the method seems.
   And I’ve often wondered whether somebody who gambles ever developed past this point of imaging that god hangs at his shoulder and directs the dice or cards for some unknown purpose. It will be interesting to see your responses.

3. ZCT

   November 24th, 2009 at 6:55 pm

   3

   Nothing you’ve ever seen in a poker game is a demonstration of the laws of mathematics, variance and probability being thrown out of the window.
   You need to understand that all of these concepts exist only in the very long term. Billions of hands.
   Even if you get aces cracked five times in a row, it doesn’t mean the hand of God is punishing you.
   In basic terms crap happens. Just because on average over billions of hands a certain thing will happen a certain way a certain percentage of the time has little bearing on a single hand.
   When someone sucks out and gets the last card in the deck that can help him, it’s not like he is beating odds of one in a billion. It’s often far less than one in 47. And while it is unlikely that the bad beat will happen it certainly can.

4. Rocky

   November 24th, 2009 at 10:46 pm

   4

   All my poker friends refer to living poker gods. Poker is a game of probability and variance. Your experience makes you reach to dat stage. While playing its up to you how you can reduce your loss by playing some tricks or by knowing loopholes in it.
   Try to understand, Poker is a game of both Good & bad as it is played with extreme instabilities. Try to understand the whole concept behind it. Der are many sites available now days which can provide you expert level training.

5. pdq

   November 25th, 2009 at 1:58 am

   5

   No, no, and no!
   You need to understand that probability and variance INCLUDES the possibility of long stretches of a ‘cold deck’ or ‘hot streak’. In a lifetime of playing, EVERY poker player will get basically as many good cards as anyone else.
   The difference between winning players and losing players is that winning players know how to minimize their losses and maximize their wins. Winning players DO LOSE for many sessions in a row sometimes. They know that is part of playing poker. They also know that if they stick to their solid game, in the long run they will still win money year after year.
   If you are not winning more money every year than you are losing, it has nothing to do with God. It just means you still have more to learn.
   Leave God out of the casinos!

6. Matthew

   November 25th, 2009 at 5:40 am

   6

   god cant help you win at poker but i can
   check out
   http://www.quad4poker.com
   for legal non-devine ways to improve your poker

7. bluffrai

   November 25th, 2009 at 11:26 am

   7

   probably… i have a friend who doesnt believe in god but he sure blames him a lot when hes losing….
   maybe he was referring to the poker gods