Remind me never to go to a casino. The last time I was in one was to meet my lawyer whose office was in ABQ for lunch so we could split the driving time. I almost choked from the cigarette smoke.
--- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Mon, Nov 8, 2021, 6:09 PM Prof David West <[email protected]> wrote: > SteveS, > > Your intuitions are spot on, based on my experience. Although casinos > can't ban cell phones, you may not use one at the table - must step away > and not have a hand in play. The do detect and ban all kinds of electronic > transmissions — radio to infrared and if you have such a transmitter on > your person you are quickly escorted out and banned. Receivers are harder > to detect except when actively 'receiving' but same result if discovered. > > Blackjack has a published 'standard game' written up years ago — casinos > will actually give you a copy — that maximizes the players odds of winning, > at least long term. However there are lots of tricks employed to remove > even that vestige of a chance, like mandatory side bets, and paying even > odds instead of 3/2 for a blackjack if your bet is below some minimum. > > Casinos are also masters of facial recognition — probably better tech than > anything any government (including China) or Facebook can command. Once > banned, even hookers, you will never get more than a few feet into a big > casino before security descends — even if disguised. > > Cash game poker, the house takes a standard rake — 10% up to a limit — of > the pot as table rent and dealers receive tips plus a minimum wage hourly > rate. Seniority determines which dealers get to service the high limit > (hence high tips) tables. > > Tournaments: house takes a portion of the entry fee and rest goes into > pot. Dealers get hourly rate, plus tips are collected from winners and > distributed evenly. > > Poker is luck plus very astute inter-personal observation. One of my > favorite players, Daniel Negreanu, has a Master Class that provides all > kinds of technical skill, but he does not play that way, instead seat of > the pants observations and table talk determine his strategy. Not that he > is unaware of or lacks the technical chops, they are just not the ultimate > arbitrator of play — mostly because all the others in tournaments at his > level have the same degree of technical skill. > > I did some consulting to casinos a few years back when Highlands was > trying to start a casino / hospitality program. I have never seen such > sophisticated and secure systems before or since. > > James Swain has a series of mystery books — first in series is *Grift > Sense* — with plots that center on one major attempt to defraud a casino > and many little side plots that reveal all the different attempts to > "cheat" casinos. Fun reads. > > A strategy for short term winning at roulette: bet 10 each on two of the > 1/3 sections of the table (rows or columns) plus one of the 1:1 sections > (even/odd, red/black, top half-bottom have of the board), plus 1 dollar on > the 0-00 line (half odds but both covered). However, this will not work if > you play more than a 10-15 minutes because it only takes 4.5 times when > none of your bets hit before you are wiped out. This apparently works > because the wheel DOES have a bias, mostly from the way the dealer sends > the ball around the wheel. Watch the history board for patterns that reveal > the ever so slight but real bias. > > davew > > > On Mon, Nov 8, 2021, at 3:51 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > > DaveW- > > Congratulations (or condolences) on your move to Vegas. Another reference > gave me the sense you might be at least *wintering* there. > > I probably would not be surprised (though shocked) by what Casinos can > ban. I didn't mean to suggest that they didn't have the self-granted > authority to ban cell phones, etc. but rather doing so would severely > impact their popularity among the hordes of marks who happily come to give > up their spare (or not so) cash to feed the bright lights and other > egregious displays of wealth. > > The Thomas Bass rendition of Farmer et alia foray into exploiting > manufacturing/wear biases in roulette wheels Eudamonic Pie > <https://www.thomasbass.com/the_eudaemonic_pie_1360.htm> suggests that > today the same effort would be "trivial" with nothing more perhaps than a > cell phone camera/computer observing from a shirt pocket. Of course, > those biases have long since been ameliorated one way or another I am > sure. > > You describe poker tables as the one place the house has no stake in the > game. I have to admit that i don't know who pays the rent/real-estate on > the table? Is there a flat-rate rake-off from every pot? Does the dealer > live on tips? > > When the Native Casinos opened here, my elderDotter was turning 18 and she > had a friend who thought she wanted to grow up to be a blackjack dealer so > they frequented the casino. I don't know that my daughter lost/spent much > money on it, but she never had any illusions that she could "beat the > house". I think their game was blackjack which I understand has the > built-in tiny but positive bias to the house (the house wins all ties by > convention?). I told both daughters as they approached college that I had > saved enough for them to be able to go through a BS/BA degree with only > part-time/summer work contribution (or healthy scholarship) on their > part. I suggested that I cash it out and take it to the casino and drop > it all on red or black (Roulette) with the understanding that their odds > ware just a smidge short of doubling their money vs losing it all (the one > green slot represents the house advantage?). The conceit was that if they > *won* they would then have enough cash to "coast" through college as *many* > of their peers seemed to be supported or else if they *lost* they could > forego any implied obligation of going to college. They both honestly > mulled it for at least 10 seconds before they rolled their eyes and said > "no way!". > > I'm curious how you feel about my claim that the inter-personal dynamic at > the poker table is in some sense more important than the technical skill? > My point in your case would be that you would be *at* a table where the > technical skill level was roughly even, right? Tournament play tends to > support that, right? As you advance, the skill level of your table-peers > increases until you either step up YOUR game or fail out of the game? > > I think of you as having a strong mix of technical approach, intuition, > and likely to engage in the social-emotional game as well (e.g. bluffing). > > - Steve > On 11/8/21 9:42 AM, Prof David West wrote: > > You would be surprised at what casinos can ban. Maybe even more surprised > at the, not necessarily AI, software tools they use to analyze video feeds > and pounce on any kind of statistically improbabilities. Most casinos in > Vegas have tools, like mandatory side bets with very low odds, that erase > the near equal odds of blackjack. > > The only 'safe' gambling is poker where the house has no direct interest > in the outcome. > > As DES stated, winning is a matter of patience and losing antes only, > until you get good hand and then skill of playing that hand for maximum > return — playing less worse than the others at the table. > > I am living in Vegas now and playing small tournaments fairly regularly. > > davew > > > On Sun, Nov 7, 2021, at 7:23 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > > > On 11/7/21 12:02 PM, David Eric Smith wrote: > > There must be some kind of “Back to the future” movie that can be made out > of this. Doyne Farmer in Vegas all over again, but with current-era AI in > place of toe-operated computers. > > Yah! Surely Casinos can't begin to restrict computers(phones)/earbuds, > etc. on the gaming floor. > > Strange coincidence that my sister went to Kindergarten with Vance Packard > (Norm's brother) in Silver City long before they all became eagle scouts > and then the Chaos Cabal. We moved away the next year and I doubt I ever > met any of them back then. I came to LANL just before (I think) Doyne > came... I seem to remember that Norm was there for a summer... and soon > came the (in)famous CA conference... As I remember it the game of > interest (aside from Life, what with Conway in attendance) was GO with a > lot of speculation about the implications of local vs global > "intelligence"... I was intrigued by HashLife and it's implications for > finding structure at many scales... I still hope for someone with more > follow-through than I have to implement a more redundant but "thorough" > space-time decomposition (an N-1xN-1 kernel over the 4 positions at each > "zoom" level). > > Regarding poker.. I played some low-stakes in college and saw there were > two things to take in: the main technical skill was to simply play less > poorly than the other players at the table and that was entirely > overshadowed by the social-engineering games of bluffing, etc. The very > simple game-theoretic aspect of not depleting your own stake before you > catch a "lucky streak" going your way was also a good understanding. I > played with my "boss" and a number of peers at the time and realized that > it was more about jockeying for position at work and drinking beer than it > was about winning/losing. I think the most I ever lost/won was on the > order of $20-$40 which in those days was roughly 1-2 shifts wages... a LOT > if I joined them weekly... too rich for my blood! I still feel that > *technically* playing well really means just playing less badly. > Blackjack being even more obviously so? > > > Yikes. > > > > On Nov 7, 2021, at 1:56 PM, Marcus Daniels <[email protected]> wrote: > > My inclination would be to invest in standoff biometrics (e.g. Eulerian > Video Amplification) and then find the best poker playing code. It ought > to be possible to automate and perhaps get rich in the process. > > *From:* Friam <[email protected]> *On Behalf Of *Eric Charles > *Sent:* Sunday, November 7, 2021 7:42 AM > *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group < > [email protected]> > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] lurking > > I DID read all the thread so far... but I'm curious how we got to one of > the starting points: "as cringy as it may be for some dork to be proud of > their Poker prowess" > > I am somewhat satisfied with my Poker mediocrity, certainly not proud of > it... but if I met someone who was ACTUALLY startlingly better than I am, > and they were proud of that, I wouldn't find it cringy. (Ditto in my other > hobbies, like Aikido.) > > I guess if I met someone who had a slight edge in their drunk-buddy home > games, and they were super proud of THAT, then i would find it cringy. > (Ditto someone who's the best Aikido student in their small dojo, but who's > obviously not more than that.) > > When I see academic work on game theory, it's usually of lower quality > than what the good poker players are doing these days. Mastering the game > is crazy hard, and being able to sit down and implement a coherent and > winning strategy for 40-80 hours a week is not easy. So... why would that > be cringe? > > > > On Wed, Nov 3, 2021 at 1:42 PM Marcus Daniels <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Ok, part of the story is knowing what is really needed for reproducibility > as a function of context. > With that, then there's the matter of how much control is afforded. Is > it programmable in predictable ways? > > -----Original Message----- > From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$ > Sent: Wednesday, November 3, 2021 8:20 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] lurking > > Yeah, I agree. But context is Queen. When the virus is created in the lab, > it's done with real stuff distilled from the soupy world. Given enough of a > difference in context, the robot may not be able to re-constitute the life > because the soupy world surrounding the robot doesn't have the real stuff > required. Such drastic context changes could be a result of translation > through space or time. E.g. trying to construct, on Mars, an organism > read/serialized on earth. Or e.g. trying to construct an organism read > millennia ago, millennia in the future. It's naive to talk about "science" > as if any given read-out formula thereby expressed is *complete*. Science > is abstraction to a large extent ... maybe not as abstracting as math, of > course. And science must remain "open" precisely because any formula it > expresses is suspect, perhaps incomplete. > > My favorite example is the magic brewing stick: > https://medievalmeadandbeer.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/scandinavian-yeast-logs-yeast-rings/ > It *was* scientific to lay out the magic stick as a critical element of > the brewing process, only to discover later that the stick isn't the > important part. > > On 11/2/21 2:39 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote: > > Even if that were so, viruses have been pulled from history or tweaked > and created in the lab. So we have a design specification, and the means > to make it. One could imagine a robot fabricating the close-to-the-metal > machine too. There is a story one can write down how it is done. If > there is no story, it is not science we are talking about, it is something > else. > > > -- > "Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie." > ☤>$ uǝlƃ > > > .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,zW4gfnCEw-aapRghh7ny5t03MK3Rq3qBzZPN7MbtdXMnfOx5f1a4BOQ_kZjD5TYhhqAHjIi_GHC0cpNID7QmaQdIJEXPdJvp7e2YSj9T-Q,,&typo=1> > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,42WSfvOtpfV6Y4enUg6wuYty46Wym2X7PyXyWfqyenKLBcLVwb23M3brrQe1Ygpnu_evLvZtxEK7bFkcshitkPmAQPpH4xkXwt8LCX6FnP03&typo=1> > archives: > 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f&c=E,1,iXEKOh_9svoFHHsCWA0TbwlILOY3IsE9XdwRauUf8WPQ2GKKbDvhQxuC-IF8qq3KWrXqLIrNxnxVLUtsqex7IJejGUSNsMIb8RUoRuriAA,,&typo=1> > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > > .-- .- -. - 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