Speaking of podcasts…

Phil Gordon is doing a podcast as he plays the 2005 World Series of Poker, including interviews with fellow players, and commentary in between levels about how he’s playing and where he screwed up. Check it out if you’re into that sort of thing.

8 Comments

  1. Dave Z
    Posted July 14, 2005 at 5:40 pm | Permalink

    He is the poker guy.
    Have you seen any of the discovery channel’s stories of these engineering students playing poker and blackjack to beat Las Vegas? I wonder if they are podcasting mini-shows?

  2. Posted July 14, 2005 at 7:30 pm | Permalink

    “the poker guy” - uh, yeah.

    Haven’t seen the Discovery Channel thing, but I don’t think you technically are trying to “beat Vegas” in poker, just other people. Blackjack is a much more odds-based game, in which you are actually playing against the house, so I could see that.

    Most casino games (including blackjack) are pretty boring though, since it’s basically just odds, where if you want to have the best chances possible, there are predetermined strategies that will mathematically always be the best (in the long run). Poker is different in that you are playing both the odds and the people, which makes for much more interesting strategy and varied game play.

  3. Dave Z
    Posted July 15, 2005 at 3:26 pm | Permalink

    There are groups of students from MIT that did the math probability for counting and betting than betting large bets for blackjack and took out much money. There are new splinter groups off that.
    The other night they showed some guy from sunnyvale in the 70s. He had developed a computer that was in his shoe and clothes to let him know when to bet larger bets. At the time it wasn’t illegal. He was afraid of getting beat up in the back room though. Couldn’t finish the show and dont know what happened.
    Re: boring - one reason they give you free drinks.

  4. Dave Z
    Posted July 15, 2005 at 4:26 pm | Permalink

    the mit students were able to be accurate, not perfect, even when the house was using 6 decks of cards.

  5. Posted July 15, 2005 at 4:57 pm | Permalink

    Dave Z’s talking about counting cards, much different than just playing the odds and not something you can do with poker since you shuffle after every hand.

  6. Posted July 15, 2005 at 7:43 pm | Permalink

    Yes, I wasn’t thinking of counting cards, although even that is still playing the odds, it’s just that you are paying more careful attention and adjusting the odds as you go, and adjusting your bets larger when you’re more likely to win and smaller when you’re not. You still will lose most hands, but over time your big winning bets over smaller losing bets (if you are good at counting) will put you in the positive. At least from what I know about counting.

  7. Dave Z
    Posted July 15, 2005 at 9:03 pm | Permalink

    these guys had it down to a science and sent teams out every weekend for a semester. interesting ture story.

  8. Dave Z
    Posted July 15, 2005 at 9:03 pm | Permalink

    it was an interesting true story also

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