Interesting…a similar method (detecting bias in the roulette wheel) was (supposedly) used by the late Dr. Albert Hibbs, while a Caltech grad student. He made a lot of money, until the pit boss threw him out. now the wheels are checked for balance every wheel, so you probably cannot do this today.
Is that the case where he observed 1000s of spins and noticed the biased (out of balance) wheel?
Not that it adds much to the discussion -
But I went back to the casino where I used to deal a while back - and most of their roulette wheels are now fully electronic.
And they used continuous shuffling machines for Blackjack.
I (used to be able) to count cards - it’s not that hard if you practise.
If you really want to beat the casino, and have the tech skills to do it - I’d be going for laser measurement of roulette and then a signalling system. Bet by segments - keep you play relatively small ($2-3K in a single session isn’t going to attract much notice) and move around casinos a lot.
I’d estimate that if you go down on a busy night, spend 2-4 hours and then leave, then don’t come back for 6 months you are going to be able to take this sort of money out of a casino pretty regularly - an income of $5k a week, for 2 or 3 nights would be very achievable (so you still hold down a “normal” job)
I’m in a pot two nights ago with two other people. I have pocket fives on a 3 4 6 rainbow board with two diamonds. Obviously I’m going to play this hand very aggressively. One villain finally ends up shoving on me, and it’s a trivial call: I was getting over 4:1 in pot odds, and really only need 2.5:1 or so with my 10 outs - any 2, any 7, any 5 should almost certainly give me the best hand (only hands I’m really doing poorly against are 57 / 5x with one or two diamonds).
My read is Villain has a big pocket pair (10s, Jacks) he’s protecting against, in which case his shove isn’t necessarily horrible if I was purely on a draw (it’s still sub-optimal, since his stack is so short, he ends up giving me a good price to draw out on him).
But no, villain had JQo. JQo!! No diamond. After the hand he’s complaining to his neighbor that he ‘had to shove’ because he ‘thought I was on a draw’.
I can’t even begin to explain how awful his play is given the action in the hand and effective stacks.
Trust me - poker is where you can make money in casinos.
Well, maybe he had reason to. You don’t say how you were playing aggressively. (ETA: Forget it. If you were demonstrating ANY sort of aggression, he was being an idiot.)
But what I’m wondering is why the hell the guy was in there with QJo to start with. That’s the kind of hand that’s just good enough to get you stacked.
I’m reminded of something a guy on twoplustwo once told me about the really bad play at the CNE; “it’s not that I can’t put people on a hand. I can’t even put them on a thought.”
From early position no less. I mean, at least from late position you can sometimes use a hand like QJ to hammer weak/tight players…but that hand is just *garbage *from up front.
The guy in the hand above made about six monster terribad mistakes, but probably the fundamental flaw was not putting me on a range of hands other than ‘a draw’. He wasn’t incorrect in thinking I was on a draw (I tend to play both my monsters and my draws pretty hard), but in that case, there’s no way he can do anything but fold. What were the most likely draws? A-high flush, K-high flush, some 5x hand - which would most likely be a hand like 45 or 56 (I wasn’t playing near loose enough for him to expect me to be playing gappers) *or maybe *A5s.
In other words - even if the draws brick out, he still most likely loses to Ace-high/King-high or a pair of 4s or 5s. So he’s basically hoping to hit a J or a Q that’s not a diamond - only four outs - and even then he might lose.
I mean, I was like, thanks for the moniez, but it was just head-shakingly bad. And he’s a regular to boot.
Um…No. First of all, if there are two diamonds, it’s not a rainbow board. Second, if you hit your five it puts a four card straight on the board. You should have discounted those two ‘outs’ by 50%. Second, only the 7 gives you a reasonable straight, but one that can still be beaten if your opponent is holding 78 or 68 or 89 - all hands that loose players will play - especially if they are suited.
Finally, with two diamonds on the board, if you’re not holding the five of diamonds one of your fives could cost you the pot even if it makes your set. And with two diamonds on the board there’s a possibility for runner-runner diamonds to beat you if either player is holding a diamond.
Another factor (more important in a no-limit game) is whether your hand remains playable if a scary card lands. If you are up against aggressive players, what are you going to do if a 2, 3,4,6,7 or 8 lands and a player pushes his stack in? Are you going to call with what now looks like a hand that could be drawing dead?
I’m not saying you played the hand wrong - these situations often call for aggressive play. What I’m saying is that your belief that you had 10 ‘outs’ is overstating the quality of your hand in this situation.
On the other hand, your opponent could easily have been semi-bluffing with something like two large suited connectors, especially since he probably felt that a 3,4,6 flop was unlikely to have hit you, since you seem to be a good player and he may know that. So it might have been worth a call just on the belief that you may have had the best hand.
What was the basis for your read? Did he raise before the flop? What position was he in? Connectors are more likely than pocket pairs.
Yeah, if he had a stack that wasn’t big enough to take away your draw odds he probably made a mistake, but not necessarily - like I said, if you have a reputation as a tight player that’s exactly the kind of flop that someone might choose to put a move on you. I assume you would have folded AK, AQ, KQ, KJ, QJ, TJ, 9T, or 89 to that raise? Depending on your position and your reputation at the table he could easily have put you on any of those hands. That you happened to have 55 was just bad luck on his part. That’s pretty much the only hand you could have been playing that gave you a big draw. You were more likely to be holding suiting overcards or perhaps a pair. And since you put him on a fairly big pair, if you had had anything but 55, he might have gotten you to lay down the best hand.
Of course, you didn’t describe all the action, so you could be right. Maybe there’s stuff that happened that should have had him already out of the pot or at least suspecting that you had a good hand. But from what you’ve described, I’m not seeing the awfulness.
And that’s exactly the kind of error weak players constantly make. How many average poker players do you know who will lay down QJ before the flop, regardless of the number of raises?
I hate games like that, even though they are profitable. It forces you to play tight and play the math. There’s no room for the ‘fun’ skills like hand reading, semi-bluffing, etc. You just have to sit there and wait for the nuts, and hope to get paid off.
One thing though - all this applies to ring games. If you’re playing heads-up or very short handed, it’s a whole 'nuther ball of wax. The skills and techniques required for heads-up play are just completely different. It’s no longer about the cards at all - it’s about game theory and the psychology of the other player. I have a friend who is one of the best heads-up players in the world, and watching him take apart his opponents is amazing. The cards don’t matter.
I made the mistake of playing him once, and he took $1,000 off me in an hour. To me it looked like I was just getting very unlucky, but afterwards he described the cards he had and why he did the things he did,and I realized that I was just completely outplayed. His cards were no better than mine, but it sure seemed like every time I called him down he had the goods and every time I tried a move on him he’d come back over the top. I was just totally flummoxed.
That taught me a good lesson - know your limitations! I’m a mathematical player. I do well in ring games and tournaments. Short-handed is just not my game, although I do fine at it in tournaments because playing the chip stacks helps my math-geek mind, I guess.
Correct; don’t know why I wrote rainbow. There were two diamonds.
As you noted - I didn’t give the entire action of the hand or stack sizes. Villain is a standard weak/tight reg; never seen him get out of line or make any completely spewy plays. He had about 230 and made a standard pre-flop raise from EP (maybe UTG+1 or 2), several callers pre-flop including me; Villain made a standard c-bet on the flop, Villain 2 is only caller to me, (V2 covers V1, I cover both), and I raised, V1 shoved, V2 folds, I call.
And there’s a lot in the hand that will be hard to describe. History with the player, looking at the way he bet, table dynamics that night etc etc, so don’t know how useful it is go tear the hand apart. I will say I think the ‘four to a straight’ is completely irrelevant here, because not only do I have two blockers to the 5 in my hand, there’s just no chance in hell villain is doing this with a gutshot. Flush draw is possible, but I have the 5d in my hand. Hell, I was hoping he’s on a flush draw.
Wow, I don’t think it is, at all, and I think you’re too hung up on the ‘10 outs’ bit. IF villain has an over-pair, two-pair, pocket 3s or pocket 4s, then I’m behind, but I have 10 outs, and it’s a trivial call. IF villain is on a flush draw, I’m a pretty big favorite because * I already have a pair. *And if he’s on a gutshot with 78, then I’m so far in front that I’m not even going to put 78 in his range.
Pre-flop raise from EP, c-bet into multiple people, then jammed over a raise. Looked very much like an over-pair that was protecting against a draw. I was obv. hoping he was on a flush draw, but I thought it was very unlikely.
Re: the bolded part - um, huh? You’re asking if I was in V1’s spot with one of those hands?
OK, now you’re talking crazytalk. As I noted - if villain put me on a draw, then the range of hands V1 should put me on start with hands like 45, 56, maybe A5, plus the gadzillion flush draws, including all the suited connectors and A-high and K-high flushes. His JQo is behind almost -all- those hands. And that’s before we even consider I might have a big pocket pair myself, or pocket 3s, 4s, 5s or 6s. And he has to consider the first caller in the hand as well.
When his c-bet gets called then raised, he’s toast. Fold, fold fold. I can’t even invent a hand that makes his shove with JQo there even remotely profitable unless I was the biggest nit in the world that was going to fold everything but the absolute stone-cold nuts.
I will. But point taken.
There’s a lot of truth to this. I found playing the CNE absolutely dreary, and although it was easy to win money there I gave up eventually. It makes you want to start mixing it up with leaky play.
Now, mind you, it’s very hard for me to say how much of the dreariness was the game, and how much was the “Casino,” which was simply a bunch of card tables set up in a convention center building, staffed by lousy dealers, and featuring players who were, shall we say, of frequently questionable social graces. It was depressing.
DragonAsh: You could well be right about all of that, given the information you had. Like I said, I was speaking theoretically without all the information you had, and YMMV. I wouldn’t dream of telling someone they were categorically right or wrong without knowing what they know. Hell, I’ve played against people where I’d lay down AK to their early position raise, and others who would get much looser calls. Some players you can’t dream of bluffing, and others you can make crazy bluffs because they’ll drop their hand at the first sign of trouble unless they’ve got the nuts. So don’t take it personally.
RickJay: I don’t think you’re an average player. You might not be a pro expert (though you might be), but just from reading what you’ve written on poker I think you’re certainly better than average. Besides, you said you’d lay down QJ before the flop, and I said average players don’t do that. QED (-:
I hear you about the depressing players. That’s actually why I stopped playing poker for a living. I just could stand being around the people any more. Some of them were very nice, but there were always jerks around. Or nice people who become jerks when they go on tilt. And if you get a rep as a ‘good’ player, some of them would get in your face every time they laid a beat on you. And as a pro, you have to just smile and nod while the guy next to you is blowing smoke in your face and the guy on the other side is telling you how to play the game. It got real old after a while.
Bingo. That’s the real reason pros don’t put any effort into learning to ‘clock’ a roulette table: It would be incredibly hard if it’s even possible, and the casino’s countermeasure is ridiculously simple: just don’t let anyone post bets after the ball is set in motion. If anyone ever did figure out how to beat the wheel, the game would change overnight and the exploit would be gone.
That’s happening in blackjack, but at a much slower pace because the countermeasures against counters (more decks, less penetration) slow the game down and annoy the other players and cut into the house’s hourly take, and automatic shufflers are often disliked by even the players who don’t know what they are doing. They see it as somehow inauthentic. That’s slowly changing, it seems to me. The more people get used to automatic shufflers, the more of them you’ll see.
The other reason blackjack survives as a beatable game is because to some extent it’s in the house’s interest. There are far more people who think they can count cards than there are people who can do it successfully, and even those ones provide a good source of word-of-mouth about how blackjack can be beaten. And if they’re low-limit gamblers, they don’t win much anyway.
What the casinos really fear are the big pro teams. I don’t know how many of them are left any more, but a team with a $500,000 bankroll can do a lot of damage to a casino’s bottom line before they’re spotted or move on.
Playing as often as I do, which is one to three times a week (it depends - if I’m home I don’t play much, since I’d rather spend time with my family, but on business trips I’ll find the local casinos and play a lot) it’s not that bad in a decent cardroom. You meet some nice people and friendly tends to get friendly in response. But 40-50 hours a week, yeah, I can see how it would start to really, really grate on me. I hate the whiners most of all.
Well, the other reason is simply that it’s a draw.
Imagine if the casino set up blackjack in such a way that ideal non-card-counting play was actually a break even proposition - in effect, the casino loses money by paying the dealer and for the floor space. You could still make an argument that the presence of such a popular card game will still draw enough people in to get the money out of their pockets in other ways. People who win $180 at blackjack will often not head out the door but instead will pony it up at Thee Card Poker or Misissippi Stud or some other game with a 5% house edge if you play it right (and I have watched people play Mississippi Stud, and they certainly do not play it right.) And of course they’ll stay in the hotel… and eat the food… and buy the kitsch, and watch the shows.
Hell, the casino is really just trying to get people’s asses in front of the slot machines. Let Ted win a few bucks if his wife Betty is doing to drop $350 into the “Ghostbusters” slot.
Off topic but as I was reading this post, the show Psych happened to be on and it’s a poker-related episode.
Young Shawn (grade school age), who has an eidetic memory, is playing poker and is caught by his dad Henry: