Most gamblers are so dumb.

The BBQ Pit
61

Don’t anyone take this the wrong way, but it’s got to be said:

Don’t educate the gamblers.

There are many reasons for this. First, it’s rude. They are gambling for their own reasons. Entertainment, unless they are problem gamblers. To them, the ‘systems’ and old wives tales are part of the fun. Not everyone is there to eake out every drop of expectation.

Second, it’s the bad gamblers that allow you to play a winning game. If no one sucked at blackjack, there would be no room for card counters. If every poker player read Sklansky and Malmuth, it’d be a lot harder to play the game.

The worst two kinds of players at a blackjack table are the ones who get abusive when you ‘take their card’ or ‘take the dealer’s bust card’, and the amateur experts who have to tell everyone at the table how to play.

The best advice I can offer for casino etiquette: Keep your mouth shut, and mind your own business. Do NOT, EVER, get involved in someone else’s gambling. You will NOT be liked for it. I learned this through experience. What happens if you stopped some guy from putting his bankroll on black because you explained to him that the wheel has no memory - only to watch black come up? Think he’ll thank you for your advice?

When I first started counting cards and playing blackjack for a living, there were times when I violated this rule. And I always regretted it. The nice old guy next to you triples his bet when the count is -5, so you whisper, “Might want to pull that bet back. Trust me.” - then he does, gets a blackjack, and will never forgive you. And of course, yapping about your counting strategy is the fastest way to get punted from the casino for counting.

This goes triple for poker. NEVER complain about another player’s play, and NEVER offer advice on how to play the game. It’s simply unacceptable. If the fish across the table really wanted to learn to play ‘properly’, he could pick up a book. He’s not there to get lectured.

That said, bad gamblers can drive you nuts. No doubt about it. Especially when the loudmouth at the other end of the table throwing out nonsense advice is winning like crazy, while you’re playing solid, conservative cards and getting your ass handed to you. The impulse to say something, to let the other clown know who the real expert is, can be overwhelming. But don’t do it. Discipline is key.

62

Anyone who is serious about learning poker would do well to print out Sam Stone’s advice. When I am playing for money, I keep my mouth shut. I used to play a lot more than I do now and lost my temper a couple too many times so I cut way back. The idiots can make you crazy. I’m just now slowly getting back into playing again with a fresh perspective.

Haj

63

Not to detract from your good advice, but if you tell him not to play on black because the wheel has been coming up black, you’re just as guilty of the gambler’s fallacy as he is.

64

No, you told him not to put his whole bankroll on black, because it’s just as likely that red will come up.

65

Out of curiosity, do casinos allow customers to make side bets with other customers?

I recall reading in one of Richard Feynman’s books about how excited he was to meet Jimmy the Greek and ask him how he succeeded, since his mathematical training told him that making a living gambling in a casino was impossible. Jimmy told him that he never actually played the casino games; he’d make side bets related to the games with other gamblers (“I’ll bet he can’t make a 7 or 11 on this roll”), but always making bets that were in his favor. Once he made a name for himself, people would start making bets with him that they knew were against them, just for the chance to say they played (and possibly beat) Jimmy the Greek.

66

This makes no sense to me. This particular way of covering the board isn’t particularly good. The five bet, in particular, is one of the worst bets in roulette. It pays out 6:1 at 6.66:1 odds (whereas a straight red/black bet pays of 1:1 at 1.05:1 odds.) The dozen bets also payoff less (2:1 at 2.17:1 odds).

When all is said and done, you have a clear negative expectation from this system, moreso than just playing straight 1:1 bets.

Or am I missing something here?

67

One of my few memories of my Great Grandma Marie is of our visiting her in Las Vegas, where she lived. We had a birthday lunch for her in a restaurant, and it being Las Vegas, it had a casino attached. After lunch, she said to me and my brother, “Okay, wheel me into the casino.” We did, and stuck her in front of a one-armed bandit. She stuck in a quarter, pulled the lever, and won $20. “All right boys,” she said, “wheel me back out again.”

68

Well a few things:

  1. The biggest loss a Monte Carlo casino ever suffered was in the 19th century when a machinist discovered that a roulette wheel did not spin perfectly. I don’t know the mechanics of 19th century or modern day roulette wheels but basically it didn’t spin in a perfeclty circular motion, but it was damn close. But anyways this guy and a team of assitants inconspicuously observed the roulette wheel for several days and made some calculations to determine exactly what effect the crooked spin would have on their betting.

Eventually the guy crunched the numbers and came up with a strategy to exploit the wheel. He won huge for a few days, then the casino realized something was wrong with the roulette wheel in question so they moved it. The guy lost big the next day but then came back and won again, and again, and again when they moved it. The reason being there was a slight deformity (I think a scratch at a specific place) the man recognized on the “flawed” roulette wheel. Anyways eventually they realized the problem and found a way to stop it, the guy lost some of his winnings trying to find the right wheel again and then cut his losses and left with something like $300,000.

I can’t remember the exact story but it is interesting if you look it up somewhere, I probably got about 50% of the details wrong.

  1. Gamblers can be stupid but don’t confuse “real” poker players for “gamblers” or for stupid people. I don’t care if you have a Ph.D. in Math you’re not going to beat a seasoned poker player unless you’re also a very good poker player.

Poker is probably 70% strategy, 20% luck, and 10% intangibles, a small percentage of the intangibles is math knowledge.

The calculations involved in poker playing are simple division. You don’t need any college level mathematics training or even any formal mathematics training beyond the elementary level. You just need to get comfortable with dividing certain numbers by other certain numbers. And if you play enough poker you don’t even have to do the math, because the whole thing is really just learning a probability table which you’ll just learn with enough repetition of playing. And most of the really good poker players focus on a few games, the popular ones being 7 card stud, omaha, and Texas Hold’Em, with Texas Hold’Em being the cadillac of poker and definitely being the biggest focus (and also the one involving probably the easiest math.)

Anyways a player who knows his probabilities and can also play good poker strategy will beat the players who just play their hands and recognize possible hands of other players and then bet accordingly. But that isn’t how any of the good players play.

You’ll find a lot of near pro poker players in the bigger casinos (not so much in the ultimately shitty Atlantic City, but they are there.)

69

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Jaggers

70

The likelihood of a casino stomping on you for adjusting your bets at a $5 table is about one in a million. Maybe at a high stakes table, but a $5 table? It’s just not that big a concern to them. Let people have their little systems. Nine our of ten people who try to count cards screw it up.

And I agree with Sam. Blackjack players drive me crazy. I can’t play it anymore. If my wife and I were playing blackjack it was especially bad because she’ll more or less follow the system but sometimes take chances on the margins - stay on 16 against an 8, stuff like that. You can imagine the comments. Finally the last time I has to ask some dude if he wanted to step outside and make something of it. The dude backed down, but that’s enough bullshit for me.

71

A-freakin’-men. When I was first starting out playing poker I’d every once in a while make some comment about a stupid play someone made and the invariable response was a hearty “fuck you.” So now the only comment I may make is “nice hand.” The “you dumb son of a bitch” is merely implied.

72

I had to bitch slap a friend of mine last night for doing this at a hold’em home game. He was in some hand with another player, raised his superior pre-flop and flop cards, but got sucked out and lost. “Man, why don’t you respect my raises? I had you beat. You shouldn’t have even been in the hand!” I told him all right, the hand’s over, you lost, let’s just keep going.

About 3 hands later, I get KJ suited and raise. He calls, it’s me and him heads up. Flop is T 9 8 rainbow. Both check, next card, another 9. At this point I think he has nothing so I slightly out bet the pot, and he calls. River is a J, making the board J T 9 9 8. I bet large again, he calls, and flips over 7-2 off, which he says he played on a feeling. I told him if he wanted to play his cards “on a feeling” that was fine, but he better shut the fuck up when someone outdraws him.

Yeah, I love “nice hand.” Its implications can range from admiration to pure contempt.

73

No, it isn’t. You’re confused. The only bet that will be disallowed on a roulette wheel is an oppositional bet - for instance, between $100 on red and $100 on black, or $100 on each of bottom 12, middle 12, top 12. Such a bet is meaningless, so it should (and always will if they’re doing their jobs) be refused.

Covering the table with, say, a bet on black, a bet on the top third and a bet on green/first column is quite permissible.

74

But it is disallowed.

I was assuming the minimum bet was more than a dollar, because like I said, the casinos I have been to require you to bet the minimum on either the inside or the outside of the table. Or both if you have to.

75

Can someone translate this into English?

-friedo, whose favorite card game is Bullshit. :cool:

76

Even this bet…if you were a casino, why would you disallow it? 94.7% of the time you’re giving the punter back his money. 5.3% of the time, you keep his entire bet. Sounds good to me if I’m a casino. The only reason I could see it being disallowed is because it may slow down play a tiny bit. But there’s no economic reason I could see the casino for disallowing it. Like I said, I’d welcome it. With this bet, the casino is never losing any money, and making money one out of every twenty spins.

77

neuro’s friend lost a hand to a player who got lucky cards even though that player should have folded earlier (because he should have recognized the friend’s betting strategy as indicating good cards). Then a few hands later the friend held on to poor cards on a whim when he should have folded – essentially the same play.

–Cliffy

78

In a nutshell, he chose to play a very bad hand (a seven and a two which are not of the same suit offers the least mathematical odds of winning of all possible hold’em hands.) He put in money when it was doubtful he would win, but lucked out and won.

If you’re interested, here’s a web page with basic Texas Hold’em rules and some terminology.

http://texasholdem.omnihosts.net/pokerrules.html

79

Our protagonist gets a King and Jack of the same suit dealt as his two face-down cards. This is a decent opener.

Our protagonist and one other player are left in the game after the first round of betting. Everyone else has folded out. The flop (the first three community cards in a game of Hold 'Em) are dealt on the table. They are a Ten, Nine and Eight of different suits (“a rainbow”.)

Nobody bets after the flop, the turn (aka “fourth street,” the fourth community card in hold 'em poker) comes out and our hero bets a bit more than the amount in the pot. His opponent calls the bet.

Last community card (the “river”) is dealt on the table. Our hero has two pairs (Jacks over nines) and bets hard. Opponent calls (not sure why he didn’t reraise…perhaps afraid of a full boat?) and when the cards are turned over, he has a 7-to-Jack straight to beat two pair. A seven and two of different suits (7-2 off) is considered the worst hole cards in Hold 'Em poker. Basically, the opponent had junk in his hand until the river card, an 8, came out to fill his inside straight. Most precise poker players would not have played that hand to the flop, and certainly not have held on to see the fourth, much less fifth card.

However, it is called gambling, so I have no problem with anyone playing this way. Pisses me off to be rivered like that but, hey, you gotta have the balls (or stupidity) to stay in that long.

80

The first 3 community cards were T-9-8, the river card was a J. The other player had a 4 card run right at the beginning, only needing a J or 6 to complete the straight. Not such a bad start after all.