I’ve been playing poker for the last few weeks with the guys from church. We’re playing the Texas Hold’em variety, and have a 3 dollar buy-in. It is a lot of fun, and a good excuse to drink beer during the week. But I had some thoughts on that.
I think I can use Glynn as a point man for a stastical model to determine how to bet. He bluffs and has cards in a way that could lend itself to creating a stastical method.
To test this I’m working on a spreadsheet that will let me keep track of patterns in peoples betting and the cards on the table, and the winning hands. I think that I can use this, and a little bit of my people skillz to formulate a really good strategy for how to bet. I’m just getting the hang of betting, and I haven’t bluffed too much yet, but I’m working up to that. I think w/ a little bit of a stastical method I could refine the strategies I’m using quite a bit.
Ultimately though, it doesn’t matter if the cards don’t fall your way. Once this last time, I had an Ace and a King, and glynn put all his money in before we saw any other cards. Well, I didn’t think there was a strong likelihood of him having better cards than I did, so I called. He had an Ace and a Jack. So he was screwed if he didn’t get a Jack. He got the jack on the River (the last common card delt for those who aren’t hip to the lingo). And that is life, I lost over half my chips and went out not long after that. So in the end my stastical method will only work as long as people don’t bluff often….except Glynn….and if I get the cards to play.
I’m looking for cars, and that is kinda fun. I just need to find a place to cut me a good rate for a fairly small loan.
Other than that things are busy getting ready for our first official public service. Feb 13th is the big date. We got sound equipment, and I’m ready to just buy any projector that is bright, cheap and fairly portable. The two we’ve been looking at are around 5 to 7 lbs, so that isn’t too bad. And one is 1700 lumens and the other is 2000. I think we’re just going to end up getting the 2000 lumen one, but my only reservations are that it is refurbished, and it is the heavier of the two. I’ve seen refurb. stuff be really hit or miss. A guy I work with just got a crap motherboard refurbished, but I’ve seen other people get good stuff.
Well, that is all for now….except I need more ideas for bachelor parties where there are no strippers, the bachelor can’t drink or smoke, and that I can invite Christians and non / marginal Christians and still have fun. Besides hooters that is….we’re going there….and perhaps somewhere else w/ better selection of fine steaks, but I still need to ask Dirk about that. And, I found out two days ago I’m the best man at Dirks wedding…..I was a little concerned, not because I was soooo wanting to be the best man, but because Travis didn’t sound like he wasn’t going to be performing any best-man duties when I called him, and that made me nervous. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really stoked to be the best man, but I wasn’t going to press the issue if he picked Travis (his brother) over me. Just like how I know Dirk wouldn’t have flipped if I picked Aaron instead of him for my wedding, but in the end, Dirk hadn’t asked or told me (he could of told me cuz I wasn’t going to say no) with any certainty yet. I figure I thought I knew, or it just slipped his mind. All-in-all I’m amused by this….it is very characteristic of our interactions over the past 5 years.
Now I’m really done.
kelley says
Yeah… I always get burned at Texas Hold-em. Bob and I have been playing and drinking whiskey and beer and stuff with some folks in his lab pretty regular lately. I’ve found that I my personal preference is when nobody has a great two cards to start with so I get to see a free (well nearly-free , less the ante) flop. And even then, I almost never make it to the turn or the river b/c I hate losing money. I have also concluded I don’t like Diamond Baseball, although I do sometimes win at that.
The game I’ve figured out how to clean up on though is Anaconda. I love that game, partly because it’s fun, but mostly because I win at it. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a high-low game, where you ante and then are dealt 7 cards to start. You pass three cards right, and then two cards right, and then one card right (although you could mix it up with left or accross or something – dealer decides) going for the highest or lowest five cards you can get. The lowest hand available is 2,3,4,5,7 (not quite a straight, called “the nuts”) and the highest hand is obviously, a royal flush. Then, you arrange your cards in the order you want them revealed (each player turns over a card simultaneously), and a round of betting ensues with each revealed card. Pot is split hi/low.
Perhaps the coolest thing about this game is you really do see 4 of a kind or straight flushes or the nuts, because with all of the passing, you get a better statistical chance of actually accruing those hands. Full houses are common, and then sometimes it comes down to the last card before you know if your full house will beat theirs (the three cards determine rank). The funniest is when somebody is playing like they have a straight flush and they really have the nuts (they were suddenly going low when you thought they were going high) or when someone arranged their reveal order to bluff like they have a royal flush when they don’t have jack and are secretly still in b/c it appears nobody has the nuts.
Ok. Enough poker. I am glad someone else is enjoying the goodness of it regularly as well. One thing though that they’ve got me pegged on – I dont’ raise. I don’t know why. It’s not in me I guess. Very very odd. I’ll stay in with the best of them, but I won’t raise the pot myself.
jeff says
One interesting correlation is that if I am there, I take everyone elses money. That is, 100 percent of the time that I play poker at Caleb’s, I take other people’s money. There are no exceptional cases. The condition of “me being there” is completely coextensive with the condition “I take other people’s money”. If “A” represents “me showing up”, and B represents “me taking people’s money”, we can affirm that the conditional statement “if A then B” is, as yet, a thoroughly reliable assertion.
I wonder what kind of conclusions we can draw?
😉
j
BigCat says
You better watch out, cuz I’m up and coming, and starting to figure this game out.
Soon I will show that A doesn’t not absolutely imply B…just give it time.
dreum says
I completely forgot to tell you that you were the best man. doh… I decided this a long time ago (even before you’re wedding). Have fun playing poker. I suck at it since I’m horrible at bluffing. I basically have to play my hand and not the other people, which you can’t do if you want to be great.
rschmit says
For a really good time, read all the Hume, Kant, and Lewis stuff on causation. I had a crash course in it today in Philosophy of Science. My head still hurts. But basically you find out that A can’t cause B, they can only be related. Well, at least that’s one of the theories (Hume’s to be exact). The other guys try to say Hume’s an idiot and reason around it. I found Lewis’ stuff to make the most sense.
Fucking causation.
kelley says
Hey. You’ll appreciate this funny bit that happened Saturday. We play dealer’s choice, and quite a few of us like Anaconda, so I don’t know who dealt it. Bob gets dealt 3 aces, and then is passed a fourth. But his four aces don’t carry the table. There is a straight flush of clubs, 7 high that also doesn’t take the table. The table is taken by a straight flush of spades, 8 high. Bob stayed in, because you just don’t fold with 4 aces, and kept hoping that either of the other two were bluffing. Unfortunately, they weren’t and that pot was worth about $8 by the end, and it was split $4 and $4 by the high/low hands (consequently, the low hand was someone with three queens, bluffing a full house but really had an eight and a ten when it was all over – everyone else thought that the two straight flushes were bluffing and had the nuts). Dude, Bob was pissed.