What about the living on the streets, having lousy teeth and yelling at randoms part?

Math was my god, and I was a monk.

I don't recommend the first, unless you can make it to Hawaii. The second has something to do with your insane anti-fluorination stance over there. And the last is one of the best parts of being drunk, also a benefit of the elderly.

You're a goddamn communist, Foldn.

So what happened?

I was browsing the gambling section at Foyles one day, when I came across a book on card-counting at Blackjack. I became so engrossed that I would up writing a program in BASIC on an Amstrad 486 to see if it worked. When I'd finished it, I realized that not many people would have the skill to do that, so maybe there was a career out there for me as a programmer. I then applied to various universities for a place on an MSc conversion course (I have an undergrad degree in philosophy) and, to my surprise, an elite university offered me a funded place. Unbeknownst to me, however, they ran two MSc courses: one where they taught you how to program, and the other where they let the researchers loose on you. Needless to say, I was on the second. By a combination of hard work and a fortuitous alignment of circumstances, I then got a funded place to do a PhD there. I was then raised by constructivists, and it was only years later as a post-doc that I began to see through their delusions. Too late; outcast from an area that never attracted much money anyway.

I've got my own ideas, which about once every 18 months I make progress with. I'll be alright when it happens again.

[QUOTE=lastcardcharlie;44979480]I'm losing faith in everything. Maybe it's a phase. What comes next?[/QUOTE]

Mass Cannibalism. And the Kansas City Royals will win the World Series.

Minor details in the whole scheme of the Universe.

You should listen to more Jazz Music.

Great movie! We're all raised communist.

My ideal kind of society is one where we all cooperate to leave each other alone to be as free as possible most of the time! Unless its for work, problems, survival, fun, games, family, friends, romance, sex, education, adventure etc. However the time you spend alone or with people you choose strictly on your own is always substantial even if still engaged in other social processes. The undesirable and necessary ones must also be a declining function of time, a measure of progress.

I love humanity but leave me alone damn it unless i want otherwise!


So if you think this is communism gl with that, its the ultimate form of healthy-ethical individualism (the thing that capitalism wanted to celebrate/help but lost its way because it forgot the healthy-ethical part that makes it sustainable) where you only deal with others as desired or logically needed to improve the range this individualism can reach because we are best in numbers and cooperating and social animals in nature for many (but not all ) but it all happens so that the individual is happy, fulfilled, enhanced, not so that some bs external state system is supported at the cost of private citizens and their core freedoms. Never that. For every freedom you sacrifice, due to necessity, multiple ones must be generated with ultimate goal to even recover the originally sacrificed as much as possible.

You've got to create some meaning for yourself. Mine has recently become to taste almost all whiskies in the world, in the form of miniatures and samples. I'm scanning all the different whisky sites. Fascinating. You can go deep into something, dream about all the distilleries, the history, note the unnecessariness with pleasure. How many distilleries can I already remember, which of them at least look familiar? Is this all a big bluff?

It's called a hobby.

I've got an idea. Let's go to Vegas and break the game or get our knees broken trying!

What would be the egde a computer would have in blackjack (playing vs dealer remembering 100% all cards dealt so far) vs a casino using standard rules with 2 decks and 60% before shuffling again? Has this been done before just to see how far such game can go with a savant player or a team of players that each remembers only 2 or 3 cards and they combine results with some signals or talk? How do casinos plan to deal with futuristic google glasses players that can get the info to a remote computer by simply observing the game?

They ban the winners.

Yes but you still have an edge until they ask you to stop and that can take hours or days even, if you are creative in betting. But this is another issue. I just want to see how far one can go theoretically if it has ever been calculated.

They can already have you step away if you've got your cell phone out. So I don't see why they wouldn't just tell you to take the glasses off.

Additionally realize this; They cannot accuse you of anything if you simply bet the same amount every bet but only modify strategy because its very subtle/tough to follow what someone is doing over hundreds of bets (ie how they modify it).

This is only a theoretical problem out of curiosity though. Typical card counting methods will give you 1% or so i recall. When the conditions are ideal you have much larger edge so you bet more but they will notice that. So one may consider a side project how to mix their betting and even introduce slight errors here and there to be impossible to detect if spread over days. The problem is that nobody can recall all cards though and be able to also adjust strategy based on them at the spot without computer study/simulations.

So all i look for here is a theoretical study maybe of how far one can take this using any edge possible and all information. To not be detected afterwards is another issue of less importance to me for now. The glasses also over time will get so high tech that they wont look different than standard glasses and they cant ask you to take out your glasses if they dont look funny. But lets not get into technicalities like that here.

Nobody prevents a player that is not playing to observe a game (or to play always the same small bets just to collect data) and when its super advantageous a team of players to step in and play a few hands with huge bets each and then move to other casinos and do the same spreading the behavior so wide and using different looks each time that they cant be identified as the same player because it is all so sporadic. At some point in the match one may have 55-54%% for example. I dont know if that is true. But if it is you do not need to play thousands of bets a month to see profits.All you need is an information system.

I am not looking to beat the casino here from a practical perspective. I just want to understand the edge potential.

google contact lenses and google lasic wont be far off. It's hard to believe it hasn't been done anyway. A team took on roulette with computers in their shoes iirc.

The response as always will be to modify the game, shuffling and numbers of decks increases to meet the demands of action seeking losers and 'cheating' winners. Electronic cards shuffled every hand from infinite numbers of decks would become the norm if it was needed. The very idea of a deck of 52 cards is pretty meaningless in BJ anyway, its just historical.

Yes they can always change the rules for that purpose and its interesting they havent already, although 1 deck is probably hard to find. However it seems a 2 deck 60% penetration is available now. And in that format you can indeed get some substantial deviations from basic strategy it would seem. So i wanted to take the question to its theoretical extreme vs a savant real life computer player lol. Knowing that number is great because its an upper limit you can always quote.

----------------
Non free will signature. 2+2 community, BruceZ, 2+2 leaders etc, all with your choices give back BruceZ and others you "chase" away to this discussion and the ones that will follow. We are all in this interactions learning game together.


(i always add this sign when i view that any thread i participate could use BruceZ as a source of ideas and information. It is not a casual reference. It is indeed a point made when i see it fit. And if we all did that maybe a point would be made before its indeed too late.)

Hard way to make an easy living.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/34...thing-1469856/

Right, i know these things more or less. This was a purely theoretical quest to see if anyone has ever calculated the ideal exploitation process under some friendly deck conditions.


Also you do not need to be caught like ever!!!!

Those that get caught are reckless!

All you need is to play a particular type martingale that is of course not effective in coin flips or worse kind of games but works for strong plus EV environments. That can still pass as gambling and someone that is destined to get destroyed and a good source of profit for casinos until they find out the truth (they never do because it takes forever to monitor your bottom line, how can they do that with the game having such volatility anyway?).


Ask yourself what is the EV of trying martingale in 53% edge situations if you satisfy proper Kelly ideas for the overall money you spend per campaign (session).

What is the EV of doing 1-1-2-2-4-4-8-8-16-16-32-32 (say 8 and 16 and 32 only when it keeps getting better in count and you have lost the hand before maybe for even more confusion) when the count is hugely advantageous? Or staying in big bet mode after martingale (instead of back to 1) until you come ahead in bets to a destined target when count is advantageous. Then drop even when count still ok to confuse them more.

You can play always same size as well for ultimate boring player confusion, even negative deck spots, but with modified strategy in how you play to reduce the cost and suddenly, as the count gets decent, start growing the bets in a martingale like sense after losses. Or completely remain at fixed bet size.

Or you can play always martingale strategies up to a point and only go crazy in big plus EV spots. It wont be as obvious then! Plus you can change tables where friends play small bets when it gets real good and then stay there even when it gets bad reducing bet size, less obviously fast. You can even do nothing and play flat bets or a 1-2-4 system when in good count. They will never find you out then. Nobody can keep track of your modified strategy unless they put someone one you for hours watching you who knows the game details well. Well gl with that happening if there are other players too at the table and you switch places often enough.

But i am not interested in this for profit (moreover the above arguments to suggest its doable and still boring enough for me to not do it because near term volatility rules that game and it would take weeks of thousands hands per day to show the progress behind the numbers lol) only to understand the ultimate barrier.

I made it to France alive and well. I will post updates in the blog forum , I started a thread there before i left. So far great!

Surrender, Zeno.

I'm looking for interview advice regarding a technical (aerospace engineering) job. Would that be an appropriate topic for this thread?

A drunk astronaut?

I believe we specialize more in drunk aspernauts

Passed driving test today. First time and all. I don't know why it's such a rush, but it is.