Sep 21 2011

Kate Bosworth and How to Count Cards

Category: Uncategorizedpodrey @ 9:03 pm

At the work conference last week, one of the evening activities was a Blackjack demonstration by Jeff Ma, who was a member of the MIT Blackjack team. The team took a ton of money out of the casinos before they were caught, and who knows, there may even still be an MIT team operating. Ma told us that counting cards is not illegal, although the casinos hate to lose money, so if they find you out, they can and will ban you. All the Vegas casinos know who he is, and while he can go into a casino, he cannot play Blackjack.

He also told us a funny story about making the movie 21. He had a cameo in the movie as a dealer, and so he hung out with the cast. One night, they wanted to take him out to say thanks, and Kate Bosworth (she played Jill in the movie) thought it would be a great idea to go out to play Blackjack! He went in and tried to sit down. The floor manager immediately said, “Dude, come on, what are you doing?” He explained it was just for fun with friends, “Look – it’s Kate Bosworth!” The Floor said he was talk to management. He left, came back, and the verdict was, “Not only are you not allowed to play Blackjack here, but if Kate is playing, you cannot be within 30 feet of her!”

I’ve never played Blackjack for real before, and I wasn’t aware that there is something called Basic Strategy. So, Ma says that generally, any player who doesn’t know what they are doing will give up a 3% edge to the House. If you play Basic Strategy, it reduces the House edge to only .5%. There is a chart (available in Ma’s book) that tells you exactly how to play in all situations, and apparently you can even take that chart with you to the Blackjack table.

Counting cards was simple, yet difficult. Simply add +1 for all cards you see that are 2,3,4,5,6. Neutral cards are 7,8,9. Subtract -1 for T,J,Q,K,A. You have to keep a running count, and know that when the deck is positive, it is a “good deck” for the player. This is because of the known way that the dealer has to play, such as always hitting on 16 or less. A positive count means there are a lot of high cards left, relatively. Especially as the deck runs out and there are fewer cards left. Blackjack is usually 6 decks of cards shuffled together. If there are 16 cards left and the count is +16, then all 16 cards are A,K,Q,J,T. When the deck is favorable to the player, now is when you are supposed to increase your bet sizes as your probability of winning has gone way up.

And that’s basically how they won all that money.

Once you master the basics, it really is a simple concept. The hard part was actually paying attention and doing the math as the cards flew by. At the Blackjack demonstration, our table and dealer counted the deck together, but even then it was hard to remember to pay attention and keep track. I think it would take a good bit of practice – you’d need to be able to put some parts of the process on auto-pilot. It’s the same with bridge – there are things Lance and I do at the bridge table that are just automatic – we don’t have to think about them at all because auto-pilot has taken over. Automating some processes allows you to spend your brain processing time on the important decisions.

The MIT team operated this way – they would have a handful of planted players who would count the decks at the various tables while betting the minimum on every hand. When a table was highly positive, that player would signal to Ma, who was the wildcard. He floated from table to table, betting large amounts of money on tables where the players had the advantage, then leaving quickly with his winnings.

The opportunity to beat Blackjack is waning, though, as some casinos now have an “unlimited shoe” where there is basically an infinite number of cards and you simply can’t count that. I guess it is expensive, because it’s not mainstream yet, but i imagine the door is quietly closing.

Pretty fascinating stuff.

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Sep 20 2011

Denver Doings

Category: Uncategorizedpodrey @ 9:03 pm

Lance and i spent last week in Denver. I was there for a work conference, and then we stayed through the weekend. This was our second week “on the road” as we had spent the previous week at the beach. I think we’re both glad to be back home, and Nugent is certainly glad to see us.

The conference, which our company was hosting for our software users, was superb. I had an easy time of it, too – most staff members who attended had some number of jobs, such as manning booths or live-blogging or holding up time cards for the presenters. My only job was to attend talks and talk to people, make them feel comfortable, and if possible find out how they are using our software and what we can do to help them do their jobs better.

The keynote speakers were amazing – someone called them “Nerd Celebrities,” and they really were. The first keynote was probably the person the attendees most wanted to hear from – our fearless leader John Sall. The second speaker was Jeff Ma. If you don’t recognize that name, then you might recognize the book that was written about him, Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich. Or, the movie that was created from that book, 21, with Kevin Spacey. He was part of an MIT Blackjack team that won many millions of dollars by counting cards at Vegas Blackjack tables. He was amazing. His new book, The House Advantage, is targeted toward the business world. One of the great things about this conference – they not only engaged him to give a keynote, but also to give a Blackjack demonstration one evening. He basically taught a whole bunch of software geeks, engineers and scientists how to count cards. Oh my, what has he unleashed should we all go to Vegas?

David Salsburg was another Nerd Celebrity. He wrote a book called The Lady Tasting Tea.  I read it this summer. It is a history of statistics. Sound dry? Well, it wasn’t your everyday page-turner, but to a mathematical person, there are lots of interesting stories and politics involved in the development of statistical methods.

Jonah Lehrer was the final keynote speaker on Friday. He wrote How We Decide, and is probably the most well-known of all the authors. Lance and I have both read his book, which is fascinating. His talk focused around the subject material of the book, which studies how our brains work, how we make decisions. He talked about things like moments of insight, gut instincts, and having a name or word on the tip of your tongue. He was a great speaker.

Lance spent the first two days of my conference in Denver essentially alone in the hotel room playing MegaMan. I was busy with conference activities and didn’t have a whole lot of time to spend with him. However, that changed beginning Thursday night, and we spent the next three days doing all sorts of interesting things in and around Denver.

Denver itself was pretty amazing. First of all, it was absolutely beautiful! You’ll be walking along downtown and turn down a side street, and off in the not-so-distant-distance are these friggin’ gorgeous mountains! The 16th Street Mall was pretty cool, too. It is just a street like all the other streets, but it is home to lots of shops and restaurants, and the only traffic allowed is the free shuttles, which go up and down 16th Street all day long. You get on, you get off, no tickets, no nothing. How nice is that?

Baseball – Thursday night, the conference crowd was planning to go to the Rockies game. I said “See ya!” to them, gave my ticket up to a customer on the wait list, and Lance and I went to the game with the regular people. It is a pretty neat ballpark. Six rows from the very top, there is a row of seats that is painted purple (see Lance below, with purple seats in background). That row represents the point that is exactly 5,280 feet high. Of course we went up there and experienced it. I’ll tell ya, those seats were HIGH and STEEP. We both got a little dizzy looking down. The Rockies lost to the Giants, 5-8.

Dog Agility and Georgeann – Friday, the conference ended at noon. For me, it ended a bit earlier, as I skipped the final bit in order to get ready for our afternoon. For $39 we were able to rent a car with unlimited mileage. We drove 30 minutes south to a town called Castle Rock where my cousin Georgeann was competing with one of her dogs in an agility competition. What a neat thing. There were jumps and teeters and tunnels. I’ll have to write another whole post on the thing. Afterwards, we followed Georgeann back to her house, another 40 minutes south to Colorado Springs. We talked and drank gin & tonic (my first, yum), then went out to this amazing restaurant. I wish I remembered the name. They made their own guacamole, and they did it table-side. I have never cared for guac myself, but this stuff was delicious. One of my first tasks when I get home will be to buy the ingredients and experiment. I could be a real hit if I bring this stuff to dinner parties.

Snooze – Breakfast was at Snooze, which I had heard recommended from multiple people throughout the week. We were two blocks away when we saw a crowd of people hanging out on the street. “What are the odds that crowd of people is waiting outside our restaurant?” Sure enough, they were. It was about 10 am on a Saturday, so of course a popular breakfast house was packed. We were told the wait would be 75 minutes, but luckily it was only about 30, as many people were bailing without telling them. The hostess would call a party’s name, and they would no-show, this happened for about half the names called. The food was SO GOOD. Well worth the wait, even if we had waited the full 75 minutes. Very unique dishes, and very very tasty.

Ballpark Tour – Our “thing” that we’ve been trying to do in any big city that has a baseball team, is take the ballpark tours. We can’t always go to a game, because of course sometimes we travel in off-season months. But we CAN usually get a tour; it seems all of the ballparks have tours available year-round. I find them very interesting, as there is usually lots of history. The Coors Field tour was a little disappointing compared to some of the others. Only four baseball trivia questions for the whole 90-minute tour (Lance went 4-0 on those, by the way). The tour was a female, and i hate to say it, but the women just don’t seem to give the most interesting tours. The best ones are the geezer men. We do enjoy getting down on the field and sitting in the dugouts, though.

OSU Alumni Club – There are Ohio State Alumni Clubs everywhere! We wanted to find one so we could watch Ohio State play Miami, Fl. In fact, there are two alumni clubs in Denver. The first one we tried to go to was so packed we could hardly get in the door, but three blocks away was another one, Maloney’s, which was also dedicated to the Ohio State game. It was a good venue, despite having to watch OSU lose. It turned into a dance club after the game, which was fun for a little while.

The Unsinkable Molly Brown – Margaret Brown (apparently no one called her Molly until Broadway and Hollywood got ahold of her story) and her husband bought very nice home in Denver around 1900 after he struck copper, gold and silver in the mountains after the silver crash and everyone else had left. The house they bought had all the cutting edge technology of the time, such as electricity and running water. Molly Brown is well-known as one of the survivors of the Titanic. The house tour was interesting to me, although I think Lance didn’t care that much.

All in all, a great time. As i said, we’re definitely glad to be home though, getting back into our usual routines.

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Sep 10 2011

Is It Tuesday?

Category: Uncategorizedpodrey @ 2:39 pm

This post was written on Tuesday September 6, and apparently i forgot to press ‘Publish’. Rather than skip it, i have decided to post it late.

Pardon me for forgetting the Somethings this week. I seem to have forgotten what day it is. The beach will do that to you.

Gloating? Why no, i’m not gloating. If i were, i would tell you that as i write this i’m sitting outside with a bottle of beer on the deck of this beautiful beach house.  The deck faces the ocean, which you can see glimpses of about a quarter-mile away, and you can hear the crashing of the waves. We have a constant ocean breeze. The deck, facing East, gets the afternoon shade and is a lovely place to sit and read, or write blog posts. The sky is a Carolina blue with puffy white clouds, and i am wonderfully relaxed. (OK maybe i’m gloating a little.)

The beach has been lovely. The ocean waves near high tide did knock me to my rump and roll me in the sand earlier today, so that i had sand and tiny shells everywhere. I think next time we shall try to go nearer to low tide. Despite that, it’s been wonderful. Beautiful weather so far, though i think we’re due for a little rain in the next few days. No matter.

I couldn’t help checking work email once today, but i only replied to one email to folks in China who already have to wait a day to get any response from us; i figured i wouldn’t make them wait a whole week.

I’ve read two books already and part of a third one. A Great and Terrible Beauty for book club was pretty quick, but i couldn’t wait for it to be over. It was no Hunger Games. Little Bee by Chris Cleave was very good, but sad. I’m halfway through Rudy Guliani’s Leadership. It’s interesting, but today i’m switching back to my Dance with Dragons reread. I need something a little more fun.

We have three dogs with us this year. They have been a source of endless amusement. Zoe is a mini-dachschund, and loves all people. She will crawl into anyone’s lap. Nugent tried to play with her before Yoshi got here, but she is more interested in people than dogs. Now that Yoshi is here, it’s a Nugent-Yoshi humpfest as they try to assert dominance over one another.

It might be time for another nap.

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Feb 11 2011

Skiing – Wintergreen 2011

Category: Uncategorizedpodrey @ 6:38 pm

Every year my work organizes a one-day trip to Wintergreen, VA.  It’s a pretty good deal.  $92 gets you a bus ride there and back, lift ticket, ski/snowboard rental and a beginner lesson if you need it.

I’ve been snow-skiing since i was about 10 years old.  Since i am old, i can also say this another way: i have been snow-skiing for more than 20 years.  Yes, that makes me sound old, doesn’t it?

I love skiing.  Yes, it’s expensive.  Yes, you have to deal with freezing hands and feet sometimes if you get snow in your gloves or boots.  Yes, there are a lot of clothes and other accessories required in order to stay warm and comfortable.

But to me, it’s worth it.  Being outside.  Feeling the wind on your face.  The exhilaration of going just a little too fast down a steep section.  The way your heart leaps a little bit.  Eyes watering just a little bit because of the cold.  Standing on top of the mountain and looking out over the world and how beautiful it is.  Sitting on the chairlift with a friend, or meeting new people on the lift and hearing their stories.  Hot chocolate in the lodge.  The way food tastes better than it ever did before.

Yes, i love it.  I wish i had time to do it more, but in recent years it seems i can’t find time to do everything i want to do.  Work always gets in the way.  And bridge vacations tend to take precedence because Lance and i both love bridge and we would prefer to take vacations together.  He tried skiing once, but i don’t think it’s high on his list.

But, i should be able to take this one day each year and enjoy skiing.  It’s easy and compact as trips go, and really requires minimal preparation on my part.  This year, my friend Tonia accompanied me, and at the end of the day i think we both had pretty good days.

The bus leaves at a horrible 4:30 in the morning, which means we had to get up at 3:30 am.  I can hardly type that without yawning.  Despite getting to the bus just after 4:15 as suggested, we were some of the last skiers to arrive and didn’t get to sit together on the way there.  The bus was more crowded than it has been in the past when i’ve taken this trip.  No matter, really, as we were both just trying to sleep anyway.  Neither of us had much success.

The skiing at Wintergreen this year was really quite excellent.  The entire mountain was open (see map above), and i skied absolutely all of it.  We got there right as they opened, and got our skies.  I left Tonia at the lesson area (it has been a few years since she skied and she wanted a refresher lesson), and went to ski the right side of the mountain for an hour.  Most of the black slopes were over there.  [Green=easy, Blue=intermediate, Black=hard]  It was awesome.  Though the slopes were not particularly hard, just steep.  No lift lines anywhere, very little traffic on the slopes.

I found Tonia after her lesson and we went up and down the greens a few times.  Then we broke for lunch.  We had packed sandwiches, chips & veggies so we didn’t have to buy $8 hamburgers.  I think it worked out pretty well.  After lunch we treated ourselves to hot chocolate.  Is there anything more perfect than hot chocolate?

I was worried that i wouldn’t be able to get Tonia to leave the lodge after we had gotten all warm, but she was a sport and suited back up.  After another hour skiing together, i left her to go try the left side of the mountain, which was primarily blue slopes, with a couple of blacks.  It was there that i found my favorite run of the day, called Big Acorn.  It was steep, and fast, and challenging without being too hard that i couldn’t do ait.

After an hour of that i was ready to quit.  I found Tonia and we went about changing into our bus clothes.  We had quit early, so we were the first ones back to the bus, and we made sure we got to sit together on the way back.  Right outside the bus, we noticed a building with some odd-looking signs.

Now, maybe it’s politically incorrect to say so, but i found this sign to be incredibly funny.  Notice the little woman only has one leg.  The companion man’s bathroom sign (not pictured) also only has one leg.  It turns out that Wintergreen is a big proponent of adaptive sports where they teach people with a disability (such as one leg) to ski or snowboard or do other sports.  Tonia even saw a one-legged skier, though i didn’t.  That’s totally awesome, no doubt, and i’m impressed that this resource is available.  If i only had one leg, i wouldn’t have even thought i could still ski, so this certainly opens up opportunities for fun and enjoyment.  I still think the sign is amusing.

Finally, on the way home.  The road home seemed a lot longer.  In part that may be because we were forced to watch Pirates of the Caribbean, of which i am not a fan.  A couple Christmases ago i took my cousins to the movies and we watched PotC II (Dead Man’s Chest).  The one on the bus was the first one (Curse of the Black Pearl), and i swear it was the same exact movie.  A few scenes were definitely missing or different, so i know it was different.  But it was the same movie.

We got back to Raleigh at 9:30, where i immediately drove home as fast as i could so i could collapse in bed.  It was a good day.

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Sep 06 2010

Things I Forgot

Category: Uncategorizedpodrey @ 4:10 pm

We’ve been at the beach for 18 hours now, and are now and then discovering the things we have forgotten, or just never knew we needed.  It’s pretty amazing just how much STUFF 11 people need to live (in comfort) for a week.  Here are the things that i personally forgot to pack.

Q-tips: I have about a 60% remembrance rate on these things.  I’m fairly miserable without them – something about dirty ears is just very distracting.  I think we’ll go to the grocery store again in a day or two, and i can get a small box.

Hand towel: Not a huge deal – other people have brought them.  But i remember thinking last year that i should bring a couple of extra hand towels to put in various bathrooms.

Dog bed: We don’t really *need* this by any means, but Nugent does love his dog bed.  We packed everything else we use, why not the dog bed?

iPod Touch USB cable & headphones: I planned to teach myself how to download apps and sync to my computer and download movies, etc.  I think i’ll be OK, because someone else here brought a Touch, so perhaps i can borrow the USB cable at least.

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Jul 26 2010

Second

Category: Uncategorizedpodrey @ 3:42 pm

We finished second overall in the GNT Flight A yesterday.  We started off with a very unlucky set in the first quarter, and found ourselves trailing 28 IMPs.  And unfortunately we just never really recovered.

What a wild ride.  For those of you who are not bridge players, it is hard to explain my fascination with this game and what draws me to it.  But this week was one of the most fun and simultaneously most focused in my bridge career.  It will always be one of the high points.

We have two more days here.  We may play a session or two of bridge, but i think we are planning to take it easy and probably go to the zoo and the insectarium tomorrow.   Then Wednesday we have an early flight back to Raleigh.

It will be nice to be home.  We had another false fire alarm last night around 2 am.  We were still up partying with our teammates in our room, however, so at least this time we weren’t startled from slumber.  So i’d like to get back home where we aren’t sent into the streets at all hours.  And, this city smells rather bad.  I have fallen in love with other cities we’ve visited for bridge tournaments (San Diego, San Francisco).  This one is not on my list of Places I Wouldn’t Mind Living In.

So, life returns to normal in a few days.  And that will be a good thing.

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Jul 25 2010

Fire

Category: Uncategorizedpodrey @ 1:14 pm

It’s been a long four days here in New Orleans.  We have played a lot of intense bridge, gotten up relatively early to do sightseeing in the mornings, stayed up late with friends…  There just hasn’t been enough time to do all that AND get enough sleep.  So at the end of the fourth day, we were pretty beat.  We skipped the midnight celebration this time and went back to the room.  Didn’t go to bed right away; Lance and i had our own post-mortem discussion about hands.  But we were looking forward to a long night’s sleep and went to bed around 1 am.

At 6 am, however, we were interrupted by a loud buzzing sound.  We picked up our heads, a bit dazed, looking around.  “What’s that?”  When it didn’t go away, we jumped out of bed, realizing it was the fire alarm.  It hadn’t immediately registered, b/c the alarm was frankly a very pathetic, not-urgent-sounding buzzing.  But that’s the only thing it could be.

So we threw our clothes on and i learned what i would take with me in an emergency – i grabbed my phone and my purse.  Not very original, but i was very intent on those two things as we were rushing around trying to get out before we burned up.

We ran to the stairs with a few other people and quickly went down this small concrete stairwell.  Very hot and claustrophobic, with about a dozen people in our cluster that was racing down the stairs.  I had a very panic-filled descent, as my thoughts quickly went to another emergency where people were racing down stairs, eight and a half years ago, and they were trapped.

About halfway down, the alarm stopped.  One of the women in our group said “i think i can smell smoke, i still want to go down.”  No one was slowing or arguing.

Of course it was a false alarm.  As we wandered back into the hotel and past the front desk, i heard the hotel staff on the phones with guests who had called down wondering if it was a real fire.  And i thought to myself, perhaps unfairly, that those must be the stupid people.  But i mean, really.  Is it really worth your life not to get out of bed because it would be inconvenient if it was a false alarm?

Went back upstairs, got a few more hours sleep.  It should be enough to get us through the day.

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Jul 25 2010

Finals

Category: Uncategorizedpodrey @ 12:59 pm

Yesterday’s scores:

Quarter 1: 42-35
Quarter 2: 44-23
Quarter 3: 40-30
Quarter 4: 56-29

The match was never really close.  At halftime, we were up 28.  I was talking to Nathan about it, and to help understand the scoring, we converted the scores to basketball scores.  We figure being up 28 at halftime is roughly equivalent to being up 10 at halftime in a basketball game.  A nice advantage, but there’s nothing saying the other team can’t make a run and come back.  However, as you can see, we held them off.

Yay!

Playing behind screens was so friggin’ awesome.  I was behind a partition with one of the opponents from the other team.  During the bidding, I couldn’t see Lance or the other opponent at all.  Bidding was conducted using a regular bidding box, but you put the bids on a tray that slid underneath a small opening in the partition.  Once the bidding was over, a small door opens up so you can see the dummy and the cards during the play.  All bids are explained in written form, so it was pretty silent.  It was all so much more serious-seeming.  But the opponent on my side tried to lighten things up a bit by making a few written jokes, too.  It was pretty fun.  A good birthday.

Today we play a team from Philadelphia for the win.  56 more hands of bridge.  That’s 56 auctions to get right, and at least 1,000 cardplay decisions.  Here’s hoping we can get them right.

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Jul 24 2010

And Then There Were Four

Category: Uncategorizedpodrey @ 3:31 am

Today was the round of eight, and we played a good team from California. Here were the scores, in terms of IMPs:

Quarter 1: 35-24
Quarter 2: 44-13
Quarter 3: 43-28
Quarter 4: 49-77

As you can see, going into the 4th quarter, we had a pretty large advantage.  In the last set, the IMPs were just flying.  In fact we nearly lost.  The pair we played bid a grand slam on a finesse.  Fortunately for us, the finesse lost.  We gained 17 IMPs on that board.  If the finesse had won, we would have lost 13.  That’s a 30 IMP swing.   Our total margin was only 28.  So despite our 57-IMP advantage after three quarters, we could have lost it.  It was a wild last set.

The coolest part is that tomorrow, in the final four, we get to play with screens.  I have never played with screens!  I am so friggin excited about that!  Screens are generally only used in the finals of the big events.  I am definitely bringing my camera – i’ll try post a picture of us using screens in a few days.

My birthday wish (my birthday is “today” – Saturday), was to still be in this event on my birthday.  I have everything i want – playing good bridge, playing with my favorite partner, in a fun city (even if it is a bit smelly in places).

Life is good.

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Jul 22 2010

On to Day 3

Category: Uncategorizedpodrey @ 11:59 pm

OK we have been in New Orleans for two full days.  In the first day, the Flight A GNT (the event we qualified for 6 weeks ago), we played a Swiss event in order to reduce a field of 23 teams down to 16.  The Swiss involved playing 8 matches (7 hands each) against 8 other teams.  We finished 5th of 23 when all was said and done.

It would have been nice to finish in the top four, because then you get to pick your opponents for the second day.  But we had a couple of rough matches so only finished 5th.  So we got a random draw for the second day.

The second day was the round of 16, and plays out essentially like the NCAA tournament.  From here on out, half the teams will get eliminated each day.

Today we played our randomly selected team for a grueling 56 hands.  We compared after every 14 hands.  At the first quarter break, we were up 5 IMPs.  A very small advantage.  Our second quarter was a bad set (-14) so we were down 9.  Still small, but now they had the advantage.  After dinner, in the 3rd quarter, we gained 12 back and had an even milder advantage of only +3.  But finally in the 4th quarter we won decisively with +36 and won the match.

Very exciting!  Now we’re on to the round of 8.  We’re playing a tough team, but we are not pessimistic.

New Orleans has been fun so far.  We’ve eaten at a few good places, getting the “taste of New Orleans” wherever possible.  We’re taking the mornings off to do some sight-seeing.  Tomorrow morning, for example, we’re hitting the aquarium.

Booze is prevalent here.  Liquor is sold in every corner store, which is odd to see since we come from a state that still won’t sell you beer at certain times on Sundays.

Looking forward to another win tomorrow and perhaps some pictures if i can find time to post.

Wish us luck!

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