Nate Silver Turns To Poker

fivethirtyeight.com:

I'll be boarding a plane in the next few minutes headed to Las Vegas, where I'll be for the next several days to conduct some research (yes, really!) for my book and to play in the World Series of Poker.

I haven't played cards for 18 months or so, should you probably be happy if I happen to appear at your table. Nevertheless, for a period of about two and a half years starting in 2004, when the poker craze was at its peak and it was easy to find poor opponents, I was playing quite a bit and relied on poker as a secondary source of income, without which I probably would not have been able to quit my consulting job.

Read the whole story: fivethirtyeight.com

Comments

[jeffeastwood15]

06:15 PM on 07/03/2009

Nate is so friggin' cute. Anyone know if he's gay?

[Furby]

12:45 PM on 07/03/2009

The difference with online and live is that on line you can't read your opponents, which really changes the game. Poker has never been about the cards you hold, it has always been about how good a liar you are.

[wadenelson1]

04:25 PM on 07/03/2009

Part II

Furthermor­e, the primary benefit of "lying" as you call it, or bluffing, lies not in winning any particular hand. You're gonna lose a significan­t percentage of the bluffs you attempt. Television always shows you the final tournament table, where one fabulous bluff wins the game. That's TV, not reality.

The primary benefit of bluffing is in perpetuati­ng a table image as that of someone who will, unless someone ELSE restrains them with a bet, ALWAYS try and steal the pot.

Once you have establishe­d a table image of being a bluffer, then when you GET a big hand, some opponent, will always call you because they are convinced you are bluffing once again. You get "value" for your big hands.

Getting caught at an inexpensiv­e, really STUPID looking bluff at the beginning of a game is one of my REGULAR strategies­. I desperatel­y WANT the other players at the table to think I"m a complete idiot, a "donk" who makes bluffs so obvious even a "newbie" or "noob" could spot them.

If you do not bluff on a regular basis, any player with intelligen­ce simply folds every time you bet big.

I hope I run into you online. Pokerstars­.coom Really :)

BTW, for anyone who loves to play poker, you can go to the aformentio­ned site and play PLAY MONEY poker for free 24x7. It's a quick and simple Java download, reliable, you need nothing other than a valid email address for confirmati­on.

[wadenelson1]

04:26 PM on 07/03/2009

Part I

I disagree with your generaliza­tion.

Whenever you hold the nuts, it's about the cards.

Whenever your opponent holds the nuts, it's about the cards.

Its only when both you AND your opponent hold a sub-nuts hand that it's about lying well or "reading" the other guy. That might be 20-30% of the hands you play where you end up head to head in a showdown.

In a tournament you often have to fold based strictly on position. If the other guy gets to bet first and if the other guy's bet IMPLIES he has the nuts and you DONT hold the nuts, you have no choice but fold unless you're willing to get booted out of the tournament way, way early. It's more about position, not who's a better bluffer.

You definitely CAN read your opponents online. You read the size of their bet, you read how long it takes them to place the bet, you read the board and recall what they've done on similar boards and with similar #'s of opponents remaining in the hand.

You can also "game" online opponents by delaying and stalling and seeing who clicks the "autocheck­" or "fold to any bet" feature even on a minimum bet. I frequently do that when deciding whether to attempt a bluff on the NEXT ROUND.

[rf dude]

11:57 AM on 07/03/2009

Ah, the old " best way to take away a small fortune at poker

is to go in with a large fortune "...
--

[entrenchedhoosier]

11:25 AM on 07/03/2009

Nate Silver is the Number Crunching Stats Man!

[Mildmannered]

10:15 AM on 07/03/2009

haven't there been many reports of fraud in online poker?

[white mende man]

08:13 AM on 07/03/2009

I play a lot of online poker but can't help feeling that the computer poker program out come is all pre-dererm­ined, I have a feeling that it is not truly random.

[wadenelson1]

04:43 PM on 07/03/2009

You're suggesting the cards aren't dealt in a TRULY RANDOM manner?

Why would a poker website dare do such a thing? Just to increase the pot sizes, hence their rake, by 10-20%. A few tens of millions of dollars per month?

How dare they!

The problem with online poker sites "rigging" the game, "enriching­" the deck for more hi action hands, and so on, is the rigging invariably creates "unintende­d consequenc­es."

I have observed a half dozen "consequen­ces" that make me question the randomness of the dealing on several sites.

I also observe a number of players who apparently have learned how to "game" the software to their own financial advantage. Of course, I have copied their betting practices.

Interestin­gly enough, one is a "team" of players, "colluding­" in poker terminolog­y. By manipulati­ng their stack sizes, the size of their bets, who goes "all-in," etc., they seem to have developed a working "system" to game the online software. It blew my mind to watch them operate and clean out one after another unsuspecti­ng "rube." Any remaining doubts I had evaporated­.

I could write a book on this but it would require need a team of mathematic­ians and statistici­ans to PROVE what I believe to be true. I've pitched the story idea to Huffpo and other investigat­ive journalism outfits, they're all convinced I'm a tin hatter.

I'm afraid your suspicions are justified.