Category:Games
The math behind running it twice and maximizing PokerStars’ Card Match EV
Expected value of “Running it Twice”
First, let’s settle that running it twice (or any number of times) has the same expectation as running it once.
It is intuitive to deduce that the probability of the second run winning is equal to the first run. Simply recognize that the second run out doesn’t actually depend on the first (pret… Read more
3 ways of increasing your chances of winning in Lotto 6/49 and Lotto Max
If you didn’t know already, the lottery is one of the worst ways to gamble. Lotto 6/49 and Lotto Max generally return less than 55 cents per dollar you put in over the long run.
Check out the EV calculator to compute an estimated expectation for any given jackpot.
If you must play, then there are ways to maximize your expected value. These tips revolve … Read more
Is PokerStars “The Deal” a zero-sum game?
In reality, the short answer to this question is no, “The Deal” is not a z… Read more
Does PokerStars manually control when the Big Deal jackpot is won?
(Update: the jackpot as of 12:30 GMT Friday, January 27 is now over $470,000. Given that there now have been roughly 21.8 million losing entries, if the odds of the hitting the jackpot are truly 1 in 5,197,920, meaning that the jackpot wheel is fair, neither predetermined or unevenly weighted, we should have expected the jackpot to be hit 4 times by now. S… Read more
The expected value of playing The Deal at PokerStars
“The Deal” is a recently released promotion from PokerStars that allows … Read more
List of MSN Gaming Zone Backgammon Cheaters
[Update: MSN has removed Backgammon from its games. Probably because of the rampant cheating. For a more fair place to play Backgammon that minimizes the chance of cheating (particularly because of the availability of instant replays) try https://www.gameslush.com/backgammon]
Figured I’d compile this list after seeing several cheaters that … Read more
An efficient but effective artificial intelligence for Big 2
(tl;dr: You can play against an AI computer user I designed for an online Big 2 game here. The bots are capable of calulcating the expectation for its score for every possible line of play very quickly, resulting in a rather worthy opponent for even the most seasoned Big 2 players).
The dynamics in Big 2 make programming AI for it an interesting problem. The … Read more