That Cash Just Looks So Sweet

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Last time in my preamble, I shared that @NateMeyvis of the Thinking Poker Podcast has been offering free copies of his ebook on tournament poker strategy if you send him a copy of your receipt for a >$5 donation to a Houston and/or Irma-related charity.

He just tweeted that the offer is now being extended to Puerto Rico charities as well. Nate has asked for receipts to be sent to the following email address: backing at fastmail dot fm; if you've donated, send a copy of your receipt there to get a copy of his book in return.

Onto the post...

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Thanks mostly to @RichTRyan, formerly of the PokerNews Podcast, the phrase in the title of this post is something that I've heard spoken by Phil Ivey many times: Rich Ryan would drop the sound bite containing Ivey saying this whenever it might even remotely pertain to whatever was being discussed (or even sometimes when it didn't).

Tactile Simulation of a 2006 WSOP Final Table Hand

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Although it's been a few weeks since Harvey hit, and over a week since Irma hit, I recently caught wind that one of the hosts of a podcast that I listen to (@NateMeyvis of the Thinking Poker Podcast) has been offering free copies of his ebook on tournament poker strategy if you send him a copy of your receipt for a >$5 donation to a Houston and/or Irma-related charity.

Lish and I have been thinking that Houston and Florida are both probably going to need money for some time to come still, so I figured I would help spread the word despite it having been a bit since the disasters. Nate has asked for receipts to be sent to the following email address: backing at fastmail dot fm; if you've donated, send a copy of your receipt there to get a copy of his book in return.

Now, onto the post!

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Let's go back to the beginning for a minute: the very first page of the textbook we've been using opens with the following...

Rule of Two, Rule of Four, and the Professor Makes a Mistake, or Three...

A couple of well-known shortcuts for estimating probabilities of coming from behind are the Rule of Two and the Rule of Four, which are as follows:

Problem Gambling and Dan Bilzerian (two unrelated topics!) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Last week, we spent some time in class talking about problem gambling. I wanted to make sure to give a careful treatment of this in the event that any of my students really do get into poker (or other forms of gambling) as a result of how much we're playing in this class, and tell them some things I wish I knew when I got started. The author of our textbook told me that he also does this.

The first thing that surprised me was how difficult it was to find good resources to help me discuss the topic. For example, the first google hit brought me here. Right out the gates, this webpage says, "The odds are never in your favor whether it is poker, blackjack, or anything else..."