The Perfect Bet
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162“Large changes tend to be followed”: Mandelbrot, Benoit. “The Variation of Certain Speculative Prices.” Journal of Business 36, no. 4 (1963): 394–419. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2350970.
163“You have a very strong program”: Billings, D., N. Burch, A. Davidson, R. Holte, J. Schaeffer, T. Schauenberg, and D. Szafro. “Approximating Game-Theoretic Optimal Strategies for Full-Scale Poker.” IJCAI (2003): 661–668. http://ijcai.org/Past%20Proceedings/IJCAI-2003/PDF/097.pdf.
CHAPTER 7
165Thanks to their ability to dissect: Background on Watson comes from: Rashid, Fahmida. “IBM’s Watson Ties for Lead on Jeopardy but Makes Some Doozies.” EWeek, February 14, 2011. http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/IBMs-Watson-Ties-for-Lead-on-Jeopardy-but-Makes-Some-Doozies-237890; and Best, Jo. “IBM Watson: How the Jeopardy-Winning Supercomputer Was Born, and What It Wants to Do Next.” TechRepublic. http://www.techrepublic.com/article/ibm-watson-the-inside-story-of-how-the-jeopardy-winning-supercomputer-was-born-and-what-it-wants-to-do-next/.
166IBM collected some of the results: Basulto, Dominic. “How IBM Watson Helped Me to Create a Tastier Burrito Than Chipotle.” Washington Post, April 15, 2015. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2015/04/15/how-ibm-watson-helped-me-to-create-a-tastier-burrito-than-chipotle/.
167“Let’s try poker”: Wise, Gary. “Representing Mankind.” ESPN Poker Club, August 6, 2007. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/poker/columns/story?columnist=wise_gary&id=2959684.
167Finally, there is Eric Jackson: Details and quotes from author interviews with Michael Johanson and Neil Burch, April 2014, and Tuomas Sandholm, December 2013. Additional specifics from competition online results (http://www.computerpokercompetition.org).
168“Poker is a perfect microcosm”: Author interview with Jonathan Schaeffer, July 2013.
169“a bath of refreshing foolishness”: Ulam, S. M. Adventures of a Mathematician (Oakland: University of California Press, 1991).
169young British mathematician by the name of Alan Turing: Hodges, Andrew. Alan Turing: The Enigma (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983).
169“I rather liked it at first”: Turing background given in: Copeland, B. J. The Essential Turing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
170manuscript entitled “The Game of Poker”: The game of poker. File AMT/C/18. The Papers of Alan Mathison Turing. The UK National Archives.
170He also wondered how games: Details of the imitation game given in: Turing, A. M. “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” Mind 59 (1950): 433–460.
171When it played chess against Garry Kasparov: Kasparov, Garry. “The Chess Master and the Computer.” New York Review of Books, February 11, 2010. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/feb/11/the-chess-master-and-the-computer/.
172In 2013, journalist Michael Kaplan: Details of Vegas bot given in: Kaplan, Michael. “The Steely, Headless King of Texas Hold ‘Em.” New York Times Magazine, September 5, 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/magazine/poker-computer.html.
173It would have to read its opponent: Comparison of poker and backgammon in: Dahl, Fredrik. “A Reinforcement Learning Algorithm Applied to Simplified Two-Player Texas Hold’em Poker.” EMCL ‘01 Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Machine Learning (2001): 85–96. doi:10.1007/3–540–44795–4_8.
174Neural networks are not a new idea: McCulloch, Warren S., and Walter H. Pitts. “A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity.” Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics 5 (1943): 115–133. http://www.cse.chalmers.se/~coquand/AUTOMATA/mcp.pdf.
174Facebook announced an AI team: Details of AI team and Deep-Face in: Simonite, Tom. “Facebook Launches Advanced AI Effort to Find Meaning in Your Posts.” MIT Technology Review, September 20, 2013. http://www.technologyreview.com/news/519411/facebook-launches-advanced-ai-effort-to-find-meaning-in-your-posts/; and Simonite, Tom. “Facebook Creates Software That Matches Faces Almost as Well as You Do.” MIT Technology Review, March 17, 2014. http://www.technologyreview.com/news/525586/facebook-creates-software-that-matches-faces-almost-as-well-as-you-do/.
174Facebook users were uploading over 350 million: Smith, Cooper. “Facebook Users Are Uploading 350 Million New Photos Each Day.” Business Insider, September 18, 2013. http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-350-million-photos-each-day-2013–9.
176Rather than grab a vulnerable pawn: Description of move in: Chelminski, Rudy. “This Time It’s Personal.” Wired 9.10 (October 2001). http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/9.10/chess.html.
176Deep Blue’s game-changing show: Fact that the move was random from: Silver, Nate. The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—but Some Don’t (London: Penguin, 2012).
176Some are easier to scare off than others: Bateman, Marcus. “What Does ‘Floating’ Mean?” Betfair Online, July 6, 2010. https://betting.betfair.com/poker/poker-strategy/what-does-floating-mean-060710.html.
177“Most of our group aren’t poker players”: Author interview with Michael Johanson and Neil Burch, April 2014.
178In 2010, an online version of rock-paper-scissors: Dance, Gabriel, and Tom Jackson. “Rock-Paper-Scissors: You vs. the Computer.” New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/science/rock-paper-scissors.html.
178In 2014, Zhijian Wang and colleagues: Wang, Zhijian, Bin Xu, and Hai-Jun Zhou. “Social Cycling and Conditional Responses in the Rock-Paper-Scissors Game.” Scientific Reports 4, no. 5830 (2014). doi:10.1038/srep05830.
179cognitive psychologist George Miller noted: Miller, George A. “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information.” Psychological Review 63 (1956): 81–97.
179Dutch psychologist Willem Wagenaar observed: Bar-Hillel, Maya, and Willem A. Wagenaar. “The Perception of Randomness.” Advances in Applied Mathematics 12, no. 4 (1991): 428–454. doi:10.1016/0196–8858(91)90029-I.
179referred to as the “magical number seven”: Jacobson, Roni. “Seven Isn’t the Magic Number for Short-Term Memory.” New York Times, September 9, 2013.
180the best competitors can memorize: Lai, Angel. “World Records.” http://www.world-memory-statistics.com/disciplines.php.
180memorizing cards also helps in blackjack: Details about memory techniques in: Robb, Stephen. “How a Memory Champ’s Brain Works.” BBC News, April 7, 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7982327.stm.
180“often mused about the nature of memory”: Metropolis, Nick. “The Beginning of the Monte Carlo Method.” Special issue, Los Alamos Science (1987): 125–130. http://jackman.stanford.edu/mcmc/metropolis1.pdf.
181The database came from Shawn Bayern: “Rock-Paper-Scissors: Humans Versus AI.” http://www.essentially.net/rsp.
182“A coalition absorbs at least two players”: Von Neumann, J., and Oskar Morgenstern. Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1944).
182Parisa Mazrooei and colleagues at the University of Alberta: Mazrooei, Parisa, Christopher Archibald, and Michael Bowling. “Automating Collusion Detection in Sequential Games.” Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (2013). https://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~bowling/papers/13aaai-collusion.pdf.
182There are reports of unscrupulous players: Goldberg, Adrian. “Can the World of Online Poker Chase Out the Cheats?” BBC News, September 12, 2010. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11250835.
182“In any form of poker”: Dahl, F. “A Reinforcement Learning Algorithm Applied to Simplified Two-Player Texas Hold’em Poker.” In European Conference on Machine Learning 2001, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 2167, ed. L. De Raedt and P. Flach (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2001).
184tweak your tactics as you learn: Author interview with Tuomas Sandholm, December 2013. Additional details in: Sandholm, T. “Perspectives on Multiagent Learning.” Artificial Intelligence 171 (2007): 382–391.
184Sandholm has been developing “hybrid” bots: Ganzfried, Sam, and Tuomas Sandholm. “Game Theory-Based Opponent Modelin
g in Large Imperfect-Information Games.” Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems 2 (2011): 533–540.
185professional players Phil Laak and Ali Eslami: Details of event in: Wise, “Representing Mankind”; and Harris, Martin. “Laak-Eslami Team Defeats Polaris in Man-Machine Poker Championship.” PokerNews, July 25, 2007. http://www.pokernews.com/news/2007/07/laak-eslami-team-defeats-polaris-man-machine-poker-champions.htm.
186there was a second man-machine competition: Details of event in: Harris, Martin. “Polaris 2.0 Defeats Stoxpoker Team in Man-Machine Poker Championship.” PokerNews, July 10, 2008. http://www.pokernews.com/news/2008/07/man-machine-II-poker-championship-polaris-defeats-stoxpoker-.htm; and Johnson, R. Colin. “AI Beats Human Poker Champions.” EETimes, July 7, 2008. http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1168863.
187Using the regret minimization approach: Author interview with Michael Johanson, April 2014.
188With a nod to the group’s checkers research: Bowling, Michael, Neil Burch, Michael Johanson, and Oskari Tammelin. “Heads-Up Limit Hold’em Poker Is Solved.” Science 347, no. 6218 (2015): 145–149. doi:10.1126/science.1259433.
189“It would attack the mystique”: Author interview with Michael Johanson, April 2014.
190Watson found the short clues the most difficult: Sutton, John D. “Behind-the-Scenes with IBM’s ‘Jeopardy!’ Computer, Watson.” CNN, February 7, 2011. http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/02/07/watson.ibm.jeopardy/.
190people might be especially good at sizing up others: Wright, G. R., C. J. Berry, and G. Bird. “‘You Can’t Kid a Kidder’: Association Between Production and Detection of Deception in an Interactive Deception Task.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 6 (2012): 87. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2012.00087.
191In a 2006 survey spanning fifty-eight countries: Global Deception Research Team. “A World of Lies.” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 37, no. 1 (2006): 60–74. doi:10.1177/0022022105282295.
191There’s no evidence that liars avert their gaze: DePaulo, B. M., J. J. Lindsay, B. E. Malone, L. Muhlenbruck, K. Charlton, and H. Cooper. “Cues to Deception.” Psychological Bulletin 129, no. 1 (2003): 74–118.
191In a 2010 study: Schlicht, E. J., S. Shimojo, C. F. Camerer, P. Battaglia, and K. Nakayama. “Human Wagering Behavior Depends on Opponents’ Faces.” PLoS ONE 5, no. 7 (2010): e11663.
192When Matt Mazur decided to build a poker bot: Author interview with Matt Mazur, August 2014. Additional details from his blog posts (http://www.mattmazur.com).
CHAPTER 8
197Hundreds of cameras cling: Author experience.
197casinos’ definition of such cheating: History of surveillance in: Hicks, Jesse. “Not in My House: How Vegas Casinos Wage a War on Cheating.” The Verge, January 14, 2014. http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/14/3857842/las-vegas-casino-security-versus-cheating-technology.
198Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act: Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, 31 U.S.C. 5361–5366, §5362.
198That included Lawrence DiCristina: Details of DiCristina case from: Weinstein, Jack. Memorandum, Order & Judgment, United States of America against Lawrence DiCristina. 11-CR-414. August 2012. http://jurist.org/paperchase/103482098-U-S-vs-DiCristina-Opinion-08–21–2012.pdf.
200airport operator William McBoyle helped arrange: McBoyle v. U.S. 1930 10CIR 118, 43 F.2d 273.
201The conviction was reversed: Paraphrased from original comment in McBoyle v. U.S. 1930: “When a rule of conduct is laid down in words that evoke in the common mind only the picture of vehicles moving on land, the statute should not be extended to aircraft simply because it may seem to us that a similar policy applies, or upon the speculation that, if the legislature had thought of it, very likely broader words would have been used.”
201Rather, the state law meant: Brennan, John. “U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Take DiCristina Poker Case; Reminder of Challenge Faced by NJ Sports Betting Advocates.” NorthJersey.com, February 24, 2014. http://blog.northjersey.com/meadowlandsmatters/7891/u-s-supreme-court-declines-to-take-dicristina-poker-case-reminder-of-challenge-faced-by-nj-sports-betting-advocates/.
202“There may be such a thing as habitual luck”: Ulam, S. M. Adventures of a Mathematician (Oakland: University of California Press, 1991).
202“Chance favours the prepared mind”: Quoted in: Weiss, R. A. “HIV and the Naked Ape.” In Serendipity: Fortune and the Prepared Mind, ed. M. De Rond and I. Morley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). Originally said during a lecture at University of Lille, 1854.
203Matthew Salganik and colleagues at Columbia University: Salganik, M. J., P. S. Dodds, and D. J. Watts. “Experimental Study of Inequality and Unpredictability in an Artificial Cultural Market.” Science 311 (2006): 854–856.
203“Fame has much less to do . . .”: Dodds, Peter Sheridan. “Homo Narrativus and the Trouble with Fame.” Nautilus, September 5, 2013. http://nautil.us/issue/5/fame/homo-narrativus-and-the-trouble-with-fame.
204“Consider a set of funds with no skill”: Roulston, Mark, and David Hand. “Blinded by Optimism” (working paper, Winton Capital Management, December 2013). https://www.wintoncapital.com/assets/Documents/BlindedbyOptimism.pdf?1398870164.
205hockey analyst Brian King suggested a way: Charron, Cam. “Analytics Mailbag: Save Percentages, PDO, and Repeatability.” TheLeafsNation.com. May 27, 2014. http://theleafsnation.com/2014/5/27/analytics-mailbag-save-percentages-pdo-and-repeatability.
205The statistic, later dubbed PDO: Details on PDO and NHL statistics given in: Weissbock, Joshua, Herna Viktor, and Diana Inkpen. “Use of Performance Metrics to Forecast Success in the National Hockey League” (paper presented at the European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases, Prague, September 23–27, 2013).
205England had the lowest PDO: Burn-Murdoch, John. “Were England the Uunluckiest Team in the World Cup Group Stages?” FT Data Blog. 29 June 2014. http://blogs.ft.com/ftdata/2014/06/29/were-england-the-unluckiest-team-in-the-world-cup-group-stages/.
206Cambridge college spent on wine: “In Vino Veritas, Redux.” The Economist, February 5, 2014. http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/02/correlation-and-causation-0.
207topped the wine list with a spend of £338,559: Simons, John. “Wages Not Wine: Booze Hound Colleges Spend £3 million on Wine.” Tab (Cambridge, England), January 22, 2014. http://thetab.com/uk/cambridge/2014/01/22/booze-hound-colleges-spend-3-million-on-wine-32441.
207Countries that consume lots of chocolate: Messerli, F. H. “Chocolate Consumption, Cognitive Function, and Nobel Laureates.” New England Journal of Medicine 367 (2012): 1562–1564. doi:10.1056/NEJMon1211064.
207When ice cream sales rise in New York City: Peters, Justin. “When Ice Cream Sales Rise, So Do Homicides. Coincidence, or Will Your Next Cone Murder You?” Crime (blog), Slate, July 9, 2013. http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2013/07/09/warm_weather_homicide_rates_when_ice_cream_sales_rise_homicides_rise_coincidence.html.
209When Manchester City won the league: Lewis, Tim. “How Computer Analysts Took Over at Britain’s Top Football Clubs.” The Observer, March 9, 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/mar/09/premier-league-football-clubs-computer-analysts-managers-data-winning.
209Roberto Martinez, manager of Everton soccer club: Ibid.
209When Picasso worked his “Bull” lithographs: Details of bull given in: Lavin, Irving. “Picasso’s Lithograph(s) ‘The Bull(s)’ and the History of Art in Reverse” Art Without History, 75th Annual Meeting, College Art Association of America, February 12–14, 1987.
210Einstein once said of scientific models: Quoted by Sugihara, George. “On Early Warning Signs.” Seed Magazine, May 2013. http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/on_early_warning_signs/.
211“The best material model of a cat”: Widely attributed to Wiener. Quote appears in: Rosenblueth, Arturo, and Norbert Wiener. “The Role of Models in Science.” Philosophy of Science 12, no. 4 (1945): 31
6–321.
211In 1947, Time magazine published: Chapin, R. M. “Communist Contagion.” Time, April 1946. http://claver.gprep.org/fac/sjochs/communist-contagion-map.htm.
211a piece called “Europe from Moscow”: Chapin, R. M. “Europe from Moscow.” Time, March 1952.
212When the pair bet together: Borel, Émile. “A Propos d’Un Traite de Probabilities. Revue Philosophique.” 1924. Quoted in Ellsberg, Daniel. Risk, Ambiguity, and Decision (New York: Garland Publishing, 2001).
213“How to Gamble If You Must”: Details of the course in: Bernstein, J. Physicists on Wall Street and Other Essays on Science and Society (New York: Springer, 2008).
213The MIT students therefore worked: Details of the strategy given in: Mezrich, Ben. Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003).
214They later discovered the janitor: Locker story given in: Ball, Janet. “How a Team of Students Beat the Casinos.” BBC News Magazine, May 26, 2014. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27519748.
214“I know very few people”: Author interview with Richard Munchkin, August 2013.
214In 2012, PhD student Will Ma: Details and quotes from author interview with Will Ma, September 2014.
215Courses teaching the science of gambling: The York University course was Bethune 1800: Mathematics of Gambling, taught in 2009–10, and the Emory course was MATH 190–000: Freshman Seminar: Math: Sports, Games & Gambling, taught in Fall 2012. Further details: http://garsia.math.yorku.ca/~zabrocki/bethune1800fw0910/and http://college.emory.
216“That way of thinking about the world”: Author interview with Ruth Bolton, February 2013.
217“It is remarkable that a science”: Quoted widely, but originally given in: Laplace, P. S. Théorie Analytique des Probabilitiés (Paris: Courcier, 1812).
218“It wasn’t as though streetwise Las Vegas gamblers”: Author interview with Bill Benter, July 2013.
INDEX
ability measurement, 76–77, 106, 205
abstraction, 151, 209–212